Just bought Shenmue 2 for my XBox.The voice acting could be a lot better but from what I played so far the game seems superb!
I couldn’t resist so I played a bit of the game before seeing the movie of the first Shenmue.
I have a question for everyone that has seen that movie : is there any adicional info I should know?
Oh and one question about the fighting system : are moves almost random (as they seem sometimes) or are there actually combos and especific moves?
Erm, no it isn’t random >< There is a vast amount of moves… I dunno how you could pull up the menu on the Xbox version. As for the plot I don’t think theres anything else you need to know.
Shenmue 1 is a must have ;( The movie will cover a lot but the game as whole was a better experience than it’s sequel in my opinion and everyone should play that first if he can help it instead of just watching the movie…
And yes the fighting system is NOT random like Shadows said, it’s a finely crafted and very complex fighting system that shares a lot of elements with Virtua Fighter series (Especially 3 since thats the one that had the dodge button like Shenmue has if I’m not mistaken…) and in some aspects even more complex (getting moves mastered by using them a lot, learning new moves, emphasis on countering -NOTHING like the DOA series- instead of just simple blocking which isnt as easy or efficient as in normal fighting games etc etc)
The dubs are funny but after playing shen 1 and 2 on the dreamcast i think they add to the series… I love how Ryo says “I see…”. If you can get a hold of shenmue 1 would definately recommed, the atmosphere is brilliant in that game, they small town atmosphere really serves to get you involved in Ryo’s quest. The Winter feeling is also captured perfectly. Shenmue 1 is a must have, even in comparison to todays games it is still one of the all time greats of the industry. However if you cant get a hold of the game, the movie is second best i suppose.
There are proper moves in the game, you need to look in your moves list to find out how to do them(its somewhere in your pause screen menu). You can purchase extra moves via move scrolls and if you perform the same move multiple times you gain experience for it and the move becomes more effective and in some cases extra hits are tacked on to the end. Mastering particular moves really helps you with the later, tougher fights id highly recommend doing it.
Shenmue 2 on Dreamcast was not dubbed, everybody spoke Japanese, that’s one of the things I liked more for than 1 as well. The dub of 1 could be worse it wasn’t THAT bad but yeah I prefer Japanese…
in number 2 i often just found myself skipping the speeches because id already read the subtitles, removed from the atmosphere a bit.
Hopefully the title of this topic will have to be changed to shenmue trilogy after TGS this year…
I’ll eat my hat if S3 is revealed at TGS this year.
I must say this game as got me by the guts!Great story.I’m afraid Ill have to do as planed : buy a dreamcast along with shne 1, hundred swords and skies of arcadia from ebay… 
And yeah I finally discovered the moves.I just don’t like one thing about the fighting system : the camera is always changing positions…
Well I’m just glad I bought Shen 2 instead of Splinter Cell
The Ryo character as a good voice actor IMO but the others are pretty much…
I just passed that leaf test back in the Temple.Loving this! :B
Yeah Shadow it probably wont be revealed but Lan DC at shenmue dojo forums is eternally optimistic(www.shenmuedojo.net). There are several clues :
However there are about a thousand reasons against it being announced for every reason for but I remain hopefull
Shenmue Dojo annoy me. I used to be their biggest fan but that was a long time ago when the site was only half of what it is now.
I’ve got a few questions for people who’ve played the Xbox version of Shenmue II:
Do people in the streets fade into view like in the DC version or are they always there? Or worse, do they pop-up out of nowhere?
Are the dubs synced to new mouth movements or forced over the original Japanese mouth movements?
Are the graphics a big leap forwards over the DC version?
Ren was my favourite character on DC, has the voice actor done a good job for him? Who does he sound like?
OK, I think that’s it! 
I saw shenmue 2 for ?18 the other day through that “MSN today” thing that pops up when you use MSN messenger, at that price i might buy it anyway at Chrimbo.
I got that in shen 1 as well…In 2 it happens more cos of all those random people that are just there to walk around and give you clues of where the place you want to go is…Shen 1 didn’t have that as it wasn’t in as big an area and didn’t really have random characters, they were all developed more or less except for some workers and such, but anyway, 2 was a less atmospheric game alltogether, 1 was a lot better in my opinion… 2 was more game than experience if you know what I mean… Still Awesome tho obviously and very atmospheric still even tho less than the first.
I prefer 2. I think its more atmospheric actualyl o.o Its a different atmoshpere to the original though. More of a countryside atmosphere, not that that’ll make any sense whatsoever.
As Shadow would say, Shenmue seriously pwnz. I’m up to disk three at the moment (I just beat the living crap out of a very fast skin head guy). I’m looking forward to buying the sequel for the X-Box despite the apparantly bad voice acting. It can’t be that bad.
I love the Virtua Fighter combat and quick time reaction scenarios.
I know what you mean. SFC annoys me similarly.
Yep I would advise you to buyb the XBox.The voice acting is like those Hong Kong movies were they put voices of chinese guys speaking english…
The main characters have good voices tho.Most of them anywayz…
Ryo’s voice is the best…
I would advise you to get the Dreamcast version of S2. No crappy voice overs.
Well I got a lot more engaged with the characters in the first game, and yes 2 has great atmosphere as well and some amazing parts but the first game even tho smaller in scale was a lot more involving for me. 2 is kinda like a bruce lee movie, 1 felt a lot more personal what with Ryo’s friends and Nozomi and all that… I didn’t feel as involved with the characters and storyline of 2 for the most part. Heck I even remembered people’s phone numbers in 1, sometimes that I was bored I would call up a few of them (mainly Nozomi, I wanted to get stupid Ryo to tell her how he feels LOL) and it actually cheered me up and made me move on!
I was so sad when I saw there are no phones in 2, I was hoping you could be able to call home and check up on people…
I used to go on SFC a lot too but that site has got annoying, I think the mods are too strict there. shenmue dojo is ok, although I dont go on it as much these days - the only problem I have with that now is that the atmosphere on the boards is too desparate, every time they hear anything then it means shenmue 3 is definately coming out! Hopefully if it does get announced their boards will get better.
I enjoyed the first Shenmue but it took me a while to get into it. I have the sequel on DC also but didn’t get very far as I got my Xbox about a month later. I bought Shenmue 2 on Xbox, watched the movie then gave the game to my mate who is a bigger Shenmue fan than me (He wants to get a job as a forklift driver…)
At GAME we’re taking pre-orders for Shenmue 3 already…