A beautiful spiritual journey and great adventure game.

User Rating: 10 | Shenmue II XBOX
Shenmue II is about a Japanese man named Ryo Hazuki who is trying to track down the man who killed his father.The man who killed Ryo's father is named Lan Di and Lan Di killed Ryo's father to steal a Phoenix Mirror and if all of the phoenix mirrors are put together,they will reveal the location of ancient treasure.

Ryo's journey will take him through Hong Kong,Kowloon and the mountains of China,but the story becomes more about him tracking down Lan Di and becomes a spiritual journey because Ryo will help out a street kid and learn the values of Taoism and martial arts.

Besides Ryo,the other characters include 'Joy' who is a cute,flirtacious woman,'Wong' who is a street kid who stole Ryo's bag but Ryo developed a soft spot for Wong,'Ren' who is an arrogant jerk who doesn't like Ryo,but wants to help Ryo so he can get his hands on the treasure and Ryo knows this is the only reason Ren wants to help him but Ryo allows Ren to help because he needs all the help he can get because he's outnumbered by Lan Di's gang members,'Master Lishao Tao'who is a beautiful female Taoist martial arts teacher and she explains to Ryo that revenge is the wrong path to take and it will only lead to destruction and you should only fight if you must and she teaches him that martial arts is also spiritual and not just physical(for example,'to the right thing without hesitation',and inner peace/patience(if Ryo can't catch a leaf that's slowly falling from a tree,how will he be able to defend himself from a powerful martial arts blow that could kill him)? and 'Shenhua' who is a beautiful,teenage girl,who lives in a little village in the Chinese mountains and Ryo has seen her in his dreams.

In the mountains of China,Ryo will travel to a village that's so issolated that many of the people in that village haven't seen much modern technology or have even heard of Japan! And they live a very traditional lifestyle and do things such as collecting water from a well,and hunting animals for food.

As for the gameplay,often you will travel from place to place and try to discover clues to Lan Di's whereabouts,and there is combat,and it's like beat em up style with Virtua Fighter style moves.Most of the enemies can be beaten by just pressing the kick button over and over,but,some bosses require you to use special moves and good timing and doing the QTEs right to beat them(some bosses can do an instant KO move on you if you don't do the QTE's correctly).The QTE's or Quick Time Events require you to press certain buttons and D-Pad movements,when you're trying to avoid an instant KO move,or when you're trying to dodge objects,or chasing somebody or being chased or other situations.If you don't do the QTE's correctly at certain times,it causes a game over situation.There's gameplay segments that involve searching for clues so you can escape from a room,or to a person's whereabouts or listening to recordings to gain information you need.

Shenmue II has a big,open sandbox style world.You can just go exploring and travel through the street markets,apartment buildings,streets,gambling areas,and walk past many stores or work in the industial areas for money or do street fighting or street gambling to make money or you can play video games such as Afterburner II and Outrun and some other classic SEGA games.

When you're inside the apartment buildings you can knock on the door of somebody's apartment room and sometimes the people will answer the door and have something interesting to say,or you can talk to people on the street and they will have an interesting story to tell you or information about what you need to know.

You can take photos of the beautiful scenery and in the city you'll see a nice paved area with a beautiful water fountain near the seaport.The Taoist temple is surrounded by many trees and looks so peaceful.There's little style stores everywhere and big commercial,residential and industrial buildings,and it gives Hong Kong and Kowloon a nice 1980's feel.

The game uses a day/night system and the city looks beatiful lite up at night and has random weather,and in Chinese mountains you'll see insects glowing above the lake at night!

There's beautiful scenery of mountains and forests and you will see lakes,wild animals and the traditional style village.

When you walk through the street markets,you will hear lovely,traditional Chinese music playing.In the city,the music can be quite fast paced to suit the busy environment and in the Taoist temple the music is so peaceful and it's the same in the Chinese mountain area too.

I think Shenmue II,is a beautiful and spiritual journey and great adventure game.