This plotline led Ryo through an engaging adventure that, while immensely fun and original, wasn’t experienced by as many people as Sega had hoped. That wasn’t reason enough to give up hope for Sega though, as their latest installment in the series is set to release this fall. This new sequel has been touted to fix all the things that were wrong with the original title, as gamers will now find themselves in Hong Kong, continuing Ryo’s quest for revenge. If early indications are correct, we’ll be seeing yet another great installment to the franchise, which will hopefully reach a greater audience on the Xbox.

Shenmue was a monster in the sound department back when it released for the Dreamcast, and such is the case with the game’s sequel. All one thousand in-game characters will speak full, english voice-overs in Shenmue II. AM2 has also promised that the voice acting this time around won’t be as colorless as it was in the original Shenmue. Early indications say otherwise however, as early demos have shown that the game still does suffer from rather tasteless dialogue.

Still though, there is plenty of time before the game’s release to fix these relatively small problems. The real meat to Shenmue is the gameplay. For most of the time in Shenmue, you will be traveling through the game’s virtual towns, asking people questions that will hopefully lead you to the whereabouts of Lan Di. This part of the game was engaging in the original Shenmue, despite the rather emotionless speech by the in-game characters. This part has been revamped though in Shenmue II, and many needed improvements have been made.

You can do many more things in virtual Hong Kong besides chatting it up with pedestrians though, like gambling. Hong Kong, it seems, like any good city, is loaded with gambling activities, such as arm wrestling and dice games. If you want to earn money the “fair” way though, you can also take on a host of odd jobs to earn some yen. Or, if you just want to waste some cash, you can hop right on over to the game’s virtual arcade, and play Afterburner, Outrun, and Space Harrier in their full, dated-polygon glory.

AM2 has also improved many annoyances associated with exploring in the original Shenmue. One of the more aggravating aspects of the first game was that many times you had to stand around waiting for someone to show up somewhere, which got very annoying at times when you had to wait around for ten minutes or more. AM2 has wisely fixed this by adding in an option that allows you to fast-forward through time. Another problem that AM2 has fixed has to deal with finding places in Hong Kong. Just like in real life, it can sometimes be a bit hard to find certain places where you have to show up for a meeting. AM2 has remedied this two ways; One, people you talk to will now sometimes guide you to certain destinations, and two, you can now purchase maps in the game.

The game’s other type of fighting is very reminiscent to the Virtua Fighter series. The fighting system still works well within the game, as Ryo has many moves available to him (all easy to execute through the game’s control system). Fights will also happen more often than in the original Shenmue, where fights seemed almost non-existent up till the last third of the game. Players can still train Ryo as well, as certain locations within the game’s environments will allow you to do so, which in turn will make your moves stronger and more devastating.