Continue the saga that is Shenmue in an even better game than the original, converted over to the Xbox.
Almost a year later, SEGA-AM2 and Yu Suzuki released the second part of the legendary series. Unfortunately for the american audience, the game was only released in Europe and Japan. The U.S only got the game sometime later and it was for the Xbox. I'm not going to get into that because it just makes a bunch of people mad, including myself. It was just a disgusting move from Microsoft AND SEGA for abandoning and betraying its loyal fans in places other than Japan yet again...
For this review, I'm gonna focus on both versions that I played.
The game takes place right after the first one. Ryu arrives in Hong Kong's Wan Chai port looking for the mysterious person that is said that can help him. Immediately after arriving, Ryu manages to loose all of his cash to some little punk, and that's where the story starts.
Right after you step from the ship you'll notice how the game is beatiful. Again, the detail is so meticulous, you'll hear the tradicional instrumental chinese music and even see places that you can't find today in China, that were only there in the time the game takes place. For an example, Kowloon, one of the later areas, was demolished in the '90s, so you won't be seeing the buildings in the game if you ever go there. But trust me, the game was true to the landscape.
It just keeps the quality of the previous game and launches even higher... now there are more minigames, hidden arcade games and even items that can be sold for money in pawn shops. If you manage to use your original savefile from Shemue, you'll start the game with all of your previous cash converted to Hong Kong dollars and all of the items, including move scrolls. If you start the game with a clean file, some money will be given and the items will be some of the ones you could find. You can in fact convert your original savefile from an american version of the game to play it on the european one. It's a bit of a hassle, but it is garanteed to work. Look for the FAQ over at GameFAQs.
There are more fights and action scenes in this game. The button-press events are harder this time around and become a bit annoying in the fight-puzzle events that this game has. In some fights, in order to win, you'll need to imput the on-screen combo right on time to beat the opponent, if you don't he'll finish you... sometimes to your death. This makes the game somewhat more challenging, but I really prefered the origina's pace, since it's an adventure game.
Talking about the Xbox version, the game looks fine there. The few slowdowns of the DC's version are kind of gone. Some of them still occur. The game sports a photo camera to take pictures and the voice-acting has been done in English, bringing the original actors from Shenmue. In my oppinion this was a sad decision, since the game plays so well in Japanese. You feel more immersed playing in the original language. But, if you can't find the DC version or don't even have a Dreamcast any longer, you can play the Xbox version. It comes with a bonus disc that sports a little feature-film telling the story of Shenmue. The DC version has this too in its fourth disc, it's called the Digest Movie.
The Xbox version just feels strange playing... it's like its soul has kind of been sucked out at some parts, I think. At least I feel that sometimes when I play it. I just run back and turn my Dreamcast back on and plop Shenmue I and II there.
Shenmue II is a beatiful game and an annoyance at the same time. It's a beatiful game that you'll enjoy to its last drip, but it's annoying because once you finish it, you'll want to continue on to the story... that doesn't continue, since no sequel has been released. The game leaves you with a cliff-hanger that is lasting for more than four years now. Some talk of a sequel has been flying around since then, but Yu Suzuki has been playing hush-hush ever since. If you can, grab the Dreamcast version and play it. If that's not possible, grab the Xbox version. Both are quite hard to find nowadays, but it's possible. I did it for the DC, and I don't even live in Europe nor in the U.S...
Thanks for reading!