In the games, the main villain just fucks off at the end of the 2nd game and players thought he was ducking Ryo. Another way that the anime improves on the games is explaining things a little better. The anime is able to flesh out some characters that didn't get as much time in the game. However, the anime is overall MUCH better paced and feels like a real story. For example, we still get about 5 minutes of Ryo learning how to operate a forklift. Shenmue the anime has a bit of padding to stay faithful to the games. Yu Suzuki wants you to experience his vision and doesn't give a shit if you're not having fun. Shenmue is the gaming world's closest thing to art for art's sake. One thing the Shenmue games received both praise and criticism for is just how little they care about player convenience. An NPC will send you to the shop to get milk and you have to wait 15 minutes in real time for the shop to open. In the game, Shenmue decided to pad its length with menial, repetitive chores. Unfortunately, Kung Fu films rely on a lot of training montages and don't actually have that much meat to their stories on average. The plot is straight out of a kung fu film and is pretty damn fun! His father was somehow entrusted with 2 mirrors that hold the key to unlocking the world's largest treasure, which is pursued by triad gangsters who wish to resurrect the Qing Dynasty. Meanwhile, Ryo also wishes to uncover more about his father's past. Ryo must now track down various kung fu masters and train under them to learn the techniques to avenge his father. One day, a cruel yet powerful kung fu master from a rival school kills his father and sets Ryo on the path of vengeance. Our hero Ryo is a goodhearted teenager whose father is the local martial arts master. I mentioned that Shenmue was heavily inspired by Suzuki's love of kung-fu films, and I really mean that. Reviews were mostly negative, although I personally found it amusing. However, he was eventually able to kickstart and release Shenmue 3, which played exactly like a Dreamcast era Shenmue game on the PS4. Instead, he spent a large sum travelling around the world riding roller coasters. However, he admits that he didn't pay any attention to gaming developments during that time or play any games. For 20 years, Yu Suzuki promised that he was working on Shenmue 3. However, Sega doubled down and gave Suzuki a boatload more money for Shenmue 2, which also lost an ungodly amount of money and helped lead to Sega's bankruptcy and purchase by Nintendo. Yu Suzuki really, REALLY likes 1970s Kung-fu films! Since the Dreamcast wasn't the bestselling console, the game lost quite a bit of money. By 1999, Sega trusted Yu Suzuki so much that they were willing to sink the equivalent of 123 million dollars in today's money into Suzuki's dream of creating the video game version of a Shaw Brothers Kung-fu film. Then in the 1990s, he directed Virtua Fighter 2, which was a huge step forward for competitive fighting games and had a heavy influence on series like Tekken, Dead or Alive, and Soul Calibur. He was a programming wunderkind and everything he touched was gold. Games like Space Harrier, Hang-On, Out Run, etc. Throughout the 1980s, he just made hit after hit for the arcades. old when he made his first hugely successful arcade game in 1983. The story of Shenmue begins with its creator Yu Suzuki. So, what the Hell is a Shenmue? Before we get into the anime review, we have to talk about one of the most unusual franchises in the history of gaming. Shenmue the anime is an incredibly faithful adaptation of the first 2 games and finally helps tell the story of Shenmue the way the game's creator always wanted it told without any of the hardware limitations of the Sega Dreamcast or budget worries. I didn't watch many anime this season, but of the few I watched this was my favorite.
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