Endurance Run: Shenmue - Part 10

Everything about that first fight is magical.

Also, raise your hand if you the half-expected the "York pushing boxes grunt" at 9:30.

Oh God, that map @43:00. So good.

The vending machine says the coffee is warm. Actually, it says they're "waaarrrrm!"

Seeing this game being played after the many years since I played it - in which I finally learned some Japanese - is enlightening. It would have been such a different, probably less obtuse, experience. Something as simple as being able to read the textures on things without a subtitle translation makes everything so much more apparent. There are other things like cultural literacy that would make this game much easier, too, like simply knowing what a Chinese restaurant in Japan looks like.

@humanity: If they're fine with you, they're fine with you, but I've never thought QTEs were clever, engaging, or fun. I just don't think you don't need to inject gameplay into your cutscenes, just have less cutscenes if they're not engaging.

@sean271425: I caught that one too. You can say what you want about the game not presenting things like it should and making things easy to miss but the compass has been on the screen the entire time they've been playing.

If they had gone searching for a forklift and not tried to push the box, I might have punted my monitor out my window.

Teenagers

@tigerdx: Forget kanji, just knowing some kana makes this game sooooo much easier.

I believe those are in Shenmue II, it gives you a slightly branched off story if you fail certain QTEs instead of resetting you. This gave 15 year old me a lot of anxiety.

I'm so glad the turn against Tom has finally happened.

"Dreaming of becoming a singer since she was in the second grade, Mari once won a children’s song competition during the Bon dance festival organized by the Dobuita Council. Her singing voice is pretty good, however her parents don’t understand her dream. Mari often attends audtions without telling her parents. So far she has never gotten past the preliminaries. Optimistic and cheerful nevertheless, Mari still believes that a talent scout will discover her someday. To facilitate this happening, she goes to Takeshita Street, Harajuku, every month.When she turned 20 years old, her mother began nagging her to get a life and hurry up and get married. So, she started working at the New Yokosuka Harbor branch of the Tomato Convenience Store. She wants to continue her singing lessons by using part of her salary. She often screams at the sea as a form of strengthening her singing voice after she finishes her shift. Her biggest concern is the age limit for auditions. Increasingly she has been refused entry because of her age. She hopes her dream of becoming a singer is realized before she becomes 30 years old."

Brazil also has horrific images in cigarettes boxes. Including fetus, cancer patients and innuendo about erectile dysfunction.

Perfect.

"It's resetting the time."

"Well, yeah, but it's the next day."

"Whatever, that doesn't matter."

The manual says you have until the cherry blossoms appear.

@schurik: To be fair, they saw the compass about five seconds later. No need to be THAT picky.

Vinny is really good at this game.

@schurik: Didn't I *just* get lectured for being too critical of the GB guys, and now this if I say that maybe something is too critical of them and we should let it slide? Proving that you can't win either way. Cool!

We turned on Tom HARD this episode...

@alkusanagi: I hope they keep checking in on him, because there's a really dramatic end to Tom's story.

@simkas: Im a housekeeper and one of my customers who had smoked for 60-70 years stopped IMEDIATELY after reading on his pack of cigarettes that tabaco contains 36 carcinogenics like only half a year ago. No joke. Guy hasnt smoked since.

And about vinny missing qte's. Most modern tvs give at least 36 ms inputlag from sd sources and pre hd games assume you have 0, making some qte's WAY too strict in some games. Dunno how strict the timing in shenmue is normally though.

New Tomato convenience store lady is my favorite now. She dreams big.

@danryckert I currently work at the LA/LB Docks in California. There are several levels of seniority, but Bosses can make around $1200 - $1500 a day. I'm currently working as a "Casual", but once I work enough hours, I’ll become a "Longshoreman". As a Casual, I make about $40 - $45 an hour based on the job available for that day. The only caveat of being a “Casual” is, work is not guaranteed, so based on the economy, you may work once or twice a week. Also, the work environment is very dangerous.

I remember seeing the cutscene for the harbor and being so excited to explore a new area, impressed with how big the game was.

My guess is Vinny keeps forgetting that QTEs are a thing, and when a cutscene starts he turns away to check the video is recording, or the audio levels are fine, or see how long they've been recording for etc.

I love that Ryo is already feared by the local criminal element. I also find it hilarious how easily he dispatches of anyone foolish enough to take a swing at him.

Tom showing up at the docks and acting completely oblivious was a real let down, though. Feels like they just moved the assets to that area and didn't bother to write any new dialogue.

No you wouldn't.

QTE's and a forced stealth section? now this is a video game!

Mmm. truck.

Tom has more to say, and is helpful later. They just don't want to get you in teh habit of thinking you can rely on him (or anyone one character) for ALL information in the early game.

By design or by graphical fidelity realities, Ryo appeared a bit younger in the Saturn pre-alpha. I think the game would have made a tiny bit more sense if Ryo were more like a skinny little 17 y.o. twerp. That certainly would fit how people talk to Ryo in the game. If he looked as young as people treat him, the dilague would make a tiny bit more sense. Also, getting caught sneaking into warehouses over & over again would make more sense if he were just a kid

@mento: "It would be nice if we had a compass..."

You have an interesting definition of "insisting".

@vorsic: The harbor is big, but there's hardly anything to do there. It's probably my least favorite environment out of both games, even with forklift racing.

fucking tom

Keep on missin' those QTE's Vinny! :D

I've never seen Goro kick Ryo's ass, so at least I got to see something new.

You'd actually fucking go to that TV audition with the tomato store lady if this were a yakuza game...or play a whole chapter about her pop singer career

Holy shit! Surprise Tom!

The part where they first get the map had me in tears. It was just so subtely perfect.

With every episode I get closer to pull out my DC from the closet and hook it up to play Shenmue. I bought so much chocolate to win all the prices in the raffle. And I never found any use for it since you can't eat it.

I used work in print where these cartons were made. The pictures are mainly to discourage young people from starting as well as try to put off people who have maybe just started.

Haha! I forgot all about this stealth section. Thanks guys for ruining my memories of this game with this feature and keep up the great work!

I wonder if you can hide behind something in that dead end to avoid being caught by the guard. There are some spots where an A prompt appears and lets you hide behind boxes. In general, though, that stealth part is clunky. I can't remember if you can turn off your flashlight to become less visible.

I hope they will but I doubt it. Dan is probably on board but Alex and Vinny probably won't want to play Shenmue 2.

@nicolenomicon: i have bad news for you...

@dagas: Especially since Dan won't be back in New York until January. Any momentum that he could have possibly mustered after this will be long gone. Although who knows, Dan is nothing if not committed.

Ever since they started looking for Warehouse Number 8, I have been waiting for Alex to make the obligatory Simpsons reference. Knew he wouldn't let me down!

I was waiting for Alex to make a The Simpsons Number 8 joke as soon as Warehouse no. 8 was mentioned and my patience has paid off.

Loved this episode and a couple past ones! It has gotten way better as they've starting getting into the groove and paying a little more attention. I think they started with the modern mindset of "every game is clear and tutorializes every single detail", and thought they could have conversations about movies while ignoring the game. But now things are flowing better and the comedy is coming from funny places, like the games acting, character designs, situations etc.

Great great job, and I'm very pleased that this has improved so much! Very funny. Thank you again, team.

@joelalfaro: All in all, this was a very Shenmue-feeling episode, one of the first. They hit multiple story beats, finally figured out that you can buy/look at/interact with stuff, they didn't get lost for long stretches, and they even bought cat food and stated an intention to use it. Even going the wrong way is fine the first time you're in a new area, because you want to get the lay of the land. If they had gone right to Warehouse 8, they wouldn't have met the old guy (who becomes useful on more than one occasion).