It gets a lot better

[Shenmue 2 - Sega Dreamcast]

Hello people,

I thought about cracking out my arcade joystick for the crate lifting. And then I thought there must be a better way. So I looked up a guide online. And they said the best way to get wads of money was to gamble. I went to the closest gambling place I could find and won around 2000 yen!! And before I knew it I was on disc 3!

What can I say about the opening sequence to disc 3. I can see that they were going for an epic scene where Ryo Hazuki arrives in Kowloon. I’m sure the real Koloon of Hong Kong is very impressive. However what you get are a big clump of sky scrapers that all look the same, jumbled together in a mass of grey.

Once I’d got over the opening I thought right lets get on with the story. You play as Ryo. At this point in the game you are with a guy called Wuying Ren, who is helping you get to Yuanda Zhu who will lead you to Lan Di, who killed your father. Somehow Ren wants a cut of money from somewhere in these shenanigans. It’s been a fair few years since I was playing this game, so I don’t fully understand the story.The general gist of Kowloon seems to be lots of bldgs as the game puts it, shopping centres for the rest of us. Some are full of tea shops, some have just a couple of pawn shops in them. And for an hour or so I’m being told to go this and that building, which is fine.

Any-who, I’ve just completed a cool and actually pretty funny section where you get stuck with Ren, handcuffed together in a locked cell. There’s a long of QTE*, where you and Ren escape. It’s actually quite fun, and some of the dynamic between Ren and Ryo comes across well.

Then there’s an odd min-game where you listen to loads of audio cassettes. There’s also a funny bit on there where a voice tells you where to find After Burner II and Hang On, but it’s in English. It sounds like a Japanese woman trying to sound American, I guess if Japanese was your first language you wouldn’t be able to tell.

My current notes in the game say: “Zhu’s associate was captured by Yuan. Find her quickly with Ren’s help.” But seeing as I now know where After Burner II and Hang On are, I think I’ll check them out first…

*QTE = Quick Timer Event – buttons/directions come up on screen, and you have to quickly press them to continue in the cut scene. It’s been used allot in God Of War (PS2), and all the way through Fahrenheit (Xbox/PS2/PC)

[ Posted by Robert Langley-Jones ]