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In Shenmue, the in-game time/date consistently moves forward even if you're just messing around and not progressing the story.

So... what's the limit on this? Can I keep going to the arcade and doing nothing for thousands of days until the in game calendar reflects that its the year 1999 or 2022? I imagine there's some limitation, or that you'll get a gameover of some sort if you waste too much time without progressing, but has this been confirmed?

Each game has an in-game end date. I think the first 'Shenmue' is the end of July. Then you get the bad ending. I've never done that, so I don't know what the bad ending is, but, no, you can't just keep advancing time forever.

I guess this is the bad ending in Shenmue 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRREzmNOHQU

I didn’t even know Shenmue had a bad ending I thought it only had the normal ending.