Ever notice, once you beat a video game how you always want the sequal right then and there. Well, usually that feeling usually subsides once a hot new game comes out, but one game doesn’t go away for most people. After finishing Shenmue chapter 1, there was nothing I wanted more in the whole wide world than the next game in the series, except for maybe a coke. Since that day, lots of discs have graced my DC, but even the likes of Phantasy Star Online, Crazy Taxi 2, Rent-a-hero, and Spider-man couldn’t take my mind away from continuing Ryo Hazuki’s quest to get revenge on father’s killer. If it wasn’t for Sonic Adventure 2, I don’t know how I’d last for more than five minutes without screaming for AM2 to finish Shenmue II. Anticipation is high for this one folks.
If you’ve finished the first game, you know what’s up for the next installment. Ryo Hazuki arrives in a Chinese harbor town called Aberdeen, where he meets a motorcycle riding girl named Joy. Not much is known about what happens from there, but Ryo will be visiting the towns of Wan Chai, Kowloon, and finally Gullin where Ryo will finally meet Sha Hua, the girl of his dreams (literally). Gullin is also where the Phoenix and Dragon mirrors were made many years ago. AM2 has also added new gameplay enhancements to improve on some of the things that people complained about in the first game. One of the most demanded improvements was a "pass the time" feature, so you won’t have to kill time in the arcade for hours. Now you can just go to the location of a meeting, select wait, and time will automaticaly pass. Also added is a new "action selector" where you can choose to talk to a person about certain things such as clues to continue the game, directions to a location, or talk about money related things. Another flaw in chapter one was the loading times whenever you went in/out of a shop or store. This has also been fixed by popular demand.
Whenever you get close to a door that leads to the outside or a shop, the game starts loading the other side just in case you go through.
Unfortunatly, this will be the last Shenmue installment on the Dreamcast, with the series continuing on Microsoft’s X-box, or so the rumors say. Shenmue II will contain chapters 2-6, and will ship in Mid-November in the USA.