They had managed to release Shenmue II on the Xbox prior to the DC's demise, however.
Since I traded my entire DC stuff in for an XBox, I've been after Shenmue II again, but it's always been full price, and I refuse to pay full price for a game I already owned once. So when I spotted it for just over a tenner, I snapped it up.
Sadly, the first installment was never available on Xbox, but it comes with a DVD containing most of the plot of the first.
You play a young japanese man named Ryudo Hazaki, and the saga begins on a snowy day in the 1980s, and your life is changed forever when a mysterious foreigner named Lan Di kills your father. The first installment follows your quest to discover who this Lan Di is, and begins your quest for revenge. During the game, your love interest leaves for Canada, you discover Lan Di had contacts with a gang called the Mad Angels at the docks, and make contacts with a Master Shen, all culminating in a huge fight with the Mad Angels, before you finally leave on a ship for Hong Kong, the destination of Lan Di.
The second game continues from the first. You arrive in Hong Kong with only the name of a contact from Master Shen. But you are mugged early on, and come into contact with a mysterious biker babe named Joy. Finally, you meet your contact, and begin to learn further martial arts skills. And this is as far as I got when I had the DC version.
The thing about Shenmue is it's a game you either love or hate. I have to admit, it can be a trifle dull if you're not the one playing it. It's like a 'life simulation', and when you're not immersed in it, all others can see is you run around Hong Kong playing gambling games and buying toys with your money, with the occasional fight, or boring martial arts training session. It's not like that, but that's what it looks like. I never thought of the game as being dull originally, but watching the DVD of the first game's plot revealed exactly how slow going and boring it can be. Once you play though, the interactiveness grabs you, and doesn't let go.
I'm still a bit pissed that Shenmue wasn't released on the Xbox, especially as I'd completed the first game and ported my save across on the DC, which is not long lost, but I can live with it. Shenmue II is an excellent game, but it really does take some getting used to, and as I've said, can be very dull if you don't get into the immersive nature of the environment. It's worth a rent, definitely, and buy if you like it, but I wouldn't pay more than budget/pre-owned prices for it. It's very dated now. Also, another gripe I have with it is the voice acting. It was bad in Shemnue, and it's just as bad in Shenmue II. The dialogue is very stilted and unemotional. Which is pretty annoying as Shenmue II on the DC was very good, as it was subtitled japanese, but the Xbox version is dubbed. Such a shame there isn't a language option with the game.
And now I've found out Yu Suzuki (the developer) won't be finishing the series, and in fact Shenmue III will be a CG motion picture. It's very sad, it seems that grand projects like this are doomed to failure. I'm going to keep up with it as much as I can.
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