I just wanted to vent a pent up feeling, I don't have a news of the game series or anything.
So there have been a few things in my life which, like anyone else, are painful to me to even think about. Losing my grandma, my dog...failing to look after my hamster when I was a kid...quitting school too early...fucking up my degree etc. When I think about them I get a feeling in my gut which is something like butterflies...and I just get a bit upset. But those feelings can be rationalised, and in a way they are all 'complete' moments in my life. Believe it or not, they are nothing compared to the black hole and void that appears in my gut when I consider the fact that Shenmue will potentially never come back. I can't explain how much I want it. I feel like Seymore in Futurama. If Fry is Shenmue and Seymore is me:
I want to reach out to see if anyone else feels the same way. I haven't played a game, read a book, watched a film, listened to a song that made me feel like Shenmue did...the atmosphere was just so bizarrely attractive to me. Quite wistful, nostalgic, a little zany, making you feel small in a big city. Letting you get up to random mini games like the darts or arm wrestling. Having you be detective...a forklift driver...a martial artist...learning techniques from an old guy practising Tai Chi in the park.
And there are those who disliked Shenmue II but not me. Ryo travelling from Japan to Hong Kong...getting mixed up in underground fighting...having people try to steal his money and such...doing some random ass job where you had to balance scrolls. Just walking down the street made you feel good. No game has come CLOSE to replicating what this offered. I feel the same way about Star Trek TNG but at least that show had a finite ending and felt right (and by the way the best ending to a show I've ever seen). Shenmue was supposed to be 16 CHAPTERS!!!! THey only got to make 2.
The graphics didn't make a difference to me...people say the game was all about the graphics...no no no! The visuals were fantastic but only a tiny portion of that is the graphics...the choice of style and the art presentation were so much more important to me...
I'm sure that in the replies to this blog there are going to be people who say 'man it wasn't that good/ you are being nostalgic/ I hated it/ there's x game out now that is just as good if not better'...fine whatever if you have to say it say it. But you're not going to take away this feeling inside me that I need Shenmue to be completed. I just need it. If I had billions of pounds, you can be sure a large amount would go towards two things: finishing Shenmue and rehiring everyone who made seasons 3-8 of the Simpsons and getting them to make some more seasons. That might be pathetic but there you go. People sometimes have pathetic hang ups and this is one of mine.
My goodness. It seems like all Shenmue fans are the same, if I had a billion dollars-- I WOULD DO THE SAME THING. I loved it, all of it- I don't even know where to start listing. I became king at balancing those books at the temple, only run lol.
Sigh, I want 3 to come out... I'll just play the Yakuza series for now.
I grew up with a yellow labrador. She was my dog. A few days after she had passed (I was the one who had to make the final decision to put her down- which was the right decision to make, but still not an easy one nonetheless), I happened to watch that Futurama episode- the one with Fry and Seymour. Oh my god I cried so hard at the ending. (I don't think the clip you chose does the scene justice, but whatever.)
Shenmue was amazing, you have nothing to be ashamed of. I have no reflexes whatsoever, so it was a very hard game for me, but still, amazing.
I still talk to my brother sometimes in the hokey way they talked, i.e: Excuse me. Do you know anything about. THE MAD ANGELS. OHHHH HELLO DIO HOW ARE YOU TODAY. lol crazy asians, spell his name with a d if youre gonna say it with a d.
On December 14 2012 23:26 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: (I don't think the clip you chose does the scene justice, but whatever.)
Your pain will heal; give it time ♥
I couldn't find one on youtube but you're absolutely right, the pathos in the scene comes from Fry saying he doubts Seymore would have missed him.
Thanks you guys...it's just nice to see there's someone else who feels the same way!!! It makes one feel better to know someone else is hung-up about the same thing.
I remember when Shenmue 2 came out for XBOX I was so incredibly pumped because I thought it would finish the story. They were both great games (despite the terrible voice acting), but the story will never be finished. The games were really engaging and a lot of fun meeting all the different people and all the little things you had to do in the game just to progress it. Man.. Makes me want to play it right now
Dude i probably have started and stop before finishing Shenmue more then any other game. It really was ahead of its time. They did so many odd things, even where u could get realistic weather, which was an exact copy of the weather at the time.
I have friends who feel just like you do about Shenmue. While I have tried playing through the game, it just doesn't captivate me like it seems to do to others. When I play or watch the game, it's like I can see there is magic, but it's just untouchable to me.
Also, you probably know all of this being a Shenmue fan, that game had a ridiculously unreasonable budget for the time; $45-$70 million depending on which sources you trust and how far back into the game's development you want to explore. The groundwork was being laid for it in 1994. It started off as a Saturn project from what I remember. So you can see it took some time and a lot of resources to go from Suzuki's mind to complete and marketed game. Sega gambled really hard on the success of Shenmue and the Dreamcast as a system, unfortunately resulting in their exit from the hardware business when they experienced a poor return on investment.
I have seen rumors that Sega is interested in making a third Shenmue, but they are still reluctant to revive the franchise when it could be a financial disaster yet again.
I really miss the Dreamcast in general. So many gems on a system that was so short lived.
I loved Shenmue 1 and got like halfway through Shenmue 2. I still bring it with me when I move and say I'm always gonna finish it, but I never manage to. I think part of the problem is I know the story is incomplete and will never be complete so I feel like why even bother.
On December 15 2012 07:20 HardlyNever wrote: I loved Shenmue 1 and got like halfway through Shenmue 2. I still bring it with me when I move and say I'm always gonna finish it, but I never manage to. I think part of the problem is I know the story is incomplete and will never be complete so I feel like why even bother.
On December 15 2012 02:28 tonight wrote: I remember when Shenmue 2 came out for XBOX I was so incredibly pumped because I thought it would finish the story. They were both great games (despite the terrible voice acting), but the story will never be finished. The games were really engaging and a lot of fun meeting all the different people and all the little things you had to do in the game just to progress it. Man.. Makes me want to play it right now
Makes me so happy to hear things like this from other ppl. Just to know I'm not alone! It's all about 'all the little things'. Details in games are missing nowadays. People might point out foibles of a game like Shenmue but I can point out tens of things which no other games designers bother to include that Shenmue had. Man that atmosphere...the kung fu zen thing the game had going on. Was just a beautiful experience. Even randomly opening up Ryo's fridge was fun lol!
Shemue is amazing, only thing I disliked are the QTE. Shenmue 1 > Shemue 2 in my opinion and about a third part...I dunno. With the same people working on it and the same graphics, I would love it but otherwise...not really.
Well, I don't know if anyone's told you this or not...
But there is an MMORPG in China called Shenmue online and its actually monitored by Sega of China (assuming their offices are still open, the last I had heard of this game was in 2007).
As far as an English version of the MMORPG coming out... I highly doubt it ever happened.
On December 15 2012 15:01 Enders116 wrote: Well, I don't know if anyone's told you this or not...
But there is an MMORPG in China called Shenmue online and its actually monitored by Sega of China (assuming their offices are still open, the last I had heard of this game was in 2007).
As far as an English version of the MMORPG coming out... I highly doubt it ever happened.
As far as I know (and my information is extremely dated) this MMO had the same "goal" that Shenmue had of being very interactive and a "virtual reality" where you could interact with almost any object/person (something Shenmue never even came close to accomplishing), but did not advance the story or main plot in any way.
I also remember reading something about the rest of the Shenmue story being released in either movie and/or book format, but I don't think it ever happened. I could be wrong on this as my info on this is, again, extremely dated.
EPT
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