'tis best to follow
a game about warehousing
with more warehousing
Additional Comments:
To speak of Shenmue, I feel I must begin with a wholly controversial; borderline, er...perhaps over the line blasphemous remark. Simply put, I am flabbergasted beyond words that this game is held in such high accord among the gaming community. Maybe dumbstruck's a better word, because that's exactly how I felt the entire playthrough - stricken dumb by the idea that Shenmue dares call itself a game.
Well, to continue the tale of 2014, Shenmue is yet another game that's been collecting dust on my backlog of unfinished games, although extraneous circumstances also came into play here. I've been meaning to perform a battery swap on my Dreamcast ever since I bought it a couple years back and just failed to do so out of laziness. Of course, blaming "technical" issues is farcical at best as the system is still playable. But my obsessive compulsive behavior got the best of me every time I powered the system on and had to re-enter the date and time, eventually growing tiresome of the task. Luckily, Shenmue's such a pile that my apathetic predisposition solved the apparent problem at hand. Only drawback is that all my other Dreamcast games found themselves tucked away in the recesses of my collection until the required repairs were made.
I finally got around to making the appropriate repair and as such decided to wipe another game from the unfinished slate. Dropped in the disc and turned the game on. Crap! I haven't the foggiest idea what's going on in this game anymore; never mind how to even do anything. At this point, I felt the best course of action was to simply start over again. I had no clue where I left off, what I was supposed to be doing, or why I should care and given how much emphasis is placed on conversation in this game, attempting to continue after a two year lapse was not only hopeless, but stupid.
Ok then! Shenmue! From the beginning! Let's see what it's all about. And might I add, I'm attempting to go into this playthrough with more of an open mind, hoping to put aside my previous bellyaching. Oh my god, it's all coming back to me. I suddenly remember why I condemned this game and lambasted it with a snide meme a couple years back in one of my anniversary posts. But before I fall headfirst into a laundry list of complaints, I want to try and remark on those few redeeming values found within.
The overhead music heard within Dobuita's Tomato Convenience Store is the catchiest piece of elevator music I've ever heard and I'd purposefully put aside the troubles of tunnel-visioned vengeance just for a quick earful of its delights.
And...and...that's it. Seriously, that's it! Ok, maybe there's a few more positives than that, but I'll be damned if I know what they are. I'm really wracking my head trying to think of commendable qualities and every time I think I have one, it's riddled with failure. Even Tomato's BGM is a peculiarity given how the rest of the music is sappy drivel or humdrum atmospherics. No. Both "sappy" and "atmospherics" are too descriptive and enlightening to describe the unemotional, drawn out boredom that is the soundtrack of Shenmue. I'd be happy if it was at least cliché, but it's not even that. It's certainly not painful or distracting to listen to, but it adds absolutely nothing to an already boring game. For collection purposes, I bought as many cassettes as I could, but couldn't bring myself to listen to any of them. I tried, but it's all just so...awful. So awful. What a waste of yen and time. But honestly, the music is the least of my grievances.
Where should I start? The controls? The plot? The voice acting? Or any of the various elements that come together hoping to mesh into a cohesive game and achieve realism as it has never been seen before? I need to stop right there. I'll admit that for the time, considering when the game came out, Shenmue managed some pretty impressive innovations in game design and presentation. I think a lot of what's going on in the game can easily be taken for granted when compared to games today. Shenmue managed a certain beauty and depth that was all but absent in most games before its time, but it also botched it all up with primitive game play elements that's barely a step above an interactive storybook.
I suppose I'll get the easy stuff out of the way first. Controls. I can't really blame the game for the controls as the Dreamcast's controller is complete bollocks, but I think they could have done a better job using the tools at hand. Movement should have been applied to the joystick. I can't understand why the camera got precedence over movement when it came to control application, especially since the camera is so useless outside of a few first person explorations, and even then it's shitty at best because of the camera lock. Since the d-pad and joystick both occupy the left side of the controller, you will pretty much never use both at the same time. They could have easily applied both to the joystick having the camera only function while zoomed into first person view. One of the main reasons why I would have liked to seen movement set to the joystick is to allow for better overall turning and to get rid of that awful down equals quick turn garbage. Also, the d-pad makes the movement feel spongy. Heck, all of the controls feel rather spongy. If it wasn't for the fact that my controller is brand new, I'd put it down to the controller itself, but the controls in this game are just so unresponsive except when it comes to the fighting.
Actually, the fighting mechanic turned out to be one of the better elements in the game. Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan of fighting games, mostly because I despise thumb-twisting button combos used to perform enough moves to fill an almanac. To me, these types of games just end up being button mashers. Same proved true here. In the beginning, I tried to adhere to various button combos. Since the controls managed to be spot on for this part of the game, I was able to perform the required protocol for each move-set quite handily. However, as the game wore on and various "teachers" continued to teach me additional moves, I became disinterested in move-set memorization. This resulted in regressing back to classic button mashing. Just throw a bunch of kicks and move on. I don't think I even used the move Master Chen offers before the final battle as I had a hard enough time fumbling with it during its mastering. Kick and wait, and then kick again - that's all you need. Mad Angels defeated.
Before I move on, since I'll find myself circling back around to the fighting mechanic, I have to wonder about the QTE segments. For a game that's attempting realism and fully immersive play, the QTE segments are like that of an asshole suddenly running up and throwing mud in your eye. They're nothing but a dickish memorization mechanic quickly ruining any sense of immersion. Yu managed to create a living, breathing community within Shenmue, and as I said, given the time, is a spectacular achievement. As such, it's one of the earliest games where I think the player can make a genuine bond with Ryo or any other element within the game because there's a certain warmth of environment. Er, I use the term "warmth" loosely here, as the game is anything but warm, but more on that later. But then you have these QTE segments that suddenly reminds us how cold and mechanical a video game really is. Perhaps if choice on the player's part came into play, these scenes would actually add something to the game. Instead, they're practices in memorization and nothing more. Other than two scenes, if you fail you have to redo the whole scene. Why? Why aren't these just cutscenes if that's the case!? There's no reason for any of the QTE segments if there's no chance for optional outcomes. If I wanted to memorize a sequence of buttons presses, I'd play any number of present day music games, or hell, Battletoads.
Or...or, here's a brilliant idea. Since a majority of the QTE segments are based on scripted fighting, why couldn't they have taken advantage of the already implemented fighting engine and let the player determine their own fate? The fighting engine sees so little use as it is. Outside of practice or sparring with Fukuhara, fighting is a rarity. I spent more time driving a fucking forklift than I did fighting! Yea, that's what kids want in their games: forklift simulation. But, we'll offer them a fighting mechanic as a tease by minimizing the amount of playable fighting by storyboarding most of the fighting into constrictive "interactive" cutscenes that rely on quick reflexes and memorization. What the fuck!?
Ah yes, the forklifts. Ok, it's not so much that I loathe Shenmue's sudden urge to become a dockside simulator - although I do - but more how the game seems to give the player a diminishing sense of freedom by the time you reach the third disc. Ryo's day job as a forklift operator already eats up so much of your day. You'd think once the whistle blows full control of Ryo's will would fall back into the player's hand. Well, technically it does, but only if you have the same desires to stay within the confines of Yokosuka Harbor that the game demands. I understand that at this point of the game, everything needed to progress the story is in the harbor, but I'm not a fan of the sudden hand-holding approach the game takes to keep you there. I thought the game was built around this idea of world freedom. If I want to leave the harbor before 9:00pm, or whatever time Shenmue finally concedes to Ryo's wishes to return to the comforts of home, then let me.
Then there's the forced sleeping. Itself, it's not really an issue, but by the time you reach the third disc and take on a job , the two compulsory elements combined strip the player of all real freedoms. Hey, I guess it is like real life after all. Wait. Why would I want to play a game like real life? Games are supposed to be entertainment and a way to escape real life. You can't even make decent use of the money you earn because that two hour window between being allowed to leave Yokosuka Harbor and having to return home for a night's sleep is just barely enough to take advantage of anything on offer in Dobuita, which is limited itself since half the town is shut down by that point. Suppose I can pick up a few cassettes at Tomato and catch a quick listen of its captivating Siren song.
What was I initially jabbering on about? Ah yes, the forklifts - another "If I" moment. If I wanted to play a game that's all about moving boxes, I'll go back to playing Shove It!, and believe me, that game was a hell of a lot more fun.
Moving on to the story. First, I want to hit up the voice acting. Granted the voice acting obviously doesn't fit the characterization, but that's not my issue. My issue is that they could have done a better job. A few particular characters have decent voices: Nozomi and Fukuhara come to mind, as do some of the various elderlies, notably Ine. Their voices seem to fit their personas. Then there's others where the voices are either too strongly Amercanized or even have some odd accent attached. I swore I heard someone with an ever so slight Aussie inflection. What? And then there's Ryo. It wasn't so much his voice but his way of speaking. Why is his speaking so slow and carefully articulated. It's so unnatural compared to everyone else, or anyone else. He sounds akin to a first grader who can only use monosyllabic words. Combined with his constant hounding: "On that day, did you see a black car? What can you tell me about that black car? Do you know anyone who may know about Chinese people? Do you know where I can find any sailors? Do you know about the Mad Angels? Do you know where I can get a job? Do you know of any travel agencies?..."
Hold on. That last question I literally asked someone directly in front of the door to the travel agency. Is Ryo that fucking dense? Does he have any clue of what's going on in the world or is he so preoccupied with revenge that he's got blinders on when it comes to everything else. Given how obtuse he is when it comes to Nozomi, should it really be of any surprise? Even Eri's constant nagging, hoping to snap him out of his fog is no use - although her frustration over the matter was of an even more discerning nature. Actually, when it came to the subplot between Ryo and Nozomi, this was another part of the game where I wish the player had more input allowing for multiple outcomes. Otherwise, just leave me to my clichéd ploy of vengeance and let me get on with my life.
Then again, the way Ryo and Nozomi's subplot is handled speaks volumes in regards to the rest of the game, much like the QTE segments. The player serves no real purpose in this game. Yu Suzuki should have realized what he was really trying to accomplish here is a movie. Instead, trying to shoehorn a game into Shenmue, we're stuck with a mix between Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, a point and click failure, and some sort of harbor simulator. Sure there's a few other mechanics thrown in there, but they're all so worthless or negligible to the overall oeuvre - what's the point?
As a final slap in the face, the game ends on such a miserable moment. I suppose I shouldn't have expected much figuring the first disc pushed me through a total of four or five inquiries; same with the second, and finishing off with the third disc's demand for manual labor. Still, I had hoped the story would have moved along more than it did. I was shocked when a pop-up informed me to insert the second disc. I barely did anything. It felt as though everything I accomplished on the first disc would have merely been the intro on some other game. Then again, you need to factor in when the game was released and all that. But no. When you condense everything on the first disc down to its core, there's literally no gameplay there, yet a third of the game is finished. Wow! If it is gameplay, than I'm correct in my assertion that the first disc is nothing but a Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? clone.
Another quick point to bring up while speaking of plot is the notebook. By the time I reached the end of the game, I couldn't believe how many blank entries, or even pages I still had. I was pretty thorough with whom I talked to at any given moment in the game, yet I somehow missed out on over half the information or clues in the game. Not that any of it was conducive to overall outcome, but I found it bewildering that I managed to skip so much material involuntarily. I remember one specific part of the game where I came out of the tattoo parlor and Nozomi was waiting there to speak with me and I somehow missed a piece of information between those two moments even though there was literally nothing else I could have done. Yet there was a very obvious gap in my notes. Was the fucking staircase going to give me a clue? Perhaps I could have gleaned other methods of travel to Hong Kong from the neighbor's hyosatsu. What the hell, man!?
I expected so much more from this game. Considering how widely acclaimed Shenmue is, I expected sooo much more. Everywhere you look, people heap boatloads of unending praise on this game, and it flat out baffles me. For instance, I don't consider Ocarina of Time a 10 out of 10 game, but I can fully understand why so many others would. But Shenmue - fuck... Shenmue is also considered a 10 out of 10 and has even topped lists as one of the best games ever made, and I just can't see it. For the life of me, I can't see it. And I'm trying my absolute best to look at it through the glasses of 1999 (well, 2000 for those of us in the west) when the game was released. Shenmue is one of the worst games I've ever played. I think the only reason I kept going, besides wanting to wipe it from my list of unfinished games, was hoping Ryo's faculties would ignite and something would become of Ryo and Nozomi's "relationship" instead of an emotionless, "Yeah." But Ryo's lack of emotion outside of his drive for vengeance is a mirror of the game as a whole - a cold, flat, soulless world with music and characters to match. Even the player can ingrain himself in this detached cinema through the mechanical QTE segments. Huzzah!
There's so much more I could go on about, but this post is far too long as it is, and...that's just sad.
Rating: 2 alluring florists out of 5*
*Actually, a 1.5 is more of a proper rating in my eyes, but then 1.5 florists would have made no sense. Consider that a free pass, Shenmue.
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