10 Times Video Game Realism Went Too Far

1. Hiking In Real-Time (Shenmue II)

Shenmue II hiking
Sega

In most games, moving between locations is a relatively speedy process that the developers can handle in a number of ways, whether it's a loading screen, a cutscene, or a fast travel system.

Shenmue II, on the other hand, decided not to bother with any of that time-saving efficiency towards the end of its story, when protagonist Ryo Hazuki is told to travel to Bailu Village in Guilin, where his father's killer is thought to be heading.

At this point, you'd expect the game to fade to black, cut directly to the village, or even play a quick cutscene that shows Ryo travelling, but instead, Shenmue II forces you to hike there in real-time, a journey that takes around two hours to complete.

There are a couple of small things for you to do along the way (like the extremely exciting task of... collecting firewood!), but for the most part, you're just walking through the wilderness, and needless to say, it's a dull affair.

Hiking is beneficial in real life because you're getting some actual fresh air and exercise, but all you're getting here are underwhelming, Dreamcast-level tree graphics, and boring dialogue. For two hours. Thanks, Shenmue II.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!