A depressing story about my LIFE with SHENMUE...

[Realillusion]

Ok, ya know how people spread the gospel about god? Well I try to spread Shenmue around to my friends and as many people as I know, sorta like that. And no matter how hard I try, they either wanna turn it off, turn it off for me, or just get up outta knowhere and turn it off sayin," Oh its boring! LEts play GTA!"

I mean dont ya know what im goin' through, before i started showing Shenmue to my friends, knowone, and I MEAN KNOWONE knew about this game except me and my bro!(and even my bro stopped playin it!) So I decided to go out one day and try to spread this game around( cause I liked it so much) and show people. They just blew it in my face, some said it was interesting but thats it, then they wanted to play another game. I let me cousins borrow the second one and they give up like halfway through and give it back to me, thats happened to my three times! I mean, this has gotta be the most UN-POPULAR GOOD GAME ever made!
KNOWONE KNOWS ABOUT THIS GAME!!! SERIOUSLY!! Unless i show it to my friends, they'll never know about it!

Are you guys in the same hole!?!?

But luckily, I have ONE friend that has gotten interested in the series and bought the second SHENMUE! out of like 20 people maybe even more, ive showed the game too!

DO any of you feel the same way? Then ya watch like G4 and your dying for them ta' talk about Shenmue and the rarely do! Maybe every 50 episodes or somethin!

Tell me whatchal think!?!?! PLEASE!

[jinsaotomex3]

eh yeah I only have 1 friend that likes shenmue the rest wanna play it but never do.

[Tama-san]

I think most people out there are not true gamers, they are followers of popular titles. It's especially tough to win their attention because it deals with Asian cultures which are too distant for them to reach.

You can't expect anyone to like what you like. Everybody is a unique individual, but it seems to me the majority of today's "gamers" has no brain to distinguish what's good and what's not good. Let them screw up. The main concern is: don't let them bother your enjoyment of Shenmue. If they volunteer to miss a good game, too bad.

[Realillusion]

Thanks Tama

[Lan Di-sama]

I'm working on getting a few of my friends to like it. My 3 targets all have xbox, one of them, the most familar with the game, seen me play it and stuff, says its stupid, gay, blah blah blah, but he says he's going to get it eventually anyway. Soon perhaps, I think the I'ts stupid is just a cover up. Hopefully he gets it soon.

My other friend just got an xbox, and he doesn't buy stuff that much, but I keep on telling him to go to the store to get it. One day he will, but when, I dunno.

And the other one I don't worry about yet. If I can get the first person to get it, getting him to get it shouldn't be to hard.

[PILMAN]

I brought all my games and xbox to a friends house, and he looked through the games, through all of them aside except the popular ones, then looked at shenmue for like half a second threw it down. Then after we finished playing halo I said "wanna try shenmue II?" he said "fine but I'd rather play halo". HE'd never heard of the game! Ok so I put it in, and he's like "WTF that's horrible water and texturing" when you first start off, he was laughing at the people you talk to saying the game was so stupid and blocky, I was really mad and he quickly took the game out and said it was crap, I hate people like that don't even give it a try.... at school I asked if people played shenmue they said "Oh that peice of crap game, theres no fighting in it even". Man I wish I lived back in my old state, at least I had a friend who liked it back in chicago, thats how I heard of shenmue, friend of mine was telling me about it and I was really interested at the time.

[Realillusion]

OMG! You and me both! I was playin the first Shenmue with my friend and when he first saw the Black Car at the beggining hes all like," Dude man! That cars all blocky and crap!" And im like," The game was made in 1999! ya jackass!" People get on my nerves man! At least I have ONE friend that likes Shenmue!

[PILMAN]

At least you guys have friends to talk about it with, all I get to do is think about it, it'd be nice to have someone else to talk to that appreciates yu suzukis work of a game.

[Neo-Ryo]

One of my friends did dis it but after a got it he got hooked.but the rest of my friends say its ok can we something else.

[Silas]

You guys are the only friends I talk about Shenmue with. I worked with two fellow programmers who were into games, and neither of them would ever get into Shenmue.

What happened to those guys who posted about their three-way Shenmue friendship? I remember being amazed at anyone finding two other friends to share Shenmue with - it's not the playing of it, it's all the in-jokes and stuff you can do - not easy to do even here! But I can't remember who they were and if they still post.

For me the best thing about Shenmue to highlight for most gamers is the fighting: Virtua Fighter/Tekken/Soul Calibur style-ish fights, except in a completely naturalistic context. The big problem both Shenmue and Shenmue II had for attracting the fight-game enthusiasts is that it takes far too long before you get some serious fighting done. Even the Shenmue II fight-on-demand in Kowloon I suspect was added to the game after Shenmue I came out (like the ability to skip time for appointments) - and there still aren't enough of them. I don't like fighting games or play them very often, but even I have been very impressed by the whole fighting engine, the move training, the move animation - so much so that I was really pissed off in Aberdeen to discover that the "Rooftop Fights" are just arm wrestling.

Criticisms of "blocky graphics" annoy the hell out of me, because nobody seems to have noticed that very few games do any better, and the ones that do are not contemporary present-day games, but fantasy and science fiction or historical. What do you look at for a person? The body? The hands and fingers? Or the faces - sure they're a little squared off, but they're Disney quality compared to faces in Halo and Splinter Cell (to say nothing of any sports-based game you've ever seen). Nobody ever notices that Shenmue has the best and most beautiful camera system ever devised, and that conversations are handled with natural cuts between the characters - where they're standing, not artificially moved to face the camera. Nobody ever notices that every single NPC is different, that there is a realistic distribution of physical types and clothing design, that every one has their own way of moving, and that there are often many of these (individually moving) NPCs on the screen at one time. (And at least the actors did something to differentiate their voices - I'm impressed with the openended-ness and massive size of Morrowind, but they've got like three voices for hundreds of characters of about 6 different races!)

[Realillusion]

Hmmm...Maybe Shenmue 3 will bring come more people tp the game?

[PILMAN]

so it can turn out like final fantasy and people never played the first 2? I remember when Final Fantasy 7 came out everyone played it acting like they were fanboys yet never played the ones before that.

[extraordinarybadgrocer]

They bring out games today with poorer graphics than Shenmue. Even today it stands up well to a lot of games. If you compare it to Vice City for graphics, the civilians are much 'blockier' and the textures are much lower res. It is only because you can see things up close and in so much detail that they appear slightly blocky and as Shenmuefan said it was made in 1999 and can still compete for visuals.

[Silas]

That's exactly what I say, all the time, all over the forums and to everyone I want to interest in Shenmue. I even said it in my amazon.co.uk review of Shenmue II!

[Realillusion]

I've been wondering about this and I think at some point, Shenmue would make a good launch game for lets say the XBOX 2 or something...