Shenmue II was the sequel to the formerly Dreamcast-only Shenmue. It featured more locations than the previous game.
The original game took place in a single town, Yokosuka, Japan. In contrast, Shenmue II has three, including Hong Kong, Kowloon, based on the real-life Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, and Guilin, China.
The story picks up after Ryu Hazuki disembarks the ship that brought him from Japan to China at the port of Hong Kong. He almost immediately gets into trouble when a young boy steals his backpack. After managing to get it back with help from a young woman named Joy, he soon befriends the pickpocket, Xianweng "Wong" Ni, and makes a begrudging alliance with a gang member named Wuying Ren.
He will need all the help he can get to obtain more information about his father's killer, Lan Di, as well as to get more information about the mysterious mirror that his father left for him when he died. He'll find himself opposed by several people on his quest for information, including members of a gang known as Heavens, an extremely large and strong gang leader known as Dou Niu, and a transgender woman known as Yuan.
As is often the case with transgender characters in their localization from Japan to the West, especially in 2002, the character had a change of pronouns as well as voice actors. I appreciate that the translation lost the hurtful misgendering and was referred to properly as she, however, I am divided over the fact that she lost her deeper voice for a less ambiguous female voice. I wish that the character had remained obviously transgender in the translation, however, the character was portrayed with a stereotypical gay voice, so it really isn't really a loss to get rid of that voice acting in the long run.
Speaking of voice acting, like the original Shenmue, the best way to experience this game for native English speakers is with Japanese voice acting with English subtitles. The English voice acting remains wooden and not pleasant at all. The Japanese voice acting sounds more natural. This is likely not just due to the voice actors, but because of the text as the English translation is lacking nuance again and is really dry compared to the original Japanese text. It's alright reading the translation that way, but it doesn't translate well into the spoken word.
This game is a lot longer than the first and more action-packed. However, a few things let it down. Earning money through lifting and moving crates is not as fun as the forklift of the original game. Unfortunately, it is necessary to earn a lot of money, since Ryo needs to pay his way into three martial arts challenges in order to get the information he needs.
Also, this game goes way too far, in my opinion, with the button-pressing quick-time events. This is especially the case in the last fight, where it is possible to lose the fight just by not getting the quick time event correct even after properly beating the snot out of him. It's frustrating to repeat scenes like this if, like me, your fingers and brain don't cooperate well since the amount of time given to complete the QTEs is woefully small.
Shenmue II is larger and has more action than the original game. However, it is let a bit down due to the lackluster way to earn money as well as the overabundance of quick-time events. It also has poor English voice acting, but the Japanese voice acting is much better. So, the best way to experience this game, if you choose to do so, would be to avoid the original Xbox version as it only has English voice acting. The Dreamcast game only has Japanese voice acting, and the high-definition version by d3t has selectable voice acting. In the end, the story is interesting, so it is worth experiencing if you want to continue Ryo's quest to find his father's killer.
Final Verdict:
4 out of 5
| Shenmue review | Shenmue I & II review coming soon |
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