Shenmue I & II HD |OT| Like a polished mirror
- Thread starter IrishNinja
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This isn't combat related at all, but it reminded me that I haven't commented on this yet or seen it mentioned... Shenmue 2 already had an analog control mode on Dreamcast and Xbox that you could switch to in options, but for some odd reason they did not use it at all.
When they announced "modern controls" for both games, I was expecting analog control to match that of the original Shenmue 2, just ported back to the first game as well. What we actually got in both games was literally the D-Pad controls mapped onto the analog stick. There's no variance in speed whatsoever from the analog control, it's walk or no walk forcing you to still hold the trigger to run. The original Shenmue 2 analog control actually varied your speed based on how far you moved the stick - you don't need to hold the trigger to run because the maximum range on the stick was full running. You also had better turning angles if I recall correctly.
Did anyone else notice this? It's just a weird difference that I wasn't expecting.
Apparently 1.04 on PC broke some things, in example now Space Harrier crashes on the High Score screen. Do you know if a 1.05 is available for the beta branch? I can't find anything about it. It's astonishing anyway I pre-ordered the game on July, it released in August and in 2 days we are in October and I'm still waiting to start it, hoping everything will be fixed like it was 20 years ago.
I don't understand why Sega shipped a so broken product.
I don't understand why Sega shipped a so broken product.
The controls don't bother me too much. Moving Ryo around when he's running feels pretty smooth, and that is the majority of his movement. It's only when trying to navigate a tight space that some difficulties can occur. I usually adjust fairly quickly to this unique control scheme coming back from newer games.
The controls don't bother me. Move the camera in the direction you intend to move and you should have zero issues
Finished the game last night. The last stretch of the game... sure is something else.
While thematically interesting and providing lots of information about Shenhua, walking for what it felt like hours, it's goddamn boring. It actually soured me a bit about the game and damped my enjoyment from what I felt was a superior game. In fact, the ending for the Kowloon section was pretty damn good and I kinda wish the game has ended there.
Overall, I felt that while ambitious and innovative as this games were, the flaws are too much at times. Worse thing, is that even with all my complains, I feel that now I am too invested in Ryo's adventure to no buy Shenmue 3 lol
While thematically interesting and providing lots of information about Shenhua, walking for what it felt like hours, it's goddamn boring. It actually soured me a bit about the game and damped my enjoyment from what I felt was a superior game. In fact, the ending for the Kowloon section was pretty damn good and I kinda wish the game has ended there.
Overall, I felt that while ambitious and innovative as this games were, the flaws are too much at times. Worse thing, is that even with all my complains, I feel that now I am too invested in Ryo's adventure to no buy Shenmue 3 lol
These games have so many absolutely asinine design decisions on a level beyond belief, I keep getting surprised every time they present a new one, it's baffling. Maybe I'll write about it shortly when I'm done with S2, but just now I was fighting Don Nui after reaching the top of the building and after beating him in a very unfun fight, the command QTEs started. Got the first one, the second one, the third and I failed the fourth. Oh well, it's gonna go back to the first QTE, right? Nope, this is Shenmue, fight him again from the start and fuck you. So I beat him again and I reached the first command QTE, which inexplicably failed, because that's another fun feature added to S2, unreliable QTEs. So yeah, alt+F4 and I'll try again another time.
Back then they hadn't yet learned that faster, more complex QTEs isn't a fun way to ramp up the difficulty of a game. This was still a problem years later in action games like God of War.
Redoing whole sections was still common in games in 2002. It's a holdover from the previous gen when checkpoints were extremely far apart (if they existed at all), unlike today when games auto-save constantly.
But the problem is that that kind of QTEs is super unclear on how they're supposed to be reproduced, sometimes they fail for no apparent reason. Like, that first one after the fight, it's just a direction and A, it's not hard at all but it failed after the directional input.
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I failed so much of those godawful QTEs that required both directional and a button input. Eventually, I found you are supposed to input the commands as soon as you see them, not to wait until you see all the sequence
Yeah, I kinda figured that out today since that section of the game has so many and it seemed the most reliable way, but can you press them as fast as you want or do you need to reproduce their timing?
I've absolutely have no idea lmao I tried to mimic the timing as much as I could, that seemed to work the best
Yeah, I'm not saying the multi-input QTEs are good. They've always been finicky and confusing. It's nothing new to these ports, that's for sure.
I think they lessen the amount of time you have to start and finish the combo later in the game, because with some of the easy ones like kicking the door down with Ren, you can definitely press both prompts after they've both flashed on-screen. Whereas with later ones it feels like you definitely fail if you wait for the entire prompt to flash before inputting the buttons. It makes it feel inconsistent which is always bad in game mechanics.
I think they lessen the amount of time you have to start and finish the combo later in the game, because with some of the easy ones like kicking the door down with Ren, you can definitely press both prompts after they've both flashed on-screen. Whereas with later ones it feels like you definitely fail if you wait for the entire prompt to flash before inputting the buttons. It makes it feel inconsistent which is always bad in game mechanics.
The command QTEs are annoying and one of my least favourite things about Shenmue II. I feel like they were worse in the HD ports though, because of how glitchy the QTEs can be. I haven't played enough of the ports after the most recent patch, though, so not sure if they have been improved or not.
In the original game I always waited until all button inputs had displayed before pressing any. There was definitely enough time for that. Perhaps they changed the timing?
I'm still on break from Shenmue II to finish Yakuza Kiwami 2, but I'll be getting back to it this week. If someone else doesn't confirm that the timing is the same by then, I'll follow up when I make it to the appropriate point during disc 2. If they broke it then it needs to be reported to them.
So I've finished Yakuza 2 Kiwami, and went back to Shenmue II. Doing some of the tougher arm wrestling mini games the game will prompt for those QTEs, and you are supposed to wait until it shows all of the inputs before doing it I think.
That's interesting. I wonder if that was done to keep the controls consistent across both games?
A plausible scenario is that this isn't a bug and is instead the product of input lag. Just a theory of mine but I think it's a pretty likely one.
The multi-QTEs are neat during certain scenes but most of the time they are just annoying. Easily the biggest thing that keep me away from loving Shenmue II as much as I do the first game.
Totally agree with the QTE thingy... also, playing on PS4, I had quite a few crashes on Shenmue 2 (none on 1), I ended saving nearly at every corner just to prevent having to do a lot of backtracking in the middle end of the game
I really hope that with 3, they do not fall to nostalgia and add all the bad things of 1 and 2
I really hope that with 3, they do not fall to nostalgia and add all the bad things of 1 and 2
I'm worried they'll feel obligated to do this, but I don't think Yu Suzuki will let the team do too much of this.
This is a genuine concern of mine. Of course there are many things that should stay the same, such as the focus on real exploration; the need to pay attention to detail and learn the specifics of a place. As soon as you include a modern mini-map, waypoints or other visual indicators, you're no longer making a Shenmue game.
Having a mix of combat, exploration and cinematics (regular and QTE) is also vital, but it doesn't mean they have to be exactly the same. Take QTEs, for example. Including something as simple as a visual countdown to let players know how long they have to press a button would be an instant improvement.
Nothing I've seen of Shenmue III has given me cause for concern, but I admit I was kind of disappointed that Yu Suzuki caved into fan pressure by including forklift driving again (if it isn't confirmed it has at least been heavily hinted at). Seems completely nostalgia-driven, with almost zero merit for being included, and I'm sure some of the "demand" was just for the lulz. I'm sure they'll make it work but I would've preferred to see something new.
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It wasn't input lag, at least not for me. I just got to the part of the game with the freeze-QTEs and can confirm that they work the same as the original. I'm able to complete them after it shows you all of the inputs. The timing is pretty tight though, so if you've failed one before you're better off starting sooner which I didn't even think to do.
I will say that I'm finding Izumi's QTE harder on a PS4 controller than on a Dreamcast controller. Not sure if it's button spacing or what, but my preferred method of doing X+B, Y+A ([]+O, /\+X) is much harder on the PS4 controller. I'm used to doing that with 2 fingers and it's awkward here.
Someone with the game installed on PC can tell me if there's another patch in the beta branch? Because D3T used to post about the beta patch in the Steam forums, but I find nothing regarding it, are they still working to fix the game?
EDIT: https://twitter.com/SEGA_Europe/status/1048225313430405122
EDIT: https://twitter.com/SEGA_Europe/status/1048225313430405122
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I'm running through Spider-Man at the moment, but these patch notes are looking good.
Still saving my Shenmue II platinum run.
Still saving my Shenmue II platinum run.
holy shit
This is one I ran into. <3
D3T got a raw deal in this, but I'm glad they are committed to making it right as best they can.
Probably it's Sega forcing their hands, considering the game still needs to be released in Japan, so they are fixing as much stuff as they can so the japanase release will be less buggy.
I found QTE's harder on PS4 due to the lack of button color and had to really on a shape, the pink of the Square Button was hard to process in the brain
Just to follow up on this post I made previously, because the topic at hand resurfaced today and I haven't seen it mentioned again yet.
I was wrong about what the remaining option on the sound options screen was. I barely know any Japanese, and so when I saw no 日本語 under display options I knew the Japanese text option was missing and I assumed that the remaining option on the sound options screen was voice. The remaining toggle under the sound options screen is actually the Game Mode / Shenmue Mode option for subtitles, which I assumed was under display options and not sound options.
So in short, we knew almost 2 weeks ago from the TGS video that the Japanese version does not have any English options at all.
Still keeping my pre-order of the Japanese version though, since I want the physical soundtrack.
"Forcing their hand" by paying them to keep working on the game because they made them release it before it was finished. The blame lies with SEGA, not d3t.
Well yeah, I mean, Sega forced them to release the game on a broken status but at least they are giving them money to keep fixing the game. If Sega wouldn't give them money, we wouldn't have patches.
I wouldn't expect it at least until the end of the month for consoles, but who knows.
I'm gonna keep my preorder too but I'm probably going to buy a digital copy of it on Xbox as well (once this patch rolls out anyway). Looking forward to getting back to these games for the first time in at least 10 years.
Finished Shenmue 1 yesterday. Good thing I never played it earlier, because I certainly wouldn't have had the patience for the last part and the horrible combat gameplay.
It was a great experience tho and I'm glad I played it. I'm debating if I should play the second one right now or wait a bit, since I want to play RDR2 ASAP, and I wont be able to finish Shenmue 2 by then.
Do you folks think it's alright if I play it with a big break in between or should I focus on it completely? Also, is it exactly like the first game in its structure and gameplay, or can I expect some improvements on the gameplay?
It was a great experience tho and I'm glad I played it. I'm debating if I should play the second one right now or wait a bit, since I want to play RDR2 ASAP, and I wont be able to finish Shenmue 2 by then.
Do you folks think it's alright if I play it with a big break in between or should I focus on it completely? Also, is it exactly like the first game in its structure and gameplay, or can I expect some improvements on the gameplay?