From: kendrick@nospam.io
In article ,
Kendrick Kerwin Chua wrote:
>
>Starting a new thread, for what I hope are constructive reasons...
Responding to the original post for some additional impressions not
necessarily related to the other discussion.
After playing through chapters 2 and 3, I'm prepared to declare this game
excellent. It takes a little while to hit its stride, but once the last
piece of the plot falls into place it's hard not to love the game for all
its features. In short, this is the game everybody expected Shenmue to be.
After Chapter 1, the training wheels come off and there's some variety and
challenge to the fights. Unless you're up against a boss, very few of the
battles are one-on-one. This is the gaming mechanism from the Shenmue's
70-man-battle honed and perfected. Combos are rewarding without being
compulsory, and it requires quite a bit of planning and inventory
maintenance in order to be a successful hand-to-hand fighter. I definitely
need to find an alternative to the Sony Dual Shock controller though, as
I've never had to use it for more than ten minutes at a time and my hands
really hurt now.
The game is not very sandbox-like. Each mission is self-contained and
requires your undivided attention, and there's a lot left for the
individual player to discover. It's not rocket science, but there is
actually a bit of brain challenge between fights. Also, it's possible for
random encounters to occur during a mission, where you can earn experience
points and learn new moves. Again, it's worth noting that fights and
exploration occur in separate segments, and don't flow together as part of
the same interface.
I felt a lot of nostalgia for Shenmue as I observed the passersby on the
street while exploring the city. There are undreds of people walking
around going about their business, and if you pay attention you can tell
from a distance which ones are gangsters or street punks ready to initiate
a fight. There are also drug stores and restaurants where you can buy
items or recover hit points, and there are bizarre inventory items that I
can only assume are part of a dating mini-game I haven't encountered yet.
Oh yes, some of those strange items can be one in Sega Arcades found every
ten city blocks or so.
Graphically, the game is competent but not amazing. I'm particularly
distressed by the jerky camera, which you can only center behind your head
(and only when there's not something or someone in the way.) In certain
high-polygon parts of the city, you don't get that option and instead have
a panning, cinematic camera that makes it easy to lose your character in
the crowd. This is only a minor annoyance, and doesn't seem to be a factor
during fights.
I should mention the liberal use of profanity in the game. NPC taunts and
battle cries are full of four-letter-words, and every cut scene has so
much profanity that I get the impression they're trying too hard to be
edgy and adult with the material. On the other hand, as some movie makers
have discovered it's always entertaining to hear Mark Hamill saying the
'F' word. :) As a positive balancing measure, a lot of spoken Japanese has
been preserved in the ambient noise and in the background characters.
Store owners, bartenders, and people in the street may greet you in
Japanese when you initiate conversation. This is probably more a
localization shortcut than it is a deliberate attempt to appease American
otaku, though.
I should mention that the plot has avoided a lot of gangster and yakuza
cliches, as much as the genre can. I've actually been pretty surprised at
the way the plot has turned and twisted through Chapter 3. Maybe I'm not
as familiar with the world of organized crime as others might be, but so
far this isn't the typical 'crook-with-the-heart-of-gold' story. I also
like that the female characters so far have not been femme fatales, sex
objects or damsels in distress, at least not on camera. This is new and
this is original, and that's a very valuable asset that will keep me
playing.
So, go buy it already. Sega needs good sales numbers and we're the last
fans they've got. :)
-KKC, who is very impressed by the artwork in Shining Tears. Elves sure
like to wear their clothes tight, though.
--
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