Ever since I saw the first demo movie I got from the Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine, I was hooked on the concept of the game alone. Shenmue tries to recreate a "living experience", while some hold backs are understandable for game-play's sake, it's really just a delight that Shenmue delivers the most realistic life-like experience ever to grace a video game. That's not all what Shenmue's about though, the story revolves around Ryo Hazuki, a boy trying to avenge his father's death by finding the man who killed him, Lan Di. The cinematic scenes in Shenmue are put together in a quite professional manner that mimics the way a movie plays out. The first cinema scene, where Ryo's dad gets killed right in front of him, is immaculately scripted and produced; it really makes you hate Lan Di with as much passion as Ryo, and ultimately making you want to find Lan Di to kill him yourself, rather than for Ryo to get his revenge. Most cinema scenes in Shenmue depend on if you succeed at pushing the buttons that come up on the screen; say if a kid kicks a soccer ball in the cg movie, then all of a sudden, a button will flash on the screen, if you press the right button in the amount of time allowed, you will catch the ball, if you don't succeed, then the ball will go flying and hit a little girl in the face. Allot of these scenes will help you get through the game faster the better you do in them, or even help you unlock the many secrets to be found in Shenmue. These aren't the kind of secrets you'll find in a Mario game, these are secrets that you would find just like in real life; like a cassette tape found in a drawer in your house, or that 25-cent-machine toy you haven't gotten out of a local convenient store across town, or a soda can you bought from a soda machine down by the docs that spit out a winning soda can, that gives you some points to earn downloads online (I don't think the online thing is still going though). A phenomenal recreation of a boy's revenge stained life, while not just working on making the world life-like, but also making sure a moving story-line draws you through the game (this game is really an introductory to the series though). The graphics that Shenmue sports are the best graphics on any Dreamcast game ever made, they even beat out most PS2 game's graphics, until recently (2004). There are just so many objects that had to be rendered in Shenmue; you can really see why it took them 5 years to make the game. The sound is pretty amazing too, with a smash hit orchestrated sound track that perfectly sets the cinematic tone at each moment. It's an amazing feat to have every single person in the entire game speak in all voice acting, considering almost every person in the game will have multiple replies to you, and they change through out the game too. Besides the fact that this is the closest recreation of a realistic virtual world, there's really more than you're thinking of to it. It's not just graphics that make this game realistic, it's everything, like every single person on the street having their own agenda for each day that passes by (you can actually follow some one and see how their day pans out), also little things like being able to shoot pool, gamble, and play in the arcade, and there's really a lot of things we can keep going on about here, the point is this, there's tons of freedom in this game. Shenmue is a phenomenal game that you will often find yourself playing through at least a couple times, just to see what else could happen. The impact this game has made on me will never change, I might just buy a Dreamcast again for this classic game.
Other Helpful Reviews for Shenmue: Isshou Yokosuka
there's no doubt of that shenmue is a great game and the game itself is a reason to buy the sega dreamcast . the story is very simple you are ryo hazuki ,a japanese young man that saw his life destroyed when his fa... Read Full Review
This game made me buy a DC When i first saw it i was AMAZING by the graphics, and the music and story drug me in This game is a real masterpiece, simple enough The only game you will ever find like this is Shenmue 2 ... Read Full Review
