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Sega Dreamcast Reviews Shenmue One of the Dreamcast's most hyped-up games is finally out, so just how good is it? Yeah, it has great graphics, but I'm sure we all know graphics don't make the game; this is evidant in a game like Shenmue, which is plagued by poor gameplay and its replayability (or lack thereof). STORY: 3/10 Extremely basic. Father is killed. Son takes revenge. But, there's one other thing: throughout Ryo's quest for revenge, it is obvious that Ryo's friend, Nyomo, has feelings for him, but neither make any moves, and Ryo is too obsessed with his vendetta that he doesn't even realize it. Nyomo, however, doesn't say anything that makes him realize it; the most sentimental thing she says to him is probably, "I hope you don't get hurt." And no matter how hard you, the player, tries to get things rolling with Nyomo, Ryo is strictly business with her. Oh, the last thing: the ending sucked. I'm not gonna tell you how it sucked, because I don't want to spoil the game for you, but just believe me on this: it sucked. The ending is screaming of, "Haha! The ending is incomplete! That means you have to waste fifty dollars on Shenmue 2!! We got you hooked, and if you wanna know what happens, you gotta buy the next game!! Ha, we tricked ya there, didn't we!?" Damn you, Sega.... GAMEPLAY: 4/10 Step 1: Ask person a question. This person might lead you to another person, or you might have to ask someone else. Step 2: Ask the person referred to you by the person in Step 1 another question. He will refer you to another person. Step 3: Repeat steps 1-2 indefinitely. Seriously, that's how you play the game in a nutshell. True, there are a couple side quests (such as collecting some rare items), but its rather useless. Its not like the items are actually hard to find, or they even have some worth! Instead, you just sit in front of a vending machine and keep popping in coins, hopeing for the item you're looking for. God, talk about pethetic... Also, there are many times in the game you already know who you're supposed to go to, but Ryo needs to be told who to go to by someone else. You can't just skip any steps. For example, Ryo needs to find out about Chinese people in one part of the game. You're screaming at the TV, "Ryo, go to the #$%@$ Chinese Restaurant!!" but Ryo needs to be told by someone else to go to the Chinese Restuarant, and if you do go to the Chinese Restaurant before asking someone else, Ryo will most likely just say, "Hey, how was your day?" or something along those lines. Another thing: Shenmue was advertised as a "go anywhere, do anything" type of game, but that's not entirely true. Sure, you can pick up almost anything, but you can actually only take a handful of items, and most of those are completely worthless. You see doors to houses and stores, but you can actually only enter half of them; the doors are usually either locked or the person inside screams "Go away!" (Er, not really, but that's what they mean). Yeah, you can talk to nearly all of them, but once again, only a handful actually tell you anything helpful; most of them usually say something along the lines of, "I'm very busy, go away," or "I'm not allowed to talk to strangers, go away." Another thing was the fact that it takes place in real time. Sure, it was a great idea in theory, but it was executed extremely poorly. Very frequently throughout the game you'll be asked to meet a person at 10 o'clock tomorrow night, when its only 8 o'clock in the morning when the meeting is set up, so you have to wait around for two days (game time). Also, the game is incredibly easy and incredibly short. Some sort of "epic saga" this turned out to be.... GRAPHICS: 9/10 Probably the only good thing about this game. The graphics were nearly perfect, the best I've ever seen on the Dreamcast (or anywhere else, for that matter). The only thing I noticed was that the ears on people looked deformed, but thats it. AUDIO: I felt the need to split up "Audio" into two sub-categories: Voice Acting and All Other Audio Besides the Voice Acting VOICE ACTING: 1/10 Horrible. Simply horrible. The characters speak with no expression in their voices. It sounds as if they don't even know what they're saying. They pause at just the wrong times, and on some of the people (since the same voices are used for more than one person in the game) you'll hear this scratchy, coked-up voice and want to throw something at the TV, or you'll hear some guy who has a horrible lisp and talks like he has the IQ of a potato and want to throw something at the TV. Either way, throwing something at the TV in inevitable. ALL OTHER AUDIO BESIDES VOICE ACTING: 9/10 Beautiful. Simply beautiful, in contrast to the Voice Acting. There's no other way to describe it. REPLAY VALUE: 0/10 Zero. None. Nil. Cero. You get the picture, right? Like I said before, the only "side-quest" is that stupid toy-collecting quest, and its completely worthless. There's not even any satisfaction received after you've collected all the toys., because there was really nothing hard about it. If you're interested in this game, in spite of my long rant, then it would behoove you to rent it. I can almost guarantee you could beat the game in the rental period; it's that short, and after you beat it, I can further guarantee you will not have the urge to play it again; it's that boring. |
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