I'm glad the series is coming to a halt.
User Rating: 6.4 | Shenmue II XBOX
Don't get me wrong. I LOVED the first Shenmue for Dreamcast. It was so fresh, so original in game design. Sure it had some minor flaws, but that is what sequels are for, is so you can weed out the problems right? Wrong! Shenmue II fixes some of the problems (mainly with play control) but adds a host of new ones and frankly I don't want to see the series go down hill any further. Basically Ryo is back and still looking for Lan Di. He's in Hong Kong and has to follow a boring trail of bread crumbs until he finds the next person he needs to gather information from. After the poor idea of leavign Nazomi behind, Ryo has a host of new young attractive ladies going after him, as well as a plethera of Martial Arts instructors banging downt he door to teach him. Not only that but every blue collar boss wants him to join his gang. To put the story line in a nut shell, your going to be doing lots of running around. You'll also be doing a bunch of chores. The plot unfolds very slowly and the fight scenes are even more infrequent. Lets talk graphics. Shenmue was a graphical break through on the Dreamcast. No one had ever made such expressive, detailed characters before, and given the graphical power of the X Box they were sure to get better right? Wrong again! The graphics have gotten worse. The players who aren't major in this game are so 2-D looking and pixilated that they just look ugly. Almost something you would have found back in the N64 days. The major players are well rendered, but you don't get to interact with them as much. The controls have gotten slightly better. You can use the joystick to run, but the camera is such a piece of junk it's hard to stop in the right spot and use what ever thing you need to use/do. Th camera during the free fight modes is even worse. The musical score is much more poor and sparse then the first. The voice overs and the translation from Japanese to English is terrible. Basically Shenmue II would only keep a Shenmue fan happy so you can continue the story. To the casual gamer or someone just getting introduced there is no reason to play it. It's pretty boring. You'll have to grin and bear a lot of running around and pointless chores and conversations.
