Sailors?

...

.....yeah

OK bastard

Did you never play Shenmue or something? Cause it's a pretty obvious reference

I did play the original Shenmue. I just figured that they might have tried a bit harder this time around.

There's nothing Shenmue did that Ultima VII didn't do better, and people actually played The Black Gate.

Why don't people just say, "such and such was around before but Grand Theft Auto 3 really opened the doors"? Because that's what actually happened.

But by that logic, GTA1 and 2 did the same thing; I was referring specifically to games that projected a 3D landscape. And yeah, GTA3 did change everything in the way that Shen Mue was supposed to, but who knows if that would've even happened without SM? The idea of weather patterns, NPCS that have their own schedules, the knowledge that you can play the game or just fuck around and do what you want was pretty revolutionary at the time.

That being said, I wonder what people are wanting out of this: Suzuki jokingly admitted to not really having the story's conclusion figured out if all of them were going to be done, and the "find out who killed your father" story was, once again, emotionally gripping by video game standards at that time, but hardly stands up to series that took their mythology into much more interesting places in the past 15 years. It's like stretching all of MGS into just a plot to rescue the President of DARPA.

GTA3 is basically 3D GTA1, which I always thought was an idea so obvious that it was inevitable--I don't think Shenmue had any impact on it.

I don't think Shenmue had any impact on anything. The things people claim were revolutionary about it are such broad concepts, like NPCs doing their own things or full voice acting, that aren't so much new directions for video games so much as things game developers often thought, "Is this necessary?" and Shenmue proved that, no, it isn't.

The only thing Shenmue did that other games picked up on is quick time events, and that is a dubious distinction if there ever is one. But the idea that Shenmue inspired GTA3 is absurd.

Shenmue sucked in 1999 and the only lasting innovation it brought to the world was Quick Time Events.

At no point in human history was Shenmue not a catastrophic mess.

I see...

(plays Space Harrier for 47 minutes)

People getting riled up over capital letters belies a deeply insecure disposition that I imagine would be delightful to observe in a fly on the wall capacity, I imagine you berate a lot of baristas for taking too long and make loud passive aggressive comments when there is only one line open at 3am at Walmart and you are desperately trying to get home to watch your newly purchased Six Feet Under complete series and hungry man dinner

VVVVVVVvVv

I'm going to take the high road and not point out your mistake nor am I going to call you a fat idiot for making it.

I'm really digging your guys' chemistry lately.

Shenmue has aged poorly-- but when I played 1 and 2, I was totally engrossed. A lot of the Japanese and Chinese mythology was really fascinating, and awkward as the characters might have been, it felt like a living, breathing world. I really hope they do not rerelease those games though, because everyone who gets into it now will wonder what the hell the big deal was. It is downright tedious to play by today's standards.

Me in 1999: "Why the fuck do I have to literally set down the controller and wait 27 minutes in real-time for a tattoo shop to open? Why does the game spend more time making me operate a forklift than beat up kung fu gangs? Why is playing another game this game's main selling point?"

Everyone else in 2015: "Well see, at the time...."

There's something about Dreamcast games that makes people often remember them much more fondly than they should. Just look at how many folks still think Skies of Arcadia is a good RPG.

Holy shit, mine too. And normally, glitches in games are pretty obvious, but here, it was literally just Groundhog Day. Ryo would complete Day 2 of 3, go to bed, wake up, and gradually got bored of avenging his father's murder, choosing instead to race forklifts for now until the end of time.