Shenmue/YMMV

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• Alternate Character Interpretation: Related to much of what is written below in Base-Breaking Character, many theories have been made over the years to explain Ryo's behavior, including secretly or unknowingly being in the closet, obsessive compulsive disorder, autism and serious social anxiety.
• Chris Carter Effect: Potential fans may have been turned off when hearing the first Shenmue game consisted of the first of what was expected to be SIXTEEN chapters. It turned out that Suzuki-san didn't intend to do sixteen separate games; Shenmue II covers Chapter 2 through 5 (the boat ride, Hong Kong, Kowloon and Guilin, the chapters in the series divided based on location), and Chapter 2 (the boat ride) didn't make the cut (but was shown entirely off-screen instead). And it's possible that Yu Suzuki tried to hide the fact the game was running on very unrealistic expectations, and he possibly said that just for saving face.
  • Even Shenmue III falls victim to this with the announcement that the story would not see its conclusion in the long awaited sequel, with some fans expressing a fourth or even a fifth entry would be too much.
• Disappointing Last Level: Arguably, the last section of Shenmue II in Guilin.
• Drinking Game: Take a shot every time Ryo says "I see"... On second thought, don't; you're too assured to get alcohol poisoning if you do.
• Even Better Sequel: Shenmue II was considered by those lucky few who actually played it to be a major improvement over the already very impressive original: it was much longer, much faster-paced, the combat system had been refined and deepened, the already stunning graphics were polished to the absolute best the Dreamcast was physically capable of, the Hong Kong setting was considered to be much more interesting than Yokosuka and the plot was much more exciting and engaging.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Koji Igarashi's Castlevania Spiritual Successor, which broke the record for the highest funded game on Kickstarter. In the closing hours of the Shenmue III campaign when the game was nearing $5 million, many fans made it clear they were going after the record set by Bloodstained. When they succeeded, several fans and critics expressed bitterness and some have even gone out of their way to undermine Shenmue's success altogether. And then there's many of those from both fandoms who wonder why this is even the case since we have two fantastic games to look forward to, both of which were successfully funded, broke records, and are at the helm of two highly respected game developers.
• Hype Backlash:
  • While hailed as a masterpiece that pushed the gaming medium, Shenmue was also highly criticized by many who didn't expect the most expensive game of its time to be a slower paced reality simulator that encouraged players to take their time and explore its virtual world while having several restrictions placed on them (which wasn't helped when Grand Theft Auto III was released soon afterward and changed the perception of the Wide Open Sandbox genre). There's even a small portion of gamers who blame the game's commercial failure for Sega's departure from the console market, and felt the company would be better off today had Shenmue not been released.
  • As mentioned above, the successful kickstarter campaign for Shenmue III, which broke several records, was also met with derision by critics who felt its success was undeserved.
• Memetic Mutation: Sailors.
  • So much that it became an Ascended Meme in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (Mission 22, a timed gate mission as Ryo in the Super Monkey Ball Treetops track, outright tells you that you'll find no sailors, but rather lots of monkeys.)
• Narm Charm: The dubbing. Oh my God.
• Scrappy Level: The final section of the game; After an epic sequence of fighting your way to the top of the Yellow Hand's tower, defeating The Dragon and seeing Lan Di fly off on the rope-ladder of a helicopter. We send the next hour (maybe two) wondering through copy-paste woods.
• So Bad It's Good: The English dub. Fans of Metal Wolf Chaos or Baten Kaitos will recognize it as pooling from the same small set of native English speaking VAs in Japan.
• The Untwist: A strange case of a hypothetical untwist... it's foreshadowed to the point of pretty much outright stating it that Lan Di is Xiuying's brother but we'll never find out due to the third (and final?) game being cancelled.
  • Not quite. Lan Di's real name is Longsun Zhao, the son of Sun Ming Zhao (the man allegedly murdered by Ryo's father), while Xiuying's brother is named Ziming Hong. According to one of the unlockable sidecomics in the Xbox version of Shenmue II, along with an unlockable picture, Ziming IS one of four leaders of the Chiyoumen, Lan Di being another.