You guys have touched upon a lot of classic characters.
Including some of the more obscure...
When I talk about this game with some of my buds, two characters almost always stand out... Ren and Guizhang. You are either on Team Ren or Team Guizhang. I go from one to another every once in a while.
I'm very partial to Shenhua. And it's kinda sad because we still barely know anything about her at this point. But there are so many unanswered questions towards her character and stuff.
Same goes with Joy. In the hands of a lesser developer, she would just be fanservice fodder, but in Shenmue II, she's a fully fleshed out character. When I started up Shenmue II for the very first time, she made an impact on me from the very start. When she brought Ryo over to the Guest House, I felt a genuine sense of "Wow, I'm a completely different place". I still want to figure out what she said the morning after...