Shenmue Trilogy Review - Because Why Not?

warning the following presentation contains cold hard truths that might change the way you think viewer discretion won't do you any good now games games games we are drowning in amazing new video games drowning the playstation 5 and xbox whatever it's called are just around the corner and we're seeing our fair share of highly anticipated sequels last of us too wasteland 3 and crash bandicoot 4. but did anyone actually care about shenmue 3 fans of this series waited 18 years to play the third installment and i am one of those silly fans but jumping right into the third game after an 18-year wait would be way too easy so in true shenmue fashion i decided to put myself through a gauntlet of tedious training by replaying the first two games going for both platinum trophies and then diving into the third one why i don't know shenmue 1 was pretty [ __ ] cool when it first came out and very influential it had the highest budget of any game in history at that time and it was director yu suzuki's first attempt at a non-arcade style game sega even coined a new genre to describe it free no the game was not actually free it stood for full reactive eyes entertainment whatever the [ __ ] that means shenmue is a 3d time-based detective adventure game with a cinematic feel and a classic revenge story you play as rio hazuki or dio hazuki as you hunt down lon d the man who killed your father while uncovering an ancient mystery that relates to your true power you talk to locals you open drawers you buy little toys and you get into a lot of street brawls probably because you bought all those little toys shenmue was the first realistic japan simulator that i'd ever experienced and playing this game really made me want to go to japan i remember being so fascinated with the neighborhoods and the culture because of this game although when i finally went there i wish the game had warned me about the toilets yeah they are not all like this now a lot of people think this is a game where you look for clues and try to solve the mystery of your father's death but the real goal of shenmue is to simply navigate the maze of your house and find the front door okay no [ __ ] no that's why is this where is the god damn it i can't move i can't move i'm stuck i'm stuck okay god damn it now the graphics in this game totally hold up and the hd remaster was very nicely done i thought the lighting effects when you're walking around town at night actually looked amazing but the audio in this game is just abysmal i can't seem to get the right mix it really is impossible i had to turn the dialogue way down but look how loud the diary music is compared to the rest of the game oh what the hell the gameplay in shenmue is one that honors the passage of time and you will have to be at certain places at certain times but i spent way too much time waiting in this game not like elder scrolls waiting actual waiting i think that more than half of my game time was spent not touching the controller this game needs to take a little less cues from fist of fury with bruce lee and a little more from click with adam sandler as in let me skip time now if ryo hazuki only has one character trade it is that he really likes to stick his nose where it doesn't belong and the more crime solving that you do the more thugs and gang members will approach you for a fight the combat in this game is virtua fighter but you can level up moves which is very cool and 100 unnecessary to do it's also one of those systems where you can easily spam every fight by repeating the same move which i guess isn't that bad if you're just trying to get through it it's recommended that you spar with [ __ ] you son as much as possible oh wait that's fukusan my bad the overall controls in this game are not incredible look how much trouble i had just getting on the bus jesus [ __ ] i mean it's like oh come on i'm gonna miss the [ __ ] thing and it's right in front of me this bus driver is probably like oh great another drug addict but you know at the end of the day this game should not be judged by its bus riding mechanics shenmue is all about the story and this game has heartfelt moments there is a real emotional connection to rio's family and friends constantly worrying about him and lots of foreshadowing that if he goes too far down the path of revenge he could be killed or worse become evil himself there is definitely a kind of fantasy heroes arc hidden beneath the mundane realism of this game there's also an actual lord of the rings character in the game who keeps trying to steal the ring i mean the mirror but this story also has some unnecessary padding like the part where you go to warehouse number eight and it's the wrong warehouse number eight and you have to just go to the other one just why then there's the massive chunk of the game where you work as a forklift driver this was definitely fun at first but there's way too much of it i got the idea after the first day and you have to do it four more times this game is like something you'd give to your kids to teach them responsibility son did you finish your chores yes dad did you finish your homework yes dad did you finish your forklift driver shift in shenmue [ __ ] you dad i really feel bad for this guy mark hey my lunch mark just go home leave work a half hour early or something i know how hard it is to get on the bus but you gotta try now the final level in this game is a brawl against 70 enemies the last one being rob halford and it's fairly enjoyable and you can always just cheaply run around to regain health now that's a final level shenmue ends with rio knocking the annoying gollum clone into the ocean while landi escapes to hong kong and rio follows it's a cliffhanger but also a satisfying ending rio is taking a big step into a larger world throwing himself into more danger than ever and he has had so many warnings we just had to wait two years to see what happened next let me start by saying i never liked this game if you think the first shenmue had padding this game is like a mile wide foam mattress that's infested with rats shenmue 2 begins directly after the first game's ending with rio arriving at hong kong and i hate people who say what the actual [ __ ] but what the actual [ __ ] is wrong with these characters and you got ten dollars jesus how about it man these guys are rough you were a lot like me when i was young you kill me sorry your arm will make it 100. i'm not even gonna say anything about this guy might as well get ready i i don't think i'm allowed to comment on that it's even weirder because they all have these stupid american sounding voices hey you've got some time on your hands do you want to arm wrestle after a while i had to just turn on the japanese dialogue audio it's just way more tolerable in every possible way i played through the bulk of this game in japanese so far in both games i've had to drastically modify the audio somehow just to make the game bearable it's not good another thing that really bothers me is that this game's cut scenes are in this little window with a big ass black border in case you're wondering why that is it's because they tried to do a wide screen effect in a game that was already in 4x3 i'm not the only one who was deeply deeply bothered by this i mean it has no effect on the gameplay it just makes my video look like [ __ ] now this game wastes no time in being frustrating as the first thing that happens is you get robbed by some bitch-ass kid who actually ends up being a little [ __ ] and then later on he becomes your [ __ ] but you don't ever get that money back so if you carried your save file over from shenmue 1 and thought that it was cool that all your money transferred over and got exchanged to hong kong dollars well enjoy it while it lasts which is the first two minutes of the game now shenmue 2 does have some advantages over the first game the combat now allows you to lock onto a single person during group battles the button mapping of the free roam controls has also improved and there are now maps that you can buy and little colored markers you can place to help remember locations and you are gonna need them because the amount of different neighborhoods this game tosses at you right in the beginning is pretty insane in the first hour of the game you go back and forth through 11 different areas and just remembering how they're all connected is quite the test of attention span now i've played through shenmue 2 in its entirety several times in my life and the only other thing i seem to remember about this first section of the game is the part where you have to carry these books attention you suzuki why it's not like this is difficult or anything it's just boring what kind of practice is this anyway airing out books i never heard of that after learning some kung fu from your hot female teacher who rio totally doesn't appreciate you travel from wanzai to kowloon and begin the second half of the game this part of the game kind of reminds me of the game agony not because it reminds me of being in hell but just because it's [ __ ] terrible the amount of time you spend in buildings like this holy [ __ ] i have honestly had nightmares about being lost in apartment buildings that look like this this is not a joke i really have and i know for sure it's because of this game i don't think this is the kind of game that is supposed to give you nightmares this isn't control or resident evil the part where you have to follow you on through this entire city i imagine is what it feels like to have sex with you on a giant boring pain in the ass but the part where yuan chases you with a chainsaw is pretty hilarious i would also like to point out something about yuan japanese version man english version woman awkward but there is also a really unnecessary amount of this this game offers a very distinct form of torture style game structure you think you're done with some horrible task only to find out you have to do it three more times you think you finally found you on the zoo after like excruciating levels of dragging out the search and then he gets kidnapped you just scaled 10 floors of the ghost hall building and then you find out you have to scale 17 floors of the yellow head building but to even get into that building you have to win a couple of street fights after that you have to win three more and there's a pretty expensive buy-in for these fights now since you got robbed earlier you'll need to either sell some toys that you hopefully bought in the first game or before you were robbed or you can get a part-time job your only other option is to save scum at a gambling table whichever method you choose one thing is for sure you're [ __ ] do you feel like working now but after you raise the money win the three fights and finally get into that stinking yellow head building i'm gonna take a piss on this thing make it even more yellow you reach the 17th floor and oh what's that yonder zoo is actually on the 40th floor wow just the amount of padding and milking we're zoo on the roof okay this is just getting absurd let me guess we get to the roof and yonder zoo is actually on the moon that's right then you get to the moon and yuanda zoo has actually ascended into the seventh ring of saturn now that would be cool now i will give credit to one cool thing that happens in the story during this game you find out that the dragon and phoenix mirrors can be used to resurrect an ancient order called the king dynasty nobody really knows what this means yet it might involve a dragon we don't know could be very tight though we also find out landi killed ryo's father because ryo's father supposedly killed landi's father sun ming zao further adding to the question of will ryo's quest for revenge lead him to become just like lon d and turn him down the path of evil i can appreciate all of this i just wish everything leading up to it wasn't such a nightmare literally after climbing a bunch of horrible buildings beating donut saving you on to zoo and letting landi escape again and again [Music] and again and again god rio then leaves kowloon and heads to guilin this epilogue is like a breath of fresh air for about two seconds you and shenhua just keep walking and walking and walking just like everything else in this game even this goes on for too long it's so weird i just met this girl yet we've got to be already sick of each other watch this oh god can you imagine if this is how his journey ended he came all this way and then just dies by jumping off a cliff that would be amazing speaking of cliffs the end of this game might be a more frustrating cliffhanger than the first game we finally start to see some supernatural [ __ ] happen there's a floating sword and then the game ends for some reason this game has amazing reviews i really do not get it i think it's the equivalent of when smash mouth's all star was considered best song of the year by multiple music publications only to later be realized is really really ass i totally platinum the [ __ ] out of it though now ever since the inception of shenmue the plan was for the series to span four games and although one and somehow two are both beloved games they weren't as commercially successful as one would think but in 2015 you suzuki was finally able to begin production on shenmue 3 and pretty much the entire shenmue staff returned the directors writers character designers composer lead programmer and even voice actor corey marshall who plays rio in november 2019 shenmue 3 was finally released but how does it hold up after all this time in between installments well if you play shenmue 3 right after playing let's say red dead redemption 2 it's not going to seem that great but if you go into shenmue 3 right after playing shenmue 1 and 2 it will seem like the greatest game you've ever played i went right into three and it was like drinking a nice cold beer after trying to eat a light bulb yes yes and oh god yes now the story is that shenhua's father is missing as he is one of the stonemasons that forged the magical mirrors that you and lon d possess we still have the same core gameplay of asking people questions and adding intel to your journal and the journal has had some serious upgrades it's got tabs and maps different sections just listen to the sound of the pages flipping [Music] oh yeah but there are also some major new additions here you now have to eat food to keep up your stamina and health you can do various training exercises that will level up your attributes such as kung fu and endurance and there is a vast plant collection system which is a really good source of cash no you do not sell weed these are herbs holistic flowers this is a family game kind of but that's all just scratching the surface there is a [ __ ] load of stuff to do in this game fishing for cash gambling for prizes that you can sell for cash still a family game though chopping wood for cash catching ducks for cash driving a forklift but there is nothing more adorable than watching this old lady react to you chopping her wood whoa she is so cute come on and speaking of cute i'm looking for a store that carries liquor rio come on he's like four years old he's not gonna know where the liquor store is he's over there oh my god okay thanks that's one helpful kid now the combat is so much better in shenmue three it's not even funny i know some people are gonna disagree with that and probably prefer the virtua judo grapple fest that we had previously but this is clearly smoother and more satisfying in every way some people have claimed this combat system has less depth and those people couldn't be less right this game makes it way harder to button mash your way through fights but also easier to perform skills in your several different move sets that you can customize there is an automatic set that allows you to easily perform your favorite skills by simply pressing the right trigger there is also a manual system for those who do want to input the commands like in previous games but i think the introduction of move sets is a great idea in general let's be honest most people who play shenmue are really only using the same one two maybe three moves over and over again this just caters to that a bit more now as usual you buy skill books from one of the many kung fu shops and just like in the previous games the more you use the skill the better it gets until it's mastered there's also a lot of deep diving into how kung fu works characters spend a lot of time explaining the meaning and origins of the different styles and moves that you learn and it comes off as a real love letter to kung fu the previous games did this to some extent but this game really dumps it on you but it's not just the kung fu or the exploration shenmue 3 has some of the best standing around i've ever done in any game the backgrounds look incredible although they really dropped the realism in favor of magic and fantasy i mean look at this i'm actually moving this swing with my mind using some kind of kung fu telekinesis oh oh never mind that's a bug now what is this situation with rio and xinhua anyway i've been dreaming about her since the first game i finally meet her and right away we become this married couple who lives together and doesn't have sex anymore we skipped all the good stuff i've noticed that at this point rio's name has just evolved into leo calm down leo i think i'm gonna call him leo now you know the story in this game does feel a lot zippier than the previous two games it never really felt like it was being dragged or padded out but leo does say some dumb [ __ ] sometimes vips have their own room leo the very definition of vip is having your own room we also find out that shenhua um is a demon you think i'm afraid of a little girl like you what did she do to him wait a minute there was a third pole just a second ago oh god shenhua don't tell me now i would like to discuss this game's ending and for the seven people who care you may want to stop watching at this point unless you want some mildly cool [ __ ] spoiled for you now after fighting chai for the eighth time we i'm sorry can we please dispose of his body now you can't keep letting this thing run around it's not cool anymore remove the head from the torso let's go come on but the ending push here is just amazing all your kung fu buddies all show up to help you storm the castle you team up with ren and fight a nice wave of enemies as you head straight for lon d this is epic but it's really funny that rio is still updating his journal while all this is happening look what he's writing just imagine him stopping to write that that's that's really funny now the big spoiler of this game is the fact that you get to fight lan d sort of you don't actually get to hit him but somehow it's still the coolest thing in the world i really don't get it i think it's the music but we all knew this game would continue the cliffhanger trend of this series and i was more than okay with that the ending still delivers overall shenmue 3 totally satisfied me as a shenmue half fan this is a lively and colorful world that you want to be in with a lot to explore and a great continuation of the storyline although this game is definitely an upgrade in accessibility i don't know if it's a big enough upgrade to rope in new players but apparently shenmue 4 will be you suzuki has stated he wants to add fast travel time skip options [ __ ] finally and a different ui he has also stated in a separate interview that the combat will be the most insane [ __ ] that your [ __ ] asses have ever seen and that it will make yakuza look like it was made for little [ __ ] babies in fact what i'm about to show you is actual pre-alpha footage of what combat will be like in shenmue [Music] 4. [Music] but another thing that suzuki has actually vowed to do is to never give up on this series and you know something neither will the fans maybe it's the peculiar but lovable characters maybe it's that subtle hint of mysticism and fantasy that's brooding underneath the surface but there is something magical about shenmue that i can't quite put my finger on but it will always keep me coming back to this series and its future installments but shenmue 2 you can go [ __ ] yourself seriously what the [ __ ] is that game [Music] you

Channel: Maj0r Lee

Views: 8,173

Keywords: lee, lustig, maj0r, major, shenmue, ryo, hazuki, shenhua, shenmue 3, iii, shenmue 4, yu, suzuki, sega, xbox, series x, ps5, steam, switch, nintendo, walkthrough, review, secret, tip, fighting, combat, best, move, unlock, cheat, hint, code, perfect, speed, run, trophy, platinum, gold, dlc, battle, collect, cyberpunk, elder, scrolls, fallout, zelda, sequel, new, announcement, dreamcast, original, hd, 1080

Id: IkgTivBVyEQ

Length: 24min 54sec (1494 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020