Review: Shenmue (Dreamcast)

It was time. Ever since I got a Dreamcast I had my sight set on a copy of Shenmue. I had heard it was one of the systems truly great and that I should not miss it for anything in the world. And then all the shoot 'em ups happened. I mostly used my Dreamcast for shooter goodness and soon forgot all about Shenmue as it gathered more and more dust up on my shelf. So this one day I met a guy who was new in town and we had quite a bit of stuff in common. Mainly video games, and more specifically we both felt we had used our Dreamcasts way to sparsely over the last years. And the one game we had in common, that both of us owned and had not played, was Shenmue. It really was time. We decided to go "book club" on it and play it separately but report to one another from time to time with thoughts and impressions. And here is what I thought.

"mindboggling amounts of dynamic dialogue with the many NPC's"

Shenmue is a groundbreaking game in many regards. It is one of the first open world games to feature so much attention to detail and realism. Time schedules, high resolution textures in every corner you care to look closer at, mindboggling amounts of dynamic dialogue with the many NPC's, the arcade in the town has real arcade ports... Heck, I have been told even the weather is accurate for the time. It is truly a world to lose oneself in. And here lays my first realization: Shenmue is a cosy and engaging game that does not take it upon itself to mercilessly entertain with tense action and explosions and so forth. It counts on you, the player, to give as much as you want to get out of it. I went all in and even if the game does have a neat notebook to store things,that needs to be remembered in, I grabbed myself a real notepad and a pen and kept some notes of my own.

I play as Ryo, a teenager living just outside of a small town with his family and their dojo. One day this mysterious man comes to visit and demands some kind of mirror. Ryo's father refuses to give it up and only when the man threatens the life of Ryo, Ryo's father explains where the mirror is hidden. But it is in vain because he gets killed anyway. Ryo then takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of this and revenge his father's death. Who was that man, what was it with that mirror he wanted and why was Ryo's father prepared to die to keep it safe? The first part of the game then becomes an exploring part where we get to know many of the locals as we ask around for the mysterious man and his speeding black car. A great way to slowly show us the ropes and present the characters, the villages and towns and the overall setting.

"At one point I had to just... wait for the bus."

The story unfolds in a steady and pretty slow pace, I can understand how this would frustrate stressed gamers as the game demands that we take the time to look around, chat with people and go on with many every day life tasks. At one point I had to just... wait for the bus. But that is okay, because I have the time to let Shenmue be what it is. I am not in any hurry to complete the game as fast as possible. I go with the flow.

So, I sooner or later find a second mirror, the plot thickens with connections all the way up to the top of the Chinese mafia all while I still feed kittens, return home every evening to not worry my mother and I am also trying to earn enough money to pay for a ticket to Hong Kong, the city where my father's murderer supposedly are currently residing. And a strange Gollum character starts following me, always one step ahead. This is... quite something.

But for every, for the time, new idea there is a drawback. The part where every NPC has an own life with a schedule and real things to do is awesome, but this also means that if you want to talk to a shop owner that has closed for the day then you have to wait until the following morning to be able to talk to them. And if you have nothing else to do at the moment, you are just going to have to wait. Stand around and just wait. Another cool thing is that you can talk to every NPC in the whole game, and they will have unique and sometimes interesting things to say. The drawback to this is that you sometimes can not steer the conversation in the direction you want at the time. There is something you must trigger to get the NPC's to talk about something else, and you have no idea what or when. And when they do change, you have to go around the whole village and talk to every last one of them again. And this is something you will have to repeat several times in order to progress the story.

All in all I think that Shenmue had some great ideas that overshines the shortcomings and the tale of Ryu was engaging enough to make me want to play the sequal.