2 is much better than 1.
2 has duck races, Street fighting, more arcade games, dart duels with npcs, more side quests, a better story, and a larger sandbox.
2 is pretty much why Shenmue still has a fandom today. 1 is great but no one asked for a sequel to 1, they asked for a sequel to 2. 2 is one of the best sequels ever.
As for Yakuza, the games are in completely different genres and isn’t even a spiritual sequel. The only reason they get compared is because they star Asian dudes in Asian cities and that they’re both made by Sega. At that point you might as well compare Star Wars to Indiana Jones just because they made by Lucasfilm. Shenmue is about slow build up in a classic Kung fu film sort of way. In many classic Hong Kong kung fu films they might have only one fight. The 36th chamber of shaolin has maybe two fights total. The bulk of the story is about the main characters growth as a martial artist and individual. Shenmue is like that. Yakuza is more like a John Woo or Jackie Chan movie where it’s less about that growth but cool ass set pieces with big fights. The problem is that Shenmue betrays peoples expectations for a video game and what a video game should be. So they don’t care about the character exploration and lore which to be fair Shenmue takes an entire game to get to. They want more of the Jackie chan ass kicking since it’s a revenge story and that’s what they want out of a video game. The only reason they’re compared and people say it’s a better Shenmue is 1. The reasons above, 2. They want to troll Shenmue fans which is pretty easy, and 3. Their own haphazard expectations of what they think Shenmue should be rather than accept what it is - a kung fu adventure game.
There’s also 4. They’re distinguished mentally-challenged fellows
