Endurance Run: Shenmue - Part 17

yay

Oh goodness. Well. The Shenmue spiral of madness continues ever downwards...

What will make Vinny furious this time ? Can't wait !

Oh no...

Shenmue is an exercise in psychological warfare, and the game is winning.

Funny thing is, I'm fairly certain this is one time when the game doesn't actually make you wait for the right time. I think they could have went to the Arcade as early as they wanted and the event still would have triggered.

Hilarious episode. This is the best feature.

This game just got weird...like, weirder than usual.

I love that by this point the timber of Alex's voice is that of a man that's given up on life.

The Dudley Moore "honest advertising genius" movie in question was 1990's Crazy People which was partially filmed here in Roanoke, VA (my uncle worked construction on it).

This game is wack!

@scarbearer: But that's his normal voice.

That conversation with the barber is the kind of weird shit I like about Japanese games, the kind of shit that made Persona 4 so memorable.

Very excited. Getting ever closer to forklifts!

Such strange design choices in this game...While you're waiting to go into the arcade you can have a bespoke conversation with the barber in a nearby shop about how you're heading to the arcade. But why make the player wait at all? Is this a game for people that love to procrastinate, and speak to every single NPC before advancing the plot at every opportunity?

In honour of Brownlow Medal day.

F.(uku) San - 1 vote

R.... *dramatic pause* Hazuki - 2 Votes

G. Ticket Eating Monster - 3 Votes

The Critic is the show that made my impressionable young mind realize that not all cartoons are funny.

I love that the half man, half goblin that flies through the air supernaturally and is clearly not of this plane of existence is described as that skinhead guy casually, like it is an everyday occurrence. Yet Ryu asking about a tattoo parlour was treated like he was asking how to summon Satan.

@poperamone: other cultures, man

lol Never heard the barber talk about Tom before

Seriously going to do a half an hour episode after the last two episodes were barely progressable and there was a weekend? Also most of the half hour/40 minute episodes felt like they could've been edited into 2 episodes, it's kinda very frustrating to watch these sometimes due to the pacing.

I'm just going to start considering 30 minutes a "normal" sized episode from here on out.

@awkwardloser: they recorded the episodes before they released them, so the pacing is going to be a little off in terms of episodes but i think that's kinda of the point. The thing about the endurance run is that it's Vinny's play through of that game. So doesn't reflect everyone's experience of the game they are playing. I think the shenmue endurance run has been great so far. It's a interesting game but it's definitely a game of it's time.

"Shall we go in this alley and wait to die?"

"A rather stubborn man, Ichiro runs an old-fashioned barbershop by the old-fashioned principle, 'Real men wear their hair cropped short.' and he means it. The fact that young men’s longer hairstyles are becoming increasingly more popular is of no concern to him. He stands by his conviction that men’s hair should only be crewcut style. He even wishes to cut Tom’s hair in this style, going so far as to offer to pay Tom to let him do so."

You wanna go in this alley and wait to die?

They will show this endurance run in court one day...

This...this is pure 90's gold here.

This is some of the best content in a long time, it's fun to see other people play after so long. This was hilarious.

The guy in the beige suit wants to meet people in a business that you guys haven't walked into yet across from where he hangs out, but he hasn't been invited or something.

@trumad said:

It's easy to criticize the game now, but those things were a lot more immersive back, and it's one of the first games to try to do anything like this. The second game added time advance and is paced a little better.

"You have to make your own fun in this game."

I won't deny that, Vinny.

A traditional Japanese Christmas. Fighting with a skinhead and chasing men through the streets.

It's hard to convey to anyone who wasn't there at the time, but having appointments to keep at specific places (and you could miss them, too) was in itself an impressive thing to have in a video game.

"I'll bet you actually couldn't beat him."

Come on Alex, it's Shenmue! He's beatable. It's just not a game over if you lose to him here. Train up!

It would help if someone knew that you can assign a complex move of your choice to the R trigger.

@gregalor: The whole "impressive back in the day"-argument doesn't really count for much unless you already have strong nostalgic feelings about it.

That said, it would probably be easier to convey if the game was, well, better about it.

You say that as if someone should be expected to enjoy any game that's nearly two decades old as if it were a modern game.

@lovcol: I'd reckon it might be in the instruction manual. But I dont have one to verify.

I can't figure out who was making the noises at the end, at first it sounds like Vinny but then he starts speaking while it's still going on?

@squirrelnacho: No, you got it backwards. It is you guys who tout this line over and over, as if it should mean something to anybody other than yourselves. I certainly do not expect people to enjoy old things as if new - that was kind of the point.

Keep the Shenmue coming :D

@lovcol: You don't NEED nostalgia to be interested in things that were impressive when a game came out. It's one thing that will do it, but it's not exclusive. A general interest in the history of games will also do it. I buy old-ass games on GOG that I haven't played before, play them, and enjoy them thoroughly. Is that weird? I don't know. I've always been an old soul, I guess; hell, my favorite TV channel is TCM by a long shot.

Hell, I played through the Resident Evil games for the first time just a few years ago. Those games are shat on over and over again for their jank, but I guess I just have an above-average ability to see through things that people aren't patient with any more.

Just last week I watched the Game Informer playthrough of Under a Killing Moon, a mid-90s FMV adventure game with some 90s-ass adventure game puzzles in it. I haven't played it, have no nostalgia for it. But I was frustrated by how the guys seemed more interested in making fun of it for ten hours than having anything interesting to say about it. The game had elements to it that made it stand out from other games of its day, but they were more interested in constantly saying, "Why are we doing this??" Why, indeed. Because that's all anyone wants to watch, apparently.

@lovcol: No one really seems to be expecting anyone to find it as impressive today as it was originally.

This episode opens on my tenth birthday.

@gregalor: You're generalizing a lot here. I'm talking about this game, in this environment though. Not all games. A lot of older games have more jank/rigidness etc, sure, but some have retained more redeeming qualities than others, I'd say.

It's probably not for nothing why the players and viewers both are laughing / getting fed up in this (Shenmue) case.

That guy ate a ticket!!

HAHA! It's all coming back to me. This is a weird and terrible video game. I think on my first play through of this game I finished it on Christmas Day(in game). Not to brag or anything but clearly younger me was waaaay better at video games than Papa Vinny is. Gosh no wonder Dan loves Mario Maker so much, he just seems to relish in watching people fail at video games like some sort of sadist. I guess that's yet another thing me and him have in common huh?

With the amount of movie talk you'd think you guys would just start the movie podcast back up and begin to trim the fat off of the video banter. Not that I mind the occasional movie reference from time to time but it's worn thin fast in this particular Endurance Run. Thanks again for this series. Vinny and Alex's reactions are the best thing.

Shemue is madness.

@squirrelbait: Who throws a shoe? Honestly!

So is the game programmed in a way that makes this ticket arc happen during the Christmas week? But I guess not since it wouldn't be Christmas yet if they didn't spend a whole week trying to get to Old Warehouse 8. Are there any special things, events or scenes you can trigger if you did certain things on a specific date? Anything special happens if you beat the game really early or before Christmas?

@squirrelnacho:Then why even bother constantly replying to people, telling them how impressive it was in 1999 etc, as in an effort to seemingly "shield" the game from most criticism?

This game is great. The best... of all time.