Endurance Run: Shenmue - Part 08

Man, these things go up right on the dot. Time to enjoy my rotten sleep schedule by watchin' the Endurance Run.

I've got my pizza and I'm ready to go! Ciao!

Patience sure seems to be the name of the game.

"Zowie Woo" is the new "Yohkasookah."

I love how Vinny never seems prepared for the inevitable QTE during a cutscene.

Ha. Every can from the vending machines offers a chance at a prize, EXCEPT the coffee cans. So far they've always gotten coffee, except when buying the Chinese delivery guy a drink. Excruciating if you know.

"Can I put something on your boombox?"

Alex immediately shoots it down without letting Vinny try. "Boombox is not interactive."

Yes it is. (They have no cassettes, though.)

The squatter's daughter.

Charlie already jumped you in the construction yard in Sakuragaoka, so naturally he's not gonna meet you at the arcade at 3pm.

I've never seen that kid hitting Ryo up for 100 yen constantly. That's hilarious.

Shenmue huh

It looks like they figured out that you can go into Abe Store and buy food for the cat (if they remember in the next episode). I don't think the game really telegraphs that you need to feed the cat every day, though, so they'll probably just try it once. The cat never walked again in my first playthrough.

@squirrelnacho: I bet they'll totally listen to your advice, weeks ago when this was recorded.

Gotta love how Vinny is a beast at the QTE minigame in the arcade but manages to fail every single time during the story moments. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure there are ones later on that if you fail, the game will just continue rather than reset like the ones so far.

@gregalor:

They still didn't seem to realize that some things require you to zoom to interact with them. That's not a complaint, but it would have helped them play the game more easily.

tfw when you stay up until 3am to watch a new Shenmue video and it's another short 30-minute episode because Vinny has "something to do."

Nothing stops the Endurance Run! Except things to do.

I remember playing the Dreamcast demo unit at Sears as a child, and while my family ended up going with the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube during that era, I always wondered what it would have been like if we got the Dreamcast. I think I would have liked this game as a kid, but now, the genre has evolved enough where going back to this game would seem like a bit of a chore mechanics wise. A shame, as it has quite the decent story.

13:55 had me speechless. All worked out in the end though!

@mrcraggle: The QTE strictness does loosen up later. But there's also a strict one that you can abuse to advance time to get the bad ending.

"We're playing Shenmue. For some reason."

I have a feeling that this "locating the warehouse" bit is going to take them fucking forever, even though it's the simplest solution in the world.

@edmundus: They kept saying "Red roof, red roof" when they were looking at the map. I think they were expecting it to be red on the map.

@gregalor: I don't think they're going to have to put any extra effort in to get the bad ending.

I am starting to think this is the Mario Party Party of Endurance Runs.

I love it.

I think it's interesting that Vinny is all about hyper-realistic vehicle simulators with nothing but mundane things to do, but he can't seem to accept that what Shenmue is.

@crocbox: You have to make it to mid-April to get the bad ending. You pretty much have to do it on purpose, either with the QTE trick or reeeeeeeeeeeeally dawdling through the game.

Our long national descent into Shenmue continues...

I can understand them getting lost at first, but I would have expected after a while some sense of direction to emerge with time. Vinny's plaintive "Argh, this is this game isn't it?" was great. Yep, Shenmue is mainly about asking for directions.

@gregalor: Still wouldn't surprise me lol

Zooms in on Russiya on the map, dead centre of the screen.

"Yeah it's definitely not on there."

They're so eager to get on that highway. Can't wait till they find out that you have to wait for the bus to arrive every time, just like a real bus.

I'm glad that people can look past their bias, and see a lot of the fault lies with Vinny. For instance, he still hasn't bothered to learn the controls and realise that X is the Notebook button, otherwise he could have simply pulled up the Notebook while operating the Phone at the same time, mid-dial and everything.

In addition, he hasn't learnt the "Resume" function, that lets you save the game where you're playing, and start from that point when you "Continue" next time. So he doesn't need to go home and save each time he wants to end an episode.

At the end he says he hasn't mastered the running controls; he probably hasn't realised the triggers are analog and you can control Ryo's running speed - as evident by him always pressing the trigger down all the way so Ryo runs at full sprint.

I think Dan's view of foreign language learning is a bit skewed just because he's learning Spanish, a Romance language that uses the letters he already knows and is familiar with.

Personally, my Chinese is terrible but I can speak and understand more of it than I can write. I can't write any Chinese.

@shtinky: One of the "easter eggs" with the phone is that if it's a local call, you can omit that 0468. Makes the numbers much easier to remember.

I think he also doesn't realize that kanji-users are literally still learning how to read through high school and into college. Being unfamiliar with archaic or technical characters is not all that uncommon. You need to know about 2,000 kanji to be considered literate, but more than 50,000 exist.

@shtinky: It's the Y button, but yes, you're totally correct. Unfortunately there are still some people thinking it's shitty game design and not their own lack of attention that wouldn't let them do that. And I get it, if you never played Shenmue before and this is your first exposure to it, then you wouldn't know about the Y button either, but goddamn it is frustrating watching so many people get the wrong idea about the game I love.

Keep this train rolling! Nothing can stop the Endurance Run!

@chinery: I wanted to cry

@dudelongcouch: No, Y is the system window button, X is the Notebook: Link / Manual.

OMG three people and all are blind?

"It's definatily not on here." Alex say while it clearly says China Ryssia in the middle of the map.

Whoever decided this for an endurance run knew what whey were doing. This is the first that you truly need endurance for.

Ya'll not being able to locate the Russia China Shop was definitely a case of Third Eye Blindness.

Is this really a game just about Asking for Directions ? I feel like this game was designed to help people who don't like asking for directions, even when they clearly should. As far as I can tell that is this entire game, is asking people for directions to some place.

@shtinky: I stand corrected. Been about 10 years since I played, so I got the buttons mixed up in my head. Thanks for the info.

@alavapenguin: It does become a lot more, but it's a slow burn. Disc 2 will pick up the pace a little bit.

@alavapenguin: Not just asking directions. You also have to spend half your days moving crates from one warehouse to another with a forklift.

I still don't really get why Dan likes this game. From what I've seen, this ER and the Game Informer Super Replay, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of kicking dudes in the face or "cool action guy stuff". Plus, this seems aimed at people who are very into Japanese culture and picking up the subtle references to certain aspects of it.

"nobody will wrestle me!" hahah

lmao at people upset Vinny doesn't press one button but instead presses two buttons to get into the notebook. You have to reach for the criticisms on this ER but god bless you, you guys manage to do so.