- Joined
- Apr 4, 2021
- Location
- Bulgaria
- Favourite title
- Shenmue
- Currently playing
- A Plague Tale 2
- PSN
- thedemon1238
- XBL
- thedemon1238
- Steam
- thedemon1238
- Nintendo Friend Code
- SW-7004-8465-0622
- Dreamcast Now
- thedemon1238
Yes but shenmue games are doing it better! :) Obviously many other games like Spiderman, Red Dead Redemption 2, most MMO games, etc... also have great views. It's hard to explain if you didn't feel it yourself, but there's some kind of realness to the world of shenmue.1. Literally every open world game lets you do this in one way or another, just to a matter of degree. For every building you can explore in Shenmue, there are 10 that you can't even enter. 90% of GTA5's map will remain unexplored if you just follow the story.
2. Shenmue 3 doesn't even let Ryo explore all of Bailu Village in the beginning, and Niaowu has all kinds of arbitrary roadblocks and shortcuts to gate progression. Even Shenmue 1 doesn't allow Ryo to go to the harbor until the story dictates...
For example :
1. You can open drawers - But you can open drawers ONLY in YOUR house/hotel room/ place that you investigate. You don't open drawers in other people house. You don't enter other people house. Ryo always wonder around ONLY in public places or abandoned buildings.
2. Public transportation doesn't work at night. They have a schedule until around 11:30 p.m - You must go somewhere far away from your house fast. What do you do? Maybe you need some kind of vehicle? Ryo doesn't steal cars, that's not freedom in his real world. The only logical explanation is to use the phone and call a close friend, who will pick up the phone at this late hour and give you his bike.
3. Open World - If you think of Shenmue as a game that illustrates the real world within our character, you will immediately understand what the blocked places are for. He has no business going to the port for no reason. What's the point of doing it?
The game teach us to not "stray from the path" and slowly introduce the player to the environment around Ryo's world.
The weird thing is that Yakuza feels more like an arcade game than Shenmue, even though the latter was made by an arcade legend. I have to admit, though, that Yokohama feels a bit like Shenmue. It's not that strong of a feeling, but there are actually times when I enjoy walking around and explore the details in Yakuza 7/Lost Judgment. :)
However, the world of Shenmue has something uniquely real about it. I can't exactly describe it, but it's like it was created first, and then some gameplay was added to it. It's like it existed before the game, as strange as that sounds. :) You know, nowadays level design is made entirely with gameplay in mind. Creating detailed locations that have their own life (as well as logic) and are unrelated to gameplay will be met with questioning by many modern level designers.
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