Endurance Run: Shenmue - Part 11

The 2nd act curveball of Shenmue is that you now have to find things instead of person's or places.

Wow, them not picking anything up actually made me angry. I didn't expect that kind of reaction.

Wasn't the old shopkeeper some kind of marketing for this game? I seem to recall at least a few magazines that had pictures of his face texture and articles about what the power of the Dreamcast means for this game. Now it just looks like crap. In retrospect Shenmue was really trying to break the mold of that system, which becomes a problem when you consider the Dreamcast's strength was having fun arcade-like experiences at home and those tended to be the best games.

This Endurance Run is getting goood dudes. This gets so many laughs out of me. Alex totally read my mind about that fucking ninja Gollum dude. I swear this game never can decide whether it wants to be mundane or just plain goofy. Dan is getting much better as this series unfolds. And Vinny is Vinny, which is the best thing possible. Thanks again, I'm grateful for the daily content.

They looked in the drawers, but there was no point because they didn't realize they could interact with things inside the drawers.

This is some of the most entertaining content on the site right now, but it's not because they are doing a close play through of the game.

This has been such a treat. Funniest series in a really long time. I miss Austin but Dan's a great addition to Gbeast too.

Perfect metaphor for this game.

I never noticed Asterix making the roman numeral IV with his fingers, growing up.

"It's good to know that I can look at stuff to open drawers."

Eleven. Hours. In.

Ryos of the world will forever be cursed to mispronunciations of their name, all because of that street fighting karate wizard.

When has anything on Giant Bomb ever been a representative playthrough of anything? This has never been the site you go to for detailed strategy guides and walkthrough videos, and it really baffles me when people suddenly expect that because it's a game they like.

It's fun watching videos of people looking for a "mirror" in the modern sense of the word, but I probably did the same back in 2001. You'd have to have gone to a lot of museums to know that there's other kinds of "mirrors." I wonder if they're two distinct words in Japanese, making what you're looking for a bit more clear.

Only Dan could love Tom so.

@monkeyking1969 said:

Dan, we have a chair with draws at my library.

Its like a 18th century version of a school desk-chair you sat in in high school - with draws! It is a favorite among the public who come to our library every day.

Why not come to Nantucket to see it. We'd love to have you.

That sounds ominous, are you going to set him on fire while he's sitting on a large woven desk chair like the Wickerman?

Which is really funny and frustrating given he did hit X once in a recent episode! But now he never went back to it, and more annoyingly Alex and Dan never correct him on it.

"Here's a note! Can't read it."

Translation: "I didn't press A."

They either don't get it or don't care, and I can't understand Don't Care. That would at least explain a certain play-style, wanting to just finish off the game. But when they say stuff like this, that makes it clear that they want to do a certain thing but don't pull it off, and I have to assume it's Don't Get It. And it's not like he missed some obtuse thing. It's clear but what we see and hear that he just didn't press A on the note. It's nothing short of bizarre. Did he think that just zooming in on things is enough to trigger a cutscene? I'm really trying to figure this out.

Word. I have to keep the game and the endurance run separate in my head or else I'll go completely insane. Like, this endurance run is a fun ride, but it's difficult to watch when you think the game isn't really being shown at it's full potential, you know? Like they haven't even touched the practicing/fighting systems, which I feel is a major element to this game ESPECIALLY if they want to be prepared for the colossal Mad Angels fight at the end. But yeah, I rather enjoy this series, I just wish they had taken a look at the manual or just generally paid more attention to things. I think the reality of Shenmue is that it doesn't want you to rely on the maps even though they're there. Like, the lady at the lunch box stand is always in the same place so if they remembered where she was, they could just do a 180 and find the Antiques Store without stumbling around looking for a map (which god help me Vinny couldn't even find that at first).

Yes, you're right. It is in fact 2016, those mechanics are outdated. But also they are playing a game that came out in 99/00, so what are you expecting? You can't apply modern game philosophy to an old game. You have to play by the rules of the era. Just like the Chrono Trigger ER. I'm not sure I grasp your point...other than just the fact that you don't care for old game mechanics?

Yup! If only one day the guys will actually discover that stuff.

This is a very good point. I don't know if everyone is necessarily expecting that. But it seems that way with a few people. But yeah, it's hard when you're a huge fan of Giant Bomb and ALSO a fan of Shenmue. There's not a great deal of overlap there (or maybe there is?) so I have to just come to accept what this ER is. Which is still great content!

"Is snow ring a bad translation of snow flake?"

I wonder if Dan knows that Shenmue was translated by the same guy who translated Metal Gear Solid.

I think everyone knows not to expect one of those LPs where experts on a game dissect absolutely everything, because that's not what GB does. But they also don't fire up a game to intentionally make it look as bad as possible (which is indeed something that a lot of YouTubers do, pioneered by the Angry Video Game Nerd), and with this series it feels like that's what they're doing, even when I know that they're not.

I love how when they find the locked box in the dojo, the notebook entry gets put waaaaaay at the beginning. The guys laugh about it like it's a glitch or something, but here's the explanation. Each notebook entry has a predetermined location (gaps mean that you skipped/missed something). What we see here is a clear indication that the game expects you to have found that locked box on the first day, wondering about it up until this point. Of course, if you never poke around The Compound until this point, here's what happens.

* No one is expecting the Giant Bomb guys to be Shenmue experts. At least, I'm not. I'm a realist.

* We ARE expecting them to be familiarized with the 5 fucking roads that comprise the home area after like 11 hours into the game, so watching Vinny beeline for the dead-end over and over again is kind of frustrating.

* Anyone who says you need a tutorial to try pressing the main face button to interact with stuff when you're locked on, even in 2016, is being an asshole.

@dudelongcouch:

Alex: "Well, it is really hard to get turned around in this game."

Me: "IT IS?!"

Sakuragaoka is basically an H shape, and Dobuita is a cC shape. And I don't know why they keep calling one of two entrances into Dobuita (that are right next to each other in Sakuragaoka) the "secret" entrance.

Sorry, did I say Dobuita? I meant Dabuto.

I just started playing myself because much like metal gear scanlan i have to know myself :P

I noticed vinny didn't pick up the photo in the drawer but i kept it in my inventory. Am i going to be able to ask anyone about it or is it just another neat interactable thing that's window dressing?

@gregalor: they said exactly that...

@peteycoco: Yeah, I paused it and wrote that out. There was only a minute or two left, and I didn't think they would catch that.

@tanstaafl: I don't think you can use items on people (the exception being Use Food on Cat) to talk about an item. Some items will trigger flashbacks when you pick them up, others are just for you to have. It's just for personal satisfaction. The photo lets you know who Ryo's friends are (since you the player don't really know). There's Nozomi of course, and you can phone the others, and there is one scene that's easy to miss where you can meet up with all of your friends at home. I think the photo is also one of the items that carries over into the Dreamcast version of Shenmue 2 if you have it in your inventory.

I love how much they've turned Tom into a heel.

Not so much a glitch as odd/archaic game design.

@wiseblood: It may not be "design" so much as a technical reason why the notebook can't flow in the order in which you encounter things. For a game where every minute detail is considered for realism, it feels like a concession that had to be made, rather than a stylistic choice.

This really makes me wish I still had my dreamcast and copy of shenmue. I never beat it, not sure why, but them fooling around makes me just want to playthrough it on my own and be done with it.

@cyborgx7: I only just noticed the same thing myself when rewatching that clip! :)

@mrwakka: Now that a really good version of Grandia 2 is on Steam, I pretty much keep my Dreamcast around solely for Shenmue.

@merxworx01 said:

@monkeyking1969 said:

Dan, we have a chair with draws at my library.

Its like a 18th century version of a school desk-chair you sat in in high school - with draws! It is a favorite among the public who come to our library every day.

Why not come to Nantucket to see it. We'd love to have you.

That sounds ominous, are you going to set him on fire while he's sitting on a large woven desk chair like the Wickerman?

No no no. His fiancée and he might like a Nantucket vacation or honeymoon....to see a chair.

Dan is on fire in these Shenmue videos. Is this his comedy calling?

Hey, nobody has given them credit yet for realizing Ine-san is not Ryo's mom. Although now it's revealed that they think Fuku-san is Ryo's brother.

"It's ShenNew!"

Fuku-san's broom is the key to everything.

I'm with Vinny on this one. Tom is such an asshole.

You'll come around on Tom when he teaches Ryo a new move (IF we see that).

You know, I'm sort of coming around on this game. I don't know if I could deal playing it without a guide, and it's rough as hell and poorly acted, but it's occasionally really onto something here and there. The actual disappointing part of them overlooking so much of the stuff that isn't the main story isn't out of some weird notion that one mustn't tarnish Shenmue's purity, but rather, that the game is at its most compelling when it's kind of mundane. A lot of the important dialog is extremely bad, for example, but that little interaction with the cat, though a bit janky like the rest of the game, was a sincerely touching moment of establishing Ryo's character.

Does the help button tell you that sometimes you can interact with things, even when there is no prompt? Or, is it like all the times they've pressed the help button, and it just says "A - interact with things"? If the latter, it's not crazy to believe that someone would make the link between prompt and interactivity, and the converse link between "no prompt" and "no interactivity".

In a game that often displays a prompt when you can interact with stuff, surely it wasn't too difficult to do it all the time?

@yummytreesap: People will argue that the little hidden moments are just as ham-fisted as the main ones, but I think they do add a lot.

@whatshisface: Yeah i actually expected the comments to be super positive about this episode since they immediatly go explore the house and use the zoom in button to look through multiple drawers in multiple rooms.

From watching while doing the dishes, once i saw the photo and the letter , i knew they could probably pick those up. All the other drawers seemed like they didn't contain anything interactable.

@yummytreesap

I never played Shenmue, but i'm sure i would love it back in the day. I'm one of those crazy people that enjoys Gabriel Knight 3 for it's 'vacation in rural France' vibe. Having an adventure game set in an interesting environment with amazing graphics would be an easy sell if i had a Dreamcast.

That said, seeing people talk about how they make the game look bad bums me out. I mean, as long as they're getting through the game, you see at least 80% of what Shenmue is about. No matter how bad people 'play' the game, Shenmue is still Shenmue and you will know if you like it or not.

I love how so often whenever they make a joke about the game reacting in an unexpected way it actually does it (i.e. praying for the Phoenix Mirror). Those are the most funny moments in this endurance run, for me.

It is kinda crazy that you can open all of those drawers and they all have stuff in them. Not many games do that kind of thing even these days.