What do you guys think Shenmue's impact on the gaming industry was?

Certainly gave R* inspiration for GTA VC and GTA SA.

For me Shenmue was probaobly the greatest gaming experience I've ever had.  Shen 2 was the better game but experiance wise Shenmue was allowing me to do things I had not done in agame before or for that matter acts that I had not taken part in in quite some time (ie walk int to an arcade) or things I had never taken part in such as being part of a small community that felt from an empathatic sense very real.

it gave everyone in the industry something to talk about be it good or bad.  shenmue made noise.  i would like to think it inspired games to be more immersive due to the cinematic quality of the game.   ......but what the hell do i know?!

i dont think anyone can deny that it showed that "Quick-time-events" could be fun. other games had tried it like the famous dragons lair but Shenmue was the first game i remember
that made QTE sequences fun. and it definitely influenced the whole open-world genre , that whole idea of spending hours in a game world without touching the main quest/story

Shenmue 2, technically was the better game, but I enjoyed the environments and characters in the original much more.  I watched a preview video of the game twice or even three times daily for over three months prior to it's release, on a DCM demo disc.  I'll never forget the experience.

"Shenmue 2, technically was the better game, but I enjoyed the environments and characters in the original much more.  I watched a preview video of the game twice or even three times daily for over three months prior to it's release, on a DCM demo disc.  I'll never forget the experience."

Yeah, I consider it the peak of gaming for me, in fact.  Nothing since Shenmue has come close to feeling as special.  Since then, I got online, and gaming started to lose it's magic, for me.  The days with a DC, played on a 13 inch TV, were the best.  Nothing else compares to it.

Inspired the far superior far less boring Yakuza series.

"Inspired the far superior far less boring Yakuza series."

Shenmue's influence on me is that I should never invest in an ongoing franchise again. After playing parts 1 and 2 only to never get a conclusion, i've decided to not get involved with stuff like Yakuza for the same reason.

"Shenmue's influence on me is that I should never invest in an ongoing franchise again. After playing parts 1 and 2 only to never get a conclusion, i've decided to not get involved with stuff like Yakuza for the same reason."

Shenmue's influence on the industry as a whole was simply enormous. It took gamers places they've never been before and it's somewhere I'd love to go again.

That games, like, a 6.8, right?
It was definitely the game that really coined the term QTE, so every time cinematics are ruined by boring button presses(not RE4 or God of War, but Spider-Man 3 and The Force Unleashed--really uninspired use of the interactive cinematics) we can give a shout to Shenmue.

"That games, like, a 6.8, right?
It was definitely the game that really coined the term QTE, so every time cinematics are ruined by boring button presses(not RE4 or God of War, but Spider-Man 3 and The Force Unleashed--really uninspired use of the interactive cinematics) we can give a shout to Shenmue."

I think every developer doing a game with a lot of free-roaming has taken a long look at Shenmue. But the QTE's are probably its biggest legacy, which is also kind of sad.

"Yeah, I consider it the peak of gaming for me, in fact.  Nothing since Shenmue has come close to feeling as special.  Since then, I got online, and gaming started to lose it's magic, for me.  The days with a DC, played on a 13 inch TV, were the best.  Nothing else compares to it."

I don't think it had as much influence as I wish it had. Doesn't seem like it inspired any Japanese developers to take the risks it did. Of course it can have the QTE legacy. I adore the game, absolutely found it amazing. You still can't find the same experience.

It wasn't just opening a random drawer. It was opening a random drawer and finding different things in each one. Or finding nothing.

That game sums up the Dreamcast in a lot of ways. Really ambitious and like you've all said, way before its time. We still don't see that level of detail in hardly anything. And I doubt you'll ever see a game from that time period either, huge risk.

People would much rather have something else. Even somebody in this very thread implied the game was boring. It makes me appreciate it more, since no developer will ever take that chance again.

It's influence? I don't know, somewhere around a 6.8.

They're just saying that because that's what Jeff gave it.

Shenmue was amazing, and I'm planning on playing through both this Christmas.

It inspired so many things, it was pioneering. It spawned QTEs (awesome in Shenmue, terrible in everything else), was one of the first games to utilise story as the main driver for gameplay and pushed production values through the roof.

Let's not overlook the biggest part of Shenmue's legacy. It was so expensive & required so much manpower to produce the 2 unfinished chapters that it helped kill the beloved Dreamcast years before it should have been put to sleep. I still think it was ahead of it's time in many ways, but I can't overlook the fact that Sega could il afford any major busts at that time & Shenmue was a bust. They couldn't even give Dreamcast owners the sequel stateside which was a crime in itself!