Author Topic: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on  (Read 8766 times)

Offline upsidedown fuji

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Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« on: December 03, 2010, 02:32:13 am »
So after finding out this game has finally launched today, I decided to check it out.

Sorry for lack of resized images. I just want to get this post over with so I can study.



I rarely use my phone for anything outside text messages, so loading up a game and seeing all this stuff on my screen was pretty new for me.



First you are prompted to choose what class your character will be. You are given 3 choices. I chose physical which in turn made me a fighter class character. You are also given the option to change your mind if you aren't sure you want to be what you inadvertently selected.



Next, you are greeted by a slide show version of the opening movie of Shenmue 1 with animated falling snow.



After the intro, Ine-san greets you and pleads to you to go out on a quest to find and catch up with Ryo to stop him.



A small roughly animated portrait of Nozomi narrates you through a series of static menu screens you run into a little girl at your neighborhood shrine named Megumi. Megumi gives you a sidequest to find name, and feed her cat. You earn items and currency as you complete each. There isn't much choice besides just clicking continue so you can't really name the cat like you could in the game. The game automatically named the kitten Mimi for me.



After helping Megumi with the cat I was prompted with a boss-fight. The boss fight was just a stray brown dog, like the ones you'd see wandering the hills of Sakuragaoka in the Dreamcast version. So you duke it out classic RPG style while it prompts you after each turn if you want to keep fighting or run away. I kept fighting and beat the dog and earned some items and more cash.



After leveling up my character's strength by 1 point, I completed the first mission and ran into Ryo who demanded to know what I was doing and who the heck I am.



And that's where I am now. I'm not sure if I will play that much as it is basically a time sapping stat managing game. I may be over simplifying it as I still haven't tried other parts of the game yet but it does seem promising. It definitely is something worth trying if you can read Japanese and like Shenmue. It feels good to be able to play something somewhat new that is Shenmue related, even if it is kind of what I played 10 years ago, but now in slideshow form.

Here's a link to my photobucket folder of my hastily taken shots of the game. Some pictures came out sharp, while others aren't so hot. I give SEGABits full permission to use my pictures on your front page if you want.

Here's the album link with the originals:
http://s235.photobucket.com/albums/ee27 ... ue%20City/

Also, fire away with question guys. :D
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 pm by Guest »

Offline Sharky

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2010, 02:40:29 am »
Awesome Upside down Fuji!

Do you know if more then one quest can be taken at a time?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 pm by Guest »
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Offline upsidedown fuji

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2010, 02:54:58 am »
From what I've played so far, admittedly not much, it seems you can take one main quest at a time and have side quests like the Megumi encounter in between.

I'll play more later to confirm this. I'm curious to see what role Ryo plays in all of this.

[And on a side note for any of you who might have wondered why I spell upside down incorrectly, I do know how to properly spell upside down the right way. It's just that I use "upsidedown fuji" as my internet handle for different sites. Some don't allow spaces or hyphens or are very limited in character spaces, so I just bunched the two words together to make a false compound word.]
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Offline CrazyT

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2010, 07:08:22 am »
Reading your description of the game only got me more interested. I like these sort of games.

Waiting for pc version however.
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Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #4 on: December 03, 2010, 07:44:07 am »
Cool stuff! Thanks Fuji! Obviously a cell phone game is going to be simple, so I can't knock it for being simplistic. However I'm really hoping the PC version has 3D models. Have we seen screens of the PC version yet?

Oh! And keep up the playthrough! Any info you can give on the side stories would be awesome.
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Offline upsidedown fuji

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #5 on: December 03, 2010, 08:02:36 am »
Thanks for the positive input guys.

So I completed yet another quest. This time I played with some boy near the general store in Sakuragaoka and fought with the taller of the two high school bullies. The fight with the high school bully was a boss fight so I got to try out one of the special attack scrolls I just picked up from a special encounter with Negishi-san.

After the boss encounter for this section I bumped into Ryo, who told me about how his father was killed and how he vowed vengeance. And then, went back into quest mode again.

Every thing seems to flow close enough with the original Shenmue 1 story.

I am not sure how much different the browser version of the game will be but I doubt 3D models would be used. I expect something similar to what's happening on my phone but in higher-resolution with music maybe.

One more thing I tinkered around with was the menu system. At nearly any point in the game you can buy goods, try your luck at gashpon machines, and refine your skills. I haven't tried the gashpon stuff yet but I am curious what role they'd play other than just something for your collection. :/
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Offline Alex Supersonic

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2010, 08:09:36 am »
Interesting :)

Thanks for your impressions and pictures, keep posting  8-)
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Offline Barry the Nomad

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Offline Sharky

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #8 on: December 03, 2010, 09:38:07 am »
Barry are you putting this on the front page or should I do it?
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Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #9 on: December 03, 2010, 10:02:55 am »
best that you do it, I have to be leaving the internet for a bit (work related things going on)
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Offline Suzuki Yu

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #10 on: December 03, 2010, 10:25:15 am »
thank you for the impressions
i would like you to keep updating this thread, keep posting whenever you have time : )
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Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #11 on: December 03, 2010, 12:30:44 pm »
I know the game won't touch on this, but I always wondered how and when they buried Iwao Hazuki. His murder occurs on November 29, 1986, then four days later the game kicks off. I guess they carried through with the full ceremony in that time, two days total when you count the murder as one day and the fourth day as one. That's rather fast to do everything in that amount of time. From reading this, it seems like a lengthy procedure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_funeral
And it looks like Ryo, the eldest son, would have been in charge of orchestrating the whole thing.

That's what Shenmue City needed! Funeral planning!
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Offline upsidedown fuji

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #12 on: December 03, 2010, 06:13:55 pm »
Well, I can try to shed a little light onto Iwao's funeral. I've been to two funerals and have associated with 2 other seniors who have passed away but didn't need to attend their funerals.

Japanese hold a wake for the deceased about a day to two days after the person dies. Depending the wake is taken care of by family and they all sit in a hall quietly while a priest prays and friends, co-workers, and other family visit to pay respect, give gifts, and give a silent prayer. After the funeral there would be a dinner party after the funeral for lack of a better word where the family has a dinner at a nice restaurant.

I am convinced Iwao had a similar arrangement as he was very well off as head of a dojo. I am sure he had a large funeral with a lot of the town's folk attending. Since Ryo was very close with his father, I am sure he was at the funeral but I don't think he handled the arrangements. Someone like Ine-san would probably have worked out all the arrangements since she's the caretaker.

So, during those 4 days between the 1st intro cut-scene and Ryo's first day out is enough to take care of the funeral and cremation/burial afterward.

It's a shame we couldn't see it like we saw one in Yakuza, but now you know that it probably did happen.

edit:I totally didn't notice the game starts 4 days after Lan Di murders Ryo's father. That is more than enough time for the wake. I'm going to clean up my comment to reflect this.
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Offline Nathan

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #13 on: December 03, 2010, 06:46:14 pm »
Nice impressions! Game looks like it could be fun, keep the information and pictures flowing, please! :D
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Offline Barry the Nomad

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Re: Shenmue Gai (Shenmue City) Hands-on
« Reply #14 on: December 03, 2010, 06:53:09 pm »
Thanks for all the cultural knowledge! Very interesting stuff. Iwao's funeral would have been very epic to be seen on screen, though I don't think I'd be able to see his lifeless body. He's too much of an awesome character to see in that state.
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