| Graphics:
5/5 |
|
| Easily
the most intricate, detailed and lifelike game environment to
date. Period. |
| Music:
5/5 |
|
| The
soundtrack for this game could easily have been made for a movie.
The main theme will stick in you head almost instantly. Probably
one of the most memorable themes since the classic Zelda theme hit
the scene. The only downer is that the fidelity of the audio laves
a little to be desired. It sounds is a little scratchy and
compressed and it's not quite CD quality. |
| Sound
FX: 5/5 |
|
| OK,
so some of the dialog is laughably strange and awkward. Those bits
just make me laugh, which only adds to the fun of the experience.
The main characters are voiced very well, however, and Shenmue has
more speech than any game that I can remember. The environmental sounds
are top notch, but they don't use any form of surround sound. As
with the music, the sound effects can be a little scratchy at
times. Again, not CD quality but still extremely good. |
| Play
Control: 8/10 |
|
| Ryo
moves in a rather clunky manner. Using the d-pad to walk results
in many wall-bumping incidents. After a while it all becomes
second nature though and it stops being a problem at all.
The fighting controls are rather
sluggish when in actual combat, and fighting six or more opponents
at once with sluggish control can lead to some minor frustration.
During a race, the fork lift's
controls can also be a little frustrating, as the other opponents'
forklifts seem to be more maneuverable than Ryo's.
|
| Frustration
Factor: 2/10 (10 being the worst) |
|
| Killing
time isn't fun in real life or in the virtual world. There are
parts of the game where Ryo must wait out the clock until the next
big event, and since everyone Ryo talks to says the same thing
over and over until the next big event has passed, things can get
tedious.
This game also requires a hefty
time commitment. Not as hefty a commitment as Zelda: Majora's Mask, but this
still isn't a game that you can pick up for only fifteen minutes
or so.
Finally, I have the sneaking
suspicion that despite my careful playing I have missed some
significant parts
of the game without any clue that I was missing them. While I am nearing the end of the
final disk, there are blank pages in the middle of Ryo's notebook
and there are still many movies that are unavailable in the
theater on the
Passport disk. If this is still the case at the end of the game,
it is a rather frustrating result, since I have no idea how to play
the game in a way that will reveal this missing content.
Update
12/20/00: I have now finished the game and I can tell you
that all but two of the movies have opened up on the passport
disk. I have no idea what these two movies are for or how to open
them up, but that's how things ended up.
|
|
