About technique improvement

Aeon · Apr 30, 2023

Hello everyone so I have a simple question as I'm playing shenmue 2 once again, does fighting (and loosing) several times against Izumi at pine gape arcade help improve your techniques?
This QTE is driving me mad but therefore I wondered if it's a good way to practice your moves at least and maybe more significantly than sparring against Jiammin since you can actually land those?

James Brown · Apr 30, 2023

Not a bad question to ask, I honestly have no idea! Might be worth experimenting with like 5 fights, spamming a move or two, but losing, and then checking the bars in your move scroll. Then let us know

jurassicriveria · May 1, 2023

Never beat her and the fight used to drive me nuts.

Aeon · May 1, 2023

James Brown said:
Not a bad question to ask, I honestly have no idea! Might be worth experimenting with like 5 fights, spamming a move or two, but losing, and then checking the bars in your move scroll. Then let us know

Yeah I think I'll try that what I can tell for now is after a few loss, basic punches/kicks seemed to land easier also noticed that you can basically make it last longer and get your health back just walking away from her around the "ring" , most of the time she'll be walking too but that's worth some further investigation

Richard Payne · May 1, 2023

Aeon said:
Hello everyone so I have a simple question as I'm playing shenmue 2 once again, does fighting (and loosing) several times against Izumi at pine gape arcade help improve your techniques?
This QTE is driving me mad but therefore I wondered if it's a good way to practice your moves at least and maybe more significantly than sparring against Jiammin since you can actually land those?

From what I can remember, you should keep the improvements even if you lose the fight. You can take advantage of that and train moves such as throws, which require a real opponent for training.

If you're not interested in throws and you'd rather train hand moves or leg moves, I recommend fighting Yan Ren, the huge wild man you can challenge to a street fight at Beverly Hills Wharf. The game gives you 3 minutes and 5 attempts to "make him feel pain", and during that time, if you attack but purposely miss, the move proficiency will still advance! That's way more convenient than sparring with Jianmin in my opinion.

chaikilla · May 1, 2023

I think so, but I couldn't say for certain because it has been 4 years since I played Shenmue 2.

I can, however, remember a good strategy for fighting her. Keep your distance and use moves that come out quickly to chip away at her. There's a move that is just a straight punch but it has range and comes out quickly (I can't remember the name but I want to say rain thrust) the inputs were >X iirc. As mentioned above, you can also walk away from her to get your health back up. Dodge spamming seemed effective as well. I think the big problem is getting sucked into the QTE and that seems to happen more frequently if you are too close to her.

jurassicriveria · May 2, 2023

Is she the hardest opponent in S1&S2?

Aeon · May 2, 2023

ADN said:
Is she the hardest opponent in S1&S2?

It's hard to say, she's definitely one of the toughest though but I think Chai's first fight in the arcade is way more difficult to handle since it happens early in the game and the ring / camera is just a nightmare to handle.
But if we're talking only Shenmue 2 then I'd say she is yes. Dou Niu is quite the easy boss once you get how to dodge him and Master Baihu is quite weak against punches combo and throws.

Aeon · May 2, 2023

Richard Payne said:
From what I can remember, you should keep the improvements even if you lose the fight. You can take advantage of that and train moves such as throws, which require a real opponent for training.

If you're not interested in throws and you'd rather train hand moves or leg moves, I recommend fighting Yan Ren, the huge wild man you can challenge to a street fight at Beverly Hills Wharf. The game gives you 3 minutes and 5 attempts to "make him feel pain", and during that time, if you attack but purposely miss, the move proficiency will still advance! That's way more convenient than sparring with Jianmin in my opinion.

I thought so too, since there's no game over/retry after all

now I can tell for sure some of my moves have increased especially basic punches (that fast one) and that low kick which I used a lot against her.
P. S: By the way it's funny I see you here, I'm the one who made that commentary joke on YouTube about Lan Di sailing to China to avoid you