The Dreamcast’s swan-song?

Finally, the wait is over. Yes, tired Dreamcast owners rejoice, It’s Shenmue II! After all of Sega’s ummming and ahhhing about it’s release, it has finally hit our shores. For all of you wondering what all of the fuss is about, where have you been? Shenmue was the most awesome game on the Dreamcast, so this should be even better, right? Well…. sort of.

The plot is simple, you play Ryu Hazuki, a young Japanese man who is on a quest for revenge against Lan Di, a nasty piece of work who killed Ryo’s father. The only leads that Ryo has is a letter from an address in Hong Kong and a mysterious Phoenix Mirror. Not a lot to go on by any means but Ryo seems rather peeved about the whole affair and will stop at nothing until revenge is his. Fair enough. I wouldn’t try to stop him, he lives in a Dojo! Anyhow, Shenmue II picks up where the first one left off. Ryo arriving in Hong Kong, very alone and with only one lead; the letter from Hong Kong. Go to it Ryo!

There have been several changes to the format this time around. Firstly, there is no dubbing. Gone are the English Voice overs of the original, the speech is all Japanese with English subtitles. Many may feel this is a bad thing, I however, think that it is an improvement. The game feels even more real now, I mean, the game is set in Hong Kong and China. Do they all speak in English? Nope. It all adds to the incredible sense of realism that the game emits.

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  1. gordon Unregistered 7 years ago

    Started playing Shenmue 2 10 hours ago and just managed to push the off button on dc as sleep was calling in real time.
    What an experience Shenmue is, though I am not sure if I agree with your comments on Chinese dialogue as I found in first one the characters had a personality you could relate to.This is lost not being able to speak Chinese.
    Still an astounding game that is hard to define as it has a bit of everything in it and the graphics are just awesome.
    10 out of 10 in my book.

  2. nickster Unregistered 7 years ago

    This game sounds quite interesting and considering the graphics are even better than GTA3 I'm suprised the Dreamcast has died so early! Damn Sega, I love ya but apart from the Mega Drive (Genesis) you can't get a console right no matter how hard you try.

  3. Marc Carroll (Vivi) Unregistered 7 years ago

    After the scarely addictive Shenmue I thought things just couldn't get better. I was wrong. This game is in a league of it's own. RPG has changed. Shenmue 2 is like living a real life! You can do anything! I simply love playing at the arcades, the QTEs, the amazing fights, the capsule toy machine, the pawnshops, talking to people, part-time jobs, arm wrestling, the dice game, exploring, getting a coke from the vending machine, Jeez theres just too much!! I had to be forced away from my Dreamcast. I'd give it a score of 95% (not a 100% because it's in Japenese). Can't wait till it's in english on the Xbox (I know it's sad but I bought an Xbox just because of the possibilite of Shenmue). Sega have created a masterpiece, again.

  4. Al Unregistered 6 years ago

    I want someone to replace all of the dialogue files on the Dreamcast version of Shenmue 2 with recordings of the X-box's english dub. Then I want to be able to download a copy of Shenmue 2 for dreamcast which has english voice-actors.

  5. terry anderson Unregistered 6 years ago

    i would be very happy if some1 could tell me how to import or sank i dont have a credit card what can i do please help me

  6. Jon Unregistered 5 years ago

    Woww, old stuff.