Yo dudes, Shenmue avatars are taking over!
I have to say, while I am both excited and a tiny bit fearful of Shenmue III's development process (which won't be a cakewalk), I don't know about other forum members but since III became all but a dream some 10 years ago, I'll admit to ignoring the first two games because the thought of no III stung too hard. I played and replayed the first game, and played through the second twice - once on Dreamcast and once on Xbox, but since around 2004 I really haven't seriously replayed the games outside of revisiting old save files for 30 mins or so during Dreamcast anniversary streams.
But now, with III happening, I feel that I can finally return to the first two and replay them with that sense of sadness replaced with anticipation for III.