Review of Shenmue

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I'm not an RPG fan. I'm not even an adventure game fan. I bought Shenmue completely over the pressure of my friends. I've owned the game for the past five days, and i've allready lost 30 hours of my life to it. Let's put it this way..It is very rare that a game does that to me. Extremely rare.

Shenmue's perfect in a lot of ways. It's storyline, avenging your father's death, may seem generic, but Shenmue manages to transform it into an epic and involving tale. Going through the game, interacting with it's enviroments and characters, it's all just the unique experince that *is* Shenmue.

The game's music is incredible, most of the time flawless. The graphics are unbeleivable and the level of detail is just scary. Once you finish the game, you will indeed be on the edge of your seat of the sequels to come, but I think Shenmue has been introduced to us, and in perfect form. I dont give the game five stars just on the hype. I give the game five stars because it's just that good.

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I have to hand it to Yu Suzuki and Sega. Their games may not be immediate classics, but they are clearly groundbreaking, and players will look back at them and say "wow, I can't believe this game was that inventive".

I've played Shenmue for only a few days, and I have to say it's one of the best games I've ever played. The quality and attention to graphic detail is stunning. Clearly, when you're looking at some characters' face it's hard to imagine that they are made up of polygons.

Twitch gamers will not be happy. If you're in for a quick, visceral fix you'll be disappointed. But if you like exploring, like seeing what's behind the corner or underneath that tricycle or even what's in someone's desktop drawer, you will be estatic.

Shenmue is just one of those games you can sit down and play. Play and play. Even without following the plotline to the tee, you can still do a million things.

If you have a Dreamcast buy Shenmue. If you don't have a Dreamcast, do yourself a favor and get one. This game, and many others (hint, hint, NFL2K1, hint) are definitely worth it.

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If you have a Dreamcast and don't buy this game you are missing an amazing experience. To not have this in your library is like not having "Soul Caliber" or "Crazy Taxi." This game is really the best game I have ever played. Beautiful graphics are definitely here, as can be witnessed by the screen shots published in various magazines and posted on websites, but they are only the pretty colored paper wrapping this fanatastic gift from Yu Suzuki.

This game is what so many others out there are not, fun and entertaining. In this title it doesn't feel like you are playing a game, but living a life. I started to think of it like the movie "The Truman Show" after a while. Believe it or not you become so immersed in Ryo Hazuki's life that when you do see something that disrupts the illusion, you feel a mild shock. Walking up closely to characters who were eating at a burger stand and seeing that they really were not eating their food, but simply moving it close to their faces was one such slap in the face for me.

One of the key factors involved in making this illusion of reality float is that no single challenge seems out of place, neither too difficult nor too easy. I enjoy a decent challenge like any other gamer out there, but I also think that this can definately detract from the fun. The difficulty of this game reminded me a lot of "Metal Gear Solid" or "The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time." It isn't a cake walk, but it certainly isn't Rocket Science. The real emphasis here is the story, and what a story it is.

You begin the game on the day that Ryo Hazuki's father is murdered by a mysterious man dressed in elaborate silken robes. From this point on your focus is to discover the man's identity, find out why he killed Ryo's father, and deal out justice. But Ryo doesn't own even one rocket launcher, let alone a pistol to aid his cause. Heck the guy doesn't own a car, so he either has to walk or ride the bus to get anywhere. He progresses through the game by talking to people to gain information (by the way I am so glad they did not subtitle this game; the voice acting is really really good, something rarely found in a game of this sort) and when talking doesn't work, he employs his skills in martial arts. There is a real fighting engine in this game, not just some slopped together mess. It of course is like Virtua Fighter (Yu Suzuki you know) and it plays very nicely.

The Quick Timer Events (these are like the original Dragon's Lair back in the olden days) that were talked about so much are fun to participate in and do not dominate the gameplay at all. They actually are interactive FMV sequences. Any game of this sort will have FMVs to carry the story along, this one is no different except that in some of them you get a chance to participate. Again these sequences do not dominate the game, they are scattered throughout, but they in no way make this game anything near the Simon Says type of affair that some outlets were speculating before release. This is a game that may only take you four days of constant play to finish, so if quantity is what you crave you may be disappointed. Yet, there are so many cool things to do besides solve the mystery you could easily play one game for a month at least. From collecting all the little toys in various vending machines, playing arcade classic "Hang On" or an addicting darts game to gambling away your allowence at the slot machines (my personal favorite) there is plenty to keep you occupied besides the main quest. But, as far as quantity versus quality goes I will say this: I can easily finish "Metal Gear Solid" in about four hours and I can Whup "Resident Evil:Code Veronica" in about two days, yet I love both of these games and count them as timeless classics and always will.

The coolest part of all is that this is only Chapter One. What will Ryo do next? Whatever it is, I hope he does it soon. I can't wait to see where Yu Suzuki takes this amazing tale in the future!

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There are some one-star reviews of this game. There are many more fourand five-star reviews, mainly because the kind of person you need to be to rate Shenmue 1 star doesn't often have the attention span necessary to write an entire Amazon review.

This is where a lot of people are going wrong reviewing this game. They spend a few hours cluelessly wandering around, not using the Notebook which *tells you* what you're looking for now, not going to the fortune teller in Dobuita who *gives you clues*, not using their own mental processes to *think* about what Ryo should be doing, and on the basis of this conclude that it sucks. Not true. Usually the next piece of information can be found in a matter of minutes, letting you ever closer to the action sequences Virtua Fighter style fights with up to 70 enemies (Shenmue was originally planned as a Virtua Fighter RPG), QTE reaction tests, movie cutscenes that can be amazingly realistic at times, minigames like forklift and motorcycle riding, arcade games (play Space Harrier all over again!), etc. Even mundane things like going shopping, feeding a pet cat, using vending machines. There's enough to do.

Now: the voice acting. The voice acting ranges from fantstic (Ryo, Nozomi, Chen Gui Zhang) to terrible (some passersby, children). Note that most of the important voices are great. It's almost a formula: the less plot-important a character, the worse their voice. Desperate loser Goro is a real overactor. But then in RL desperate losers *do* overact to impress.

Why four stars? I'd like 4 1/2. But it is rather too easy (can't "Game Over" at all). It's also relatively short. But what is there is absolutely beautiful. The final disc in particular made my jaw hit the ground on more than one occasion. My final "day" of game time left a mark. Just like the final scenes episode of the final episode of your favourite TV show, you could tell: "This is it. This is ending, and soon." It's beautiful.

If you read this far, congratulations! You have the attention span Shenmue would like you to have. Go buy. Now.

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Yet another game that shows the talent that Sega has over Sony. PS2 has no games like this, rather rehashes of yester-generation games. AM2's Shenmue represents another new change in 3-D gaming, just like the change The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had over previous adventure games. It also shows that Sega is just as creative in making new kinds of games as Nintendo.

Shenmue is the brainchild of Yu Suzuki, who has created the most expensive game ever and a new type of gameplay he calls FREE. Of course, it follows a storyline, but the world of Shenmue is to explore the city of Yokosuka to get to where you want and when you need to. It's a complete living world. It has days and nights and the city is complete with your everyday usual stuff. Not since Super Mario 64 have I played a game that gives a new experience.

The reason why I gave this game four stars is because the game is not one game, it's only the beginning, therefore once you beat it, you'll have to wait (and wonder) what's going to be in Chapter 2. Also, the game is too realistic here and there; for example, to call someone you'll have to individually press the digits on the phone pad, and as for the day and night feaure, the time is always consistant. You can't skip to the next day when you want to.

Though with these flaws, there is no way Shenmue can be overlooked. It's a new type of game, and the majority of gamers won't care about its flaws too much because of all the possible things to do (when Super Mario 64 debuted, no one cared about its flaws like the annoying camera control, because, as stated, it was a new type of game and experience). Get a copy and enjoy.