Shenmue 2 review

Shenmue II is more than just a game,it's a spiritual journey that will make people think philosophically about Taoist ideologies such as how the differences between 'right' and 'wrong' are not always clear-cut and sometimes no solution to a problem is 100% right or wrong and sometimes it's necessary to do something which is considered 'bad' or 'evil' in order to stop a bigger evil and it teaches the importance of finding inner-peace(I'll explain about that later)and it's a wonderful and entertaining adventure through Hong Kong and mainland China and you'll experience very different atmospheres whether it's the Asian style street markets or Taoist temples or beautiful seaside city locals or densely urbanized/comercialized areas and rural China.Most importantly,the main character named Ryo,whom is a Japanese man is chasing after the man who killed his father,which happened in the original Shenmue in Japan and Ryo has tracked him and followed him to Hong Kong and the story has an important mystery to it because you'll be searching for pieces of what's called a phoenix mirror which will reveal the location of ancient treasure.

The cast of characters is fairly likable in their own indivdiual way,Ryo is easy to empathize with as it seems he's always trying to make haste with his effort to find the man named Lan Di whom is the man who killed Ryo's father and it seems as if Ryo doesn't have time nor cares about anything else.There's also Joy whom is a cute,flirtacious Asian woman who shows up on a motorcycle occasionally to flirt with,heckle but also help Ryo's cause and she has connections with a gang leader named Ren who actually accompanies Ryo on much of Ryo's journey because even though he doesn't even like Ryo,he's after the treasure because he loves money and Ryo needs all the help he can get having to go against so many gang members so Ryo accepts his help even though Ren is an arrogant,selfish jerk.There's also the street kid named Wong(but I won't spoil that part for you)and Master Lishao Tao whom is a beautiful,martial arts master who teaches the spiritual and physical sides to martial arts and Taoist values.There's also images of a teenaged girl whom Ryo has been seeing in his dreams.

To give examples of the spiritual side to the game,at the Taoist temple Ryo will be shown how if he can't do simple tasks such as catching a leaf that's slowly falling from a tree,how can he block a fast,powerful martial arts attack that could kill him? Which shows the importance of finding inner-peace first before trying to become a martial arts master and MINOR SPOILER Master Lishao Tao explains to Ryo revenge is the wrong path and will lead to destruction but she knows Ryo will go after Lan Di nonetheless so she decides to teach him the physical side to martial arts despite Ryo planning to use them for the wrong reasons since she doesn't want Ryo to get killed and because his evil actions are being used against a far greater evil END OF MINOR SPOILERS

In rural mainland China,Ryo will travel to areas with mountains and forest and a village MINOR SPOILER 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. END OF MINOR SPOILERS and this was such as peaceful and amazing experience for me because it tries to show the different ways people live in a more simpler,peaceful side to living.

As for the gameplay,often you will travel from place to place and try to find clues to Lan Di's whereabouts and of course there is combat is it's kinda like a beat em up style with Virtua Fighter style moves.Although most of the weaker enemies can be beaten by spamming simplistic moves,some of the bosses require you to use special moves and good timing and strategy and doing the QTE's correctly(some bosses can do an instant KO move on you if you don't do the QTE's correctly)so it makes the boss fights unpredictable and exciting because even if it looks like you're going to win easily you can never be sure of anything and some of the bosses will test your reflexes and make you outthink them and think of which special moves to use to your advantage.For people who don't know,QTE's are Quick Time Events that require you to press certain buttons and D-Pad movements at certain times 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 for other situations

.Not doing the QTE's correctly for non-combat situations can lead to instant game over situations so the game always keeps you on your toes despite sometimes having a bit of a gap between action segments.The chase segments are fun because people will try to push objects in your path or other obstacles will be in your way and you'll need to use the QTE commands to dodge obstacles.There's gameplay that involve searching a room or listening to recordings and following people without being detected.The gameplay is varied nicely and it never felt boring for me and even though sometimes there's a fair amount of time in-between segments with fast-paced gameplay the story captivated me from start to finish.

I'll also like to mention the QTE system made the Shenmue series special because the Shenmue series came out years before God of War and people talk about how God of War was so great because it used a QTE system but I think the way Shenmue 1 and 2 uses QTE's is more creative and exciting compared to hoW God of War games use them.

Shenmue II has a big,open sandbox style environments.You can go exploring the streets filled with markets and stores to explore,inside apartment buildings with many rooms you can enter and look at people's personal items or you can knock on the door of people's apartment rooms and they'll answer the door and have something unqiue or interesting to say and you can gamble and there's lots of gambling mini games and you can do street fighting or play video games at the arcade which include some SEGA classics such as Afterburner II and Outrun.You can also get a job and do work that involves using the QTE system for mini games.

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.
The city environments have nice diversity between residential,commerical,industrial.I love the paved area with the water fountain near the seaport and how the Taosit temple looks so peaceful because it's surrounded by lots of trees and there's little Asian style shops and markets everywhere and the commerical areas have mini marts some commerical stores are bigger and look like they sell a lot more stock.Hong Kong and Kowloon have a nice 1980's feel since the story is set in the 1980's

The game uses a day/night system and the city looks beatiful lite up at night and has random weather and in rural China  you'll see insects glowing above the lake at night!
Like I've mentioned in rural China you'll see beautiful scenery of mountains,fores,caves,lakes,wild animals and old-style villages.

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 rural China.

Truthfully I've only played the PAL Xbox version of Shenmue II which has only the English dubbed language available,I'm not sure what languages the other versions of Shenmue 2 have available and I've tried doing a bit of research on this issue but I've found conflicting information but I will say I think English language is fitting for the game since it hasn't been officially confirmed if Ryo can speak Cantonese/Mandarin(he couldn't read a letter that was in one of the Chinese languages(I forgot which one) but some Japanese people say they can understand some of the Cantonese and Mandarin languages when they're spoken).

Overall,I think Shenmue II is a game that should be played if you want a spritual and meaningful journey and can handle going periods without much combat.I won't give a score of Shenmue II because I'm biased but like I've said play it if you want a spiritual and meaningful journey and love Asian cultures.Also,a CGI movie for the story of the first Shenmue game is included with the Xbox version of Shenmue II(at least with the PAL Xbox version anyways).

Clannad visual novel review.

The Clannad anime series is a much-loved anime series and people talk about it's heartfelt story,humor and drama elements that many people can relate to.The Clannad visual novel was actually released before the Clannad anime,the Clannad visual novel was released in 2004 for PC and has been ported to many consoles/portables and this review is for the PS3 version.

As you probably guessed,the Clannad visual novel has many of the same story elements that the Clannad anime has,but being like most other visual novels it allows you to make story decisions and Clannad has many story arcs and they can take the story in some very different directions and you can make the main character who's a male named Tomoya end a story arc as the boyfriend of one of at least 5 different girls.After you complete each story arc you can do the after story which shows the lives of the characters up to 10 years after they graduate highschool.Even though the Clannad visual novel has many different story arcs for it's main story and after story it has a true story arc to follow(which if you complete is rewarded with a gold trophy that says you've completed the true story arc)and the true story arc is very similar to the Clannad anime but it does have some big differences which I won't spoil.

Part of the reason you'll want to try to activate different story arcs is because you'll want to find all the light orbs because it does something important for the story.You can make decisions that will allow Tomoya to play pranks or you can make decisions that will effect baseball results or that will allow somebody to perform a long combo attack on another character and there's other types of outcomes that can happen from the decisions you make.

However,making the right decisions to activate certain story arcs isn't as easy as it sounds because you'll often have to make the right decision nearly everytime from a choice from at least 3 decisions(sometimes even more)to stay on that story arc.It's possible to go off all the story arcs to get a bad ending.

For people who don't know,Clannad's story setting begins in highschool and the main character named 'Tomoya' is a teenage male who's had a rough upbringing at home and has experienced personal tragedy and he doesn't care about his school grades,he doesn't listen to his teachers etc.He can't even play baseball anymore(which he loves)because his right arm is permanently damaged.Tomoya meets a girl named 'Nagisa' who's constantly sick with a type of illness that makes her immune system weak and it causes her to miss a lot of school and

MINOR SPOILER
she had to repeat her final year of highschool.
END OF SPOILER

She isn't very confident in social situations and she enjoys drama but she was disappointed the drama club got disbanded.Tomoya and Nagisa become friends and they support eachother through tough situations and they meet other friends who want to help start another drama club and Tomoya's and Nagisa's relationship has the potential to blossom into something more than just friendship.The story has other characters with enjoyable and diverse personalities/hobbies/backgrounds.The story can be very spiritual at times too.

The story then moves into the after story phase which occurs after highschool and lasts up to 10 years after the characters have graduated highschool and some of them are married and have children.It shows the relationship of certain characters with their children and it's very heartwarming.But the after story has some potentially heart breaking moments too.I like how the characters develop/evolve as people and seeing how the lives for the characters are when they're in highschool and in adulthood.It's heartwarming seeing some of the characters sharing a special moment with their children and husband/wife.

The artstyle for the game is still beautiful after all these years and breath taking with stunning views of things such as sunsets or a nice use of rainfall effects or you'll see a lot of things going on in the school,in dorms,you'll see nice urban areas in Japan and beautiful cherry blossom trees and the game will even take you to nice tropical locations and the romantic scenes and scenes of characters playing with their kids or scenes of characters with their spouse and children are beautifully done.The artstyle does look a bit dated(keep in mind,this game was released in 2004)but it looks beautiful nonetheless.Some scenes look very spiritual and the art effects for those scenes is wonderfully done and use beautiful light effects and it's hard to explain it without spoiling it for you.

The music is beautiful and relaxing/peaceful and it helps you feel the emotion of the story more.The music also suits the funny moments or the spiritual moments.

Overall,I loved experiencing this game from start to end and after I finished it I didn't want it to end because the characters grew on me so much and I felt as if I was a part of their lives.This game is one of the most captivating visual novel/anime series I've ever experienced.Unfortunately,the PS3 version of this game is only available in Japanese language.If you want to play a translated version of this game,you'll need to have the PC version of this game and download the fan-made translation patch. 

If I score this game as a visual novel and not an actual video game I'll give a score of 9.75 out of 10.The only reasons I don't give this game a score of 10 is it's visuals look a bit dated despite still being very beautiful from an artistic perspective and the game was insanely expensive to buy(cost me over 90 AUD).