Shenmue is possibly be the most immersive video game you'll ever play.
The story of Shenmue is set in December 1986 and follows the quest of an 18 year old school boy called Ryo Hazuki. After witnessing the murder of his father in the games opening scenes Ryo decides to go on a revenge mission to avenge his father. His father was killed by a Chinese man named Lan-Di, who fought using a thought to be extinct style of martial arts from China. Ryo decides he must try everything within his power to track Lan-Di down and seep his revenge, but it won't be an easy task.
The world of Shenmue is quite big. It's not the largest gaming world ever, and it wasn't at release either, but it's still big enough to offer you a lot of exploration. The game world is mainly set in one town, which has different boroughs. The world is really well designed. I'm not too sure, but I actually believe that the setting of Shenmue is designed around real Japanese villages, and with the level of detail I wouldn't be surprised it if actually was designed around real places.
Shenmue was a fore-runner for super-realism in video games. The game was as close to real life as possible back in 2000, and still to this day remains one of the most realistic games ever produced. There were many features which contributed to Shenmue's life replicating feelings.
Shenmue was the fore runner for game mechanics such as Magic Weather and Time Control. The Magic Weather system is a system that randomly generated weather patterns. For instance you could start a day and the weather is over-cast, but as you travel it could randomly start raining or even snowing. The weather system was so cleaver that if it snowed one day the snow would still be laid on the ground the next day. It doesn't really sound like much now, but Shenmue was the first video game ever to incorporate random weather effects and influenced all games afterwards that also did. The Time Control game mechanic is a different, but still important, aspect of the game. What the Time Control system did was allow certain events to take place at different times of the day. For instance, at the start of each new day Ryo awakens at 8:30am.
Sometimes Ryo may be required to go to a shop to get information from somebody, but the shops all have allotted opening and closing times. If a shop is only open between 10:00 am and 19:00 pm then you can only enter during those times. Also Ryo needs to sleep every night, rather like real people. The level of realism in Shenmue hasn't really been matched since in any game that has followed.
One other game mechanic that Shenmue introduced was that of the Quick Time Event. For those of you who don't know, the quick time event is a series of button presses. At certain points in the game an indicator will flash on screen, and you'll have to press the button that corresponds to it. So if a big letter 'B' appears on the screen you'll press the B button. I'll admit that a lot of games that use the Quick Time Event use it badly, but it was incorporated really well in to Shenmue.
Because of the enhanced realism Shenmue has a fully interactive world. Every single non-playable character you encounter can talk to you, in real voice acting. This made each character have their own personalities. Shenmue was the first video game ever to incorporate real voices for every single main character and NPC. I'll admit that sometimes the voice acting isn't the best. When you're talking to main characters it's fine, but a lot of the time, when you're talking to random NPC's, they sound like they are struggling to talk properly. But after a while you just start to ignore it and eventually get used to it.
Probably the best interaction in the whole game with none-playable characters comes in scenes between Ryo the three main NPC's - Nozomi Harasaki, Ine Hayata and Masayuki Fukuhara. Nozomi is a friend of Ryo's from school, but she is secretly in love with him. This leads to her worrying a lot about him and constantly asking if he is OK. There're multiple scenes which portray her feelings towards Ryo throughout the course of the game. Ine is the house keeper of the Hazuki family. She's held that position for 15 years since the death of Ryo's mother, and after his father gets murdered she becomes his sort of surrogate parent. Masayuki Fukuhara was a student martial artist under Ryo's father. Because he's been a student for such a long time he's more like an older brother to Ryo then just another student. The interaction between Ryo and these three characters goes beyond anything else in the game. Ryo will lie to certain people throughout the game to stop them worrying about him, like people would in real life, and then confide in others. An example would be that Ryo tells Fukuhara that he's planning to avenge his father's death, but he tells him not to say anything to Ine because he knows that she'll worry about him. Because of the great interaction you really get a feel of exactly how the other characters feel towards Ryo.
One of the biggest criticisms on Shenmue was that there are long, drawn out sections of the game that require you to do nothing but wait. One example of this is that you have to wait until 19:00 pm before you can get in to this certain bar, but because you wake up at 8:30 you'll be waiting a long time. Now I can see how these criticisms are justified if you're doing a simple play through of the game, but to fully experience Shenmue properly you really have to play it as it was designed. In real life what do you all do when you're bored? I, for example like taking long walks or play video games (which I also do when I aren't bored too). To pass time in Shenmue you have to make things happen yourself, just like you'd have to in real life.
There are so many things to interact with in Shenmue that it'll boggle your mind. I mean the game is really anal in some parts – you can do daft things like buy soda drinks from vending machines, or you can collect little miniature figurines that you win from capsule toy machines. Sometimes buying a can from a vending machine will earn you certain 'winner' cans that you can take to your local shop and use them to enter raffles. The prizes in the raffles can range from stuff like the miniature figurines, or even video games. Yes, Ryo can even play video games in Shenmue on the console in his home. It feels totally odd playing a video game inside a video game, but it certainly replicates real life to a par. There are only two games you can win from the raffle, Hang-On and Space Harrier (both highly influential Yu Suzuki developed arcade hits), but it feels great playing both the classic in all their glory. Also, if you don't win the games from the raffle you could always visit your local Arcade store and pay to play them. Yes a lot of the features of Shenmue are totally anal to a par, but they make the game feel perfectly life-like.
Because of you're freedom to explore at your own pace, Shenmue has limitless opportunities for you to spend money. If you really want to interact properly with the game you'll need to spend money to do so and so you can get enough money you are also required to get a job sometime during the game.
Despite the fact that Shenmue is pretty much an open world game that revolves around seemingly limitless amounts of exploration value the game itself also has a pretty solid combat system. Ryo himself is meant to be a trainee Martial Artist (his Dad was supposedly teaching him before his death) and there'll be times in the game where Ryo will have to get his hands dirty to receive certain information he desires. The combat system is actually quite in depth. You basically fight similarly to what you do in fighting games, such as Virtua Fighter, which isn't surprising considering the fact that Yu Suzuki also developed the Virtua Fighter games too. But you're not only limited to simple punches, kicks or grab moves – you can also do combination attacks like in proper dedicated fighting games.
You can also learn new techniques too that'll come in handy. Helping out certain characters will trigger events that lead you to learning new moves. Techniques like the 'Shadow Step' or the 'Swallow Kick', among others, will be learnt by Ryo during his quest.
Shenmue itself is a sort-of homage to Sega themselves. Throughout the course of the game you'll notice many references to Sega themselves. For instance the arcade shop in the main area of the game, Dobuita, is just full of Sega arcade machines from the 1980's. In Ryo's house there's a poster for Virtua Fighter and he also owns a Sega Saturn. Because the game is set in the 1980' certain things, like the Virtua Fighter poster and the Saturn, in theory, shouldn't be there, but they simply pay homage to the history of Sega and Yu Suzuki himself.
Because of how realistic Shenmue is the visuals also carry the trend on. Shenmue was, graphically, the most impressive game ever at release. I'm not a graphics hog, but I can certainly appreciate a high level of visual quality. Shenmue was above everything else at release, and the only other Dreamcast game that can compete visually with it is Soul Calibur. It's just the little things that made all the difference – from the veins that you can see in people's hands to the super-realistic facial expressions. Sure it has aged now, but considering that its 11 years old it still holds up extremeley well.
In my opinion Shenmue achieved all its goals and then some. Back in 2000 the game was literally as close to real life as possible, and still to this day remains one of the most realistic games ever created. Sure the game can get a tad slow at times, but doesn't real life? Shenmue was a grand vision, but Sega pulled it off superbly. If you can get past the slow parts, and the occasional bad voice acting, you'll find Shenmue to possibly be the most immersive video game you've ever played.
Review by: James Widdowson
Score: 9.6/10