Even though Ryo has been through two episodes, each of which required rigorous training, you’ll be starting again from scratch, needing to work your way up through multiple bouts at the dojo. Taking its combat cues from Sega stablemate Virtua Fighter (Shenmue was originally conceived as Virtua Fighter RPG) the fighting style and combos are all immediately recognisable, as is the speed of its battles.
Doing that takes diligent practise and discovering that the village has both a dojo and a supply of increasingly skilled Shaolin monks to spar with, is far from a surprise. Players of the original will know that Ryo is no fan of bullying and will cheerfully rehabilitate any ruffians he comes across with martial arts beatings for all involved. It’s not long before the usual dynamics emerge though, when it turns out the village has recently been terrorised by thugs. Ryo finds himself in the small village of Bailu, surrounded by fields and with misty mountains in the distance. Once you get past the jarring antiquity of the voice work, and Ryo’s totally expressionless shop mannequin acting style, it’s weirdly comforting, feeling at once safe and familiar – as well as unintentionally hilarious.Īs you’d expect from the end of the second game the action takes place in rural China, far from the city streets of Yukosaka.
They may no longer want to know ‘where sailors hang out’, but, as in the Dreamcast originals, vocal delivery is about as naturalistic as a 1970s public safety film, with Ryo and other characters saying their lines slowly and clearly as if speaking to a very small child or someone with learning difficulties. But the important thing for both backers and less rabid fans is that this is still clearly business as usual for the franchise, with Ryo and his incipient love interest, Shenhua, strolling around a village, questioning its inhabitants in tones that are instantly nostalgic. We recently attended an hour-long preview which raised significantly more questions than it answered.
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