DisquisedJustin

As someone who never owned a Dreamcast, I've always been super curious about checking out Shenmue. Knowing its importance to video games in the innovation it brought, as well as the extremely vocal and rabid cult following it has amassed in the years since its release, I've always been interested in checking it out. By the same token, I'm also well aware of how divisive the game is, with some praising it as one of the greatest games ever made and a true testament to what interactivity and and game as art can be, while others (most notably Jeff and former Gamespot writer Frank Provo) calling it a self-indulgent, pretentious, boring mess. Now, I'm someone who's always loved games that are different and try to be ambitious with what they are trying to accomplish, I was a big fan of Heavy Rain for example, which is another divisive game that people either love or hate. Of course, another reason I've always held off playing Shenmue having not played it when it originally came out is of course the fact that, knowing it never had a conclusion always put me off from playing it. But, with Shenmue having been making serious waves in the games press over the last year or so with Sony's Building The List campaign along with Suzuki's Shenmue Post mortem, I decided to finally shell out and buy a Dreamcast, because ultimately, since there is no guarantee of a Shenmue HD happening (it does have the benefit of being the most requested re-release as part of Sony's Building the List campaign) I wanted to actually experience the game finally. And now, it being 2015 and I having finally seen Shenmue 1 to its conclusion, I can honestly say that the game held up remarkably well and that I finally understand why this game has such a passionate and devoted following, but understand why there are many people out there who don't really get it either.

The first thing that caught my eye immediately playing Shenmue was seeing how well the game holds ups visually. It's pretty much a known fact at this point that when Shenmue was originally released, it looked absolutely mind-blowing, and the game absolutely still holds up from a visual stand point in a lot of ways. Everything from the detail in the main characters faces, the detail put into the characters hands (you can move the things around in your hand!) & the attention to detail in the environments, even today, is pretty striking. You can definitely see they went above and beyond out of their way to make the enviornments as realistic as possible, and it still looks great. It's especially apparent in The Hazuki-Dojo, the fact that they went out of their way to individually render all these different objects and make as many of them fully interactive with the ability to move them around, as well open individual drawers for a game released in 1999 is astounding. It also helps that the games setting it still by today's standards extremely unique and fun to explore. I'm a big anime fan and have always dreamed of visiting Japan, so to see this little sliver of a mid-80s Japanese town brought to life is pretty astounding, and even by todays standards its a setting that's unique and feels real. Knowing that this game came out a whole year before GTA3 did and yet look way better then that game does is pretty awesome, and in some ways the grand scope and detail of some of the environments still rival a lot of the games released today.

Seeing a lot of features that are common place in games now like a NPCs going about their daily lives was cool, and the random changing weather system that would cover the world with snow is something I still don't see enough games today do. It truly is an immersive game, and while it was hard to adjust to using the D-pad to move at first, I actually liked that they made it so you use the control stick to move Ryo's head because it gives off some truly cinematic flavor when your gazing around the environment or running around the world and looking at the environments to your left. Collecting the capsule toys in the game I thought was awesome, and there were a few moments when I lost my shit from getting certain old SEGA characters like Ristar or Alex Kidd not knowing they were in the game. And of course, the camera work in the game is outstanding and definitely goes a long way to giving the game a cinematic feel, and say what you will about the QTEs, at the very least they are awesome to watch and the things that occur during them are entertaining as hell.

The story in the game I thought was really great. I really loved the theme that the game had of a young man who wants to desperately avenge his father, but over the course of his adventure, must decide what is more important to him, the people he's grown up with and who love him and care about his well being, or throw his life away. I became very attatched to the characters and thought that Ryo was a really great protagonist. The thing I loved about Ryo as a character is how unapologetically kind and compassionate he is to those he's close with, and I found his relationship with Nozomi very touching. On the other side, due to his quest for vengeance, he's also willing to do anything and everything to get back at Lan Di and won't let anyone get in his way, and isn't afraid to go dark when need be, and comes off as an absolute badass during the more action heavy parts of the story. Other then Ryo, the other character I really loved was Gui Zhang, I really enjoyed how over the course of the story, he went from being a ruthless cold-hearted jerk to a kind of weird older brother figure to Ryo. And I'm really excited to know what the hell is going on with that girl who is on the cover art and keeps showing up in weird dreams as well as in the opening video (assuming they explain her at all in Shenmue 2).

Now to address some of the criticism leveled against the game. The biggest complaint I've heard from people about Shenmue is that some people find it incredibly boring, but I disagree. I've always been a big defender of games with deliberate pacing if I find what the game is trying to do is interesting, and I very much find Shenmue fascinating. The idea of a game that is going out of its way to be this ambitious, big revenge themed tale while simultaneously trying to be this weird mundane, daily life simulator is a concept that even today is super absurd, but I think it's kind of fascinating and absolutely loved buying capsule toys and getting weird items from raffles at the shops. Plus, the game flow of being told to meet up for a certain time the next day in the morning and then having a day until a certain time at night to get things done for the game I thought gave good incentive to go out buy capsule toys and further explore the world.

The other big issue that people have with the game is the TERRIBLE voice acting. Now, I will say this, there's no denying that the voice acting in the game, at least for the NPCs is pretty terrible, but I actually thought the main story characters were voiced okay, plus, if we're going to be honest, w/ the possible exception of Metal Gear Solid and Grim Fandango, I can't really think of too many games at that time that had really great voice acting, plus most games at the time still didn't really have voice acting, let alone every character being voiced, though it didn't help that the voice audio in that game is super compressed and clipped.

The last big thing I wanted to touch on was that I thought the combat system, while a bit underused, was absolutely awesome. They really were able to take the Virtua Fighter engine and adapt it to a cool brawler in a fantastic way, and I especially loved how badass some of those moves came off if you trained hard enough. And I honestly believe that the famed 70 man battle has to be one of the best moments I've ever played in a video game.

In conclusion, I absolutely loved Shenmue and found the absolute grand scope of its ambition to be one of the most admirable things I've ever seen in a video game. I'm glad I finally have this important part of gaming history behind me. The only real drawback to all of this is that it means I'm now officially on board the "We want Shenmue 3!!!!" bandwagon, though I highly doubt it will ever happen, but, I guess crazier things have happened, right?....Right? I know fans are REALLY pushing hard to get Shenmue re-released in HD on PS4 or w/e, but we'll see. Would love to know your thoughts on the game, it's easily one of the most divisive games ever made, so everyone who's played it has strong feelings about it, what's your thoughts? And let's keeps it civil, no trolling please.

As someone who never owned a Dreamcast, I've always been super curious about checking out Shenmue. Knowing its importance to video games in the innovation it brought, as well as the extremely vocal and rabid cult following it has amassed in the years since its release, I've always been interested in checking it out. By the same token, I'm also well aware of how divisive the game is, with some praising it as one of the greatest games ever made and a true testament to what interactivity and and game as art can be, while others (most notably Jeff and former Gamespot writer Frank Provo) calling it a self-indulgent, pretentious, boring mess. Now, I'm someone who's always loved games that are different and try to be ambitious with what they are trying to accomplish, I was a big fan of Heavy Rain for example, which is another divisive game that people either love or hate. Of course, another reason I've always held off playing Shenmue having not played it when it originally came out is of course the fact that, knowing it never had a conclusion always put me off from playing it. But, with Shenmue having been making serious waves in the games press over the last year or so with Sony's Building The List campaign along with Suzuki's Shenmue Post mortem, I decided to finally shell out and buy a Dreamcast, because ultimately, since there is no guarantee of a Shenmue HD happening (it does have the benefit of being the most requested re-release as part of Sony's Building the List campaign) I wanted to actually experience the game finally. And now, it being 2015 and I having finally seen Shenmue 1 to its conclusion, I can honestly say that the game held up remarkably well and that I finally understand why this game has such a passionate and devoted following, but understand why there are many people out there who don't really get it either.

The first thing that caught my eye immediately playing Shenmue was seeing how well the game holds ups visually. It's pretty much a known fact at this point that when Shenmue was originally released, it looked absolutely mind-blowing, and the game absolutely still holds up from a visual stand point in a lot of ways. Everything from the detail in the main characters faces, the detail put into the characters hands (you can move the things around in your hand!) & the attention to detail in the environments, even today, is pretty striking. You can definitely see they went above and beyond out of their way to make the enviornments as realistic as possible, and it still looks great. It's especially apparent in The Hazuki-Dojo, the fact that they went out of their way to individually render all these different objects and make as many of them fully interactive with the ability to move them around, as well open individual drawers for a game released in 1999 is astounding. It also helps that the games setting it still by today's standards extremely unique and fun to explore. I'm a big anime fan and have always dreamed of visiting Japan, so to see this little sliver of a mid-80s Japanese town brought to life is pretty astounding, and even by todays standards its a setting that's unique and feels real. Knowing that this game came out a whole year before GTA3 did and yet look way better then that game does is pretty awesome, and in some ways the grand scope and detail of some of the environments still rival a lot of the games released today.

Seeing a lot of features that are common place in games now like a NPCs going about their daily lives was cool, and the random changing weather system that would cover the world with snow is something I still don't see enough games today do. It truly is an immersive game, and while it was hard to adjust to using the D-pad to move at first, I actually liked that they made it so you use the control stick to move Ryo's head because it gives off some truly cinematic flavor when your gazing around the environment or running around the world and looking at the environments to your left. Collecting the capsule toys in the game I thought was awesome, and there were a few moments when I lost my shit from getting certain old SEGA characters like Ristar or Alex Kidd not knowing they were in the game. And of course, the camera work in the game is outstanding and definitely goes a long way to giving the game a cinematic feel, and say what you will about the QTEs, at the very least they are awesome to watch and the things that occur during them are entertaining as hell.

The story in the game I thought was really great. I really loved the theme that the game had of a young man who wants to desperately avenge his father, but over the course of his adventure, must decide what is more important to him, the people he's grown up with and who love him and care about his well being, or throw his life away. I became very attatched to the characters and thought that Ryo was a really great protagonist. The thing I loved about Ryo as a character is how unapologetically kind and compassionate he is to those he's close with, and I found his relationship with Nozomi very touching. On the other side, due to his quest for vengeance, he's also willing to do anything and everything to get back at Lan Di and won't let anyone get in his way, and isn't afraid to go dark when need be, and comes off as an absolute badass during the more action heavy parts of the story. Other then Ryo, the other character I really loved was Gui Zhang, I really enjoyed how over the course of the story, he went from being a ruthless cold-hearted jerk to a kind of weird older brother figure to Ryo. And I'm really excited to know what the hell is going on with that girl who is on the cover art and keeps showing up in weird dreams as well as in the opening video (assuming they explain her at all in Shenmue 2).

Now to address some of the criticism leveled against the game. The biggest complaint I've heard from people about Shenmue is that some people find it incredibly boring, but I disagree. I've always been a big defender of games with deliberate pacing if I find what the game is trying to do is interesting, and I very much find Shenmue fascinating. The idea of a game that is going out of its way to be this ambitious, big revenge themed tale while simultaneously trying to be this weird mundane, daily life simulator is a concept that even today is super absurd, but I think it's kind of fascinating and absolutely loved buying capsule toys and getting weird items from raffles at the shops. Plus, the game flow of being told to meet up for a certain time the next day in the morning and then having a day until a certain time at night to get things done for the game I thought gave good incentive to go out buy capsule toys and further explore the world.

The other big issue that people have with the game is the TERRIBLE voice acting. Now, I will say this, there's no denying that the voice acting in the game, at least for the NPCs is pretty terrible, but I actually thought the main story characters were voiced okay, plus, if we're going to be honest, w/ the possible exception of Metal Gear Solid and Grim Fandango, I can't really think of too many games at that time that had really great voice acting, plus most games at the time still didn't really have voice acting, let alone every character being voiced, though it didn't help that the audio in that game is super compressed.

The last big thing I wanted to touch on was that I thought the combat system, while a bit underused, was absolutely awesome. They really were able to take the Virtua Fighter engine and adapt it to a cool brawler in a fantastic way, and I especially loved how badass some of those moves came off if you trained hard enough. And I honestly believe that the famed 70 man battle has to be one of the best moments I've ever played in a video game.

In conclusion, I absolutely loved Shenmue and found the absolute grand scope of its ambition to be one of the most admirable things I've ever seen in a video game. I'm glad I finally have this important part of gaming history The only real drawback to all of this is that it means I'm now officially on board the "We want Shenmue 3!!!!" bandwagon, though I highly doubt it will ever happen, but, I guess crazier things have happened, right?....Right? I know fans are REALLY pushing hard to get Shenmue re-released in HD on PS4 or w/e, but we'll see. I noticed the game used A LOT of licensed technologies, and so there's weird licensing issues, but hey, I guess we'll wait and see.

Shenmue 3. After Shenmue 2, I was sooooooo ready for Shenmue 3, a shame what happened to this amazing franchise.

Final Fantasy X, was about 3/4 through the game when my file somehow got corrupted. Went back to it about a year and a half later and finally beat it. Also, Shenmue, which was especially frustrating because I made it to the final disc, waited a few months, then played through it start to finish, still loved the experience though.

I'm excited from what they've shown so far, though the fact that you can just hold in the dodge button to automatically parry attacks I think is super lame. I realize they have gone on record saying that you do have to actually use timing to avoid certain attacks like from bosses and stuff, but I still think that that should be a mechanic where you must rely on timing at all times to get the full benefits. Just because an enemy may be a common enemy with little threat otherwise doesn't mean that I should just be able to easily dodge his attacks easily no issue, in fact that's something i always loved about earlier games in the series is that, depending on your supply of items and the status of your characters, even common enemies could give you an issue and kill you if you're not careful, but w/e. I just wish Square would stop trying to dumb down their games in a half-assed attempt to make them more accessible to a bigger number of people, they tried that with XIII with it's 30 tutorial and look how that worked out for them? I do really like the aesthetic, I am one of the few people out there who actually like the character desgins, I'll give props to Nomura, while I'm no fan of his weird zipper and belt fetish, I actually have always loved his anime style character designs, and this seems to have what I love about Nomuras's art minus the stupid belts and zippers.

Well, Majora's Mask would be one, at the time I just found it frustrating, but knowing how much people love that game today, and some even like it more than Ocarina, I reserved the 3DS version and look forward to giving it another chance. Staying on the Zelda bandwagon, as much as I freaking love Wind Waker, I never played Phantom Hourglass, so I want to go back and play that game to completion, but I'll likely skip out on Spirit Tracks since it just doesn't interest me that much. As far as other games are concerned, I've still never played either Saints Row the Third or 4, or Skyrim, despite SR3 and Skyrim being the top 2 Game of the Year competitors of that year for the Bombcast crew, I guess I was just sort of burned out on open world games at that time. Diablo 3 is a more recent one I still haven't played yet, but I just bought Reaper of Souls on PS4 so will get around to it eventually. X-Com: Enemy Unknown and Dark Souls I was turned off on initially knowing how difficult they are, which I know is silly, but I've definitely been thinking about giving them a shot lately. Xenoblade looks amazing, really want to check that out. Lastly, Fire Emblem Awakening (or just the whole Fire Emblem series in general) has always interest me, but for whatever reason I never got around to playing, I have a copy of Awakening that I might dig into later on this year, especially now that a new Fire Emblem has just been announced.

@karkarov: Eh, I get where you're coming from, but I don't think that'd go over well with most fans, it's certainly not what I want at least. Plus, given the topic of Sony bringing it back as part of the "Building the List" campaign and the purpose behind it, I doubt that that's what would happen since the whole point of the campaign is to give fans what they want through huge requests, obviously if they brought it back, since Sony would have a hand in it, and since Gio Corsi is a huge Shenmue fan himself, it would stick to that original canon. But that's assuming that they would ever get to a Shenmue 3 and not just re-release the first 2 in HD.

So, we all know by now that Shenmue is the most requested game that Gio Corsi has been requested for his "Building the List" campaign, and he has even stated that he himself is a huge Shenmue fan and desperately wants to make a Shenmue HD. Plus, Adam Boyes has singled it out and has stated he wants it to happen as well. My question is this

1. Do you believe that we will at least get a Shenmue HD collection as part of the Building the List campaign. And

2. If, and again that is a big "IF" we get a Shenmue HD collection exclusively for PS4 and it sells well enough, since the series has managed to gain a decent cult following even from people who never played them originally, do u think that Sony would sign some big exclusivity deal with Sega to get Shenmue 3 made much like Nintendo did for Bayonetta 2? I think that you could make a Shenmue game today that doesn't cost $100 million with how far gaming technology has come, and I may be in the minority, but I'd even be okay with just using the Yakuza engine with maybe a little bit more graphical detail to make it happen. I will say that as a huge Shenmue fan (yes I know, I'm weird) that unlike a lot of fans, I never believed that Shenmue 3 was a realistic possibility, however, this past year with Sony having shown interest in the project, with Sony signing that deal to make Street Fighter 5, seeing Yu Suzuki converse with Shuhei Yoshida and the fact that Sony was able to get SEGA to release Yakuza 5 here in the states after years of saying they wouldn't localize it. IDK, I just think that enough is changing this console generation, and Sony has been known to put a lot of money into games that aren't huge hits like the Team Ico games and whatnot (I'm forever waiting on Last Guardian) so we'll see. What does anybody else think?

So, we all know by now that Shenmue is the most requested game that Gio Corsi has been requested for his "Building the List" campaign, and he has even stated that he himself is a huge Shenmue fan and desperately wants to make a Shenmue HD. Plus, Adam Boyes has singled it out and has stated he wants it to happen as well. My question is this

1. Do you believe that we will at least get a Shenmue HD collection as part of the Building the List campaign. And

2. If, and again that is a big "IF" we get a Shenmue HD collection exclusively for PS4 and it sells well enough, since the series has managed to gain a decent cult following even from people who never played them originally, do u think that Sony would sign some big exclusivity deal with Sega to get Shenmue 3 made much like Nintendo did for Bayonetta 2? I think that you could make a Shenmue game today that doesn't cost $100 million with how far gaming technology has come, and I may be in the minority, but I'd even be okay with just using the Yakuza engine with maybe a little bit more graphical detail to make it happen. I will say that as a huge Shenmue fan (yes I know, I'm weird) that unlike a lot of fans, I never believed that Shenmue 3 was a realistic possibility, however, this past year with Sony having shown interest in the project, with Sony signing that deal to make Street Fighter 5, seeing Yu Suzuki converse with Shuhei Yoshida and the fact that Sony was able to get SEGA to release Yakuza 5 here in the states after years of saying they wouldn't localize it. IDK, I just think that enough is changing this console generation, and Sony has been known to put a lot of money into games that aren't huge hits like the Team Ico games and whatnot (I'm forever waiting on Last Guardian) so we'll see. What does anybody else think?