Sega Nerds

This Month in Sega History: Shenmue

Posted by Chris. Filed under News. Tagged with Shenmue, Yu Suzuki.

On this day seven years ago, Sega forever changed the gaming landscape when it shipped Yu Suzuki’s masterpiece Shenmue for the Dreamcast on Nov. 8, 2000. Ultimately, the title didn’t sell as well as Sega hoped despite it pouring anywhere from a reported $20 million to $70 million into development, which, at the time, was the most ever spent on a video game. However, from a gamer and Sega Nerd’s standpoint, Shenmue marked the beginning of a new era.

At this point, probably every gamer out there knows Shenmue’s story like the front of their hairy palm, but it’s still one of the best we’ve ever experienced.

In an era when most games required players to continually save a kidnapped princess or revolved around a young kid from a small town destined to save the world, Shenmue began with Ryo Hazuki witnessing his father murdered in cold blood by Lan Di, a leader of a Chinese gang. Using this development as its backbone, the story follows Ryo as he begins his quest in avenging his father’s death and possibly saving the world in his own right by reclaiming the stolen Dragon Mirror.

While the act of revenge is nothing new to gamers or anyone else for that matter, Shenmue’s storyline was so well paced and written that it allowed players to instantly have an emotional connection with Ryo and that drove us on to help him see his quest to the end. It’s also a reason why we can go back to this game time after time while never growing tired.

With the advent of an entirely new genre, Suzuki named it Full Reactive Eye Entertainment, but is today more commonly referred to as a “sandbox game,” which has risen in popularity since Shenmue and has peaked with the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

If the Dreamcast ushered Sega into next-gen gaming, Shenmue put the exclamation point on it with the most gorgeous graphics ever seen and a believable living, breathing world filled with hundreds of people with which to interact. Graphically speaking, Shenmue was light years ahead of anything gamers had seen up to that point on a home console. Boasting ultra-realistic facial animation, gorgeous textures and a dynamic weather system, the game was certainly a sight for sore eyes.

Called the Magic Weather System, gamers would experience day and night based on the time and see it rain, snow or be cloudy based on the season in which the player was currently playing in. While this is often times taken for granted in today’s gaming environment, Shenmue’s weather system went a long way into putting the icing on the proverbial cake and is just another of the many reasons why we fell head over heels for the game.

From a gameplay standpoint, Shenmue is broken down into three main sections - Free Quest, which the player spends the most time in and follows Ryo in his quest to revenge his father’s killer; Quick Time Event challenge’s players ability to quickly react to random button presses to advance a non-player controlled scenario and is yet another feature that has gained in popularity following Shenmue’s release; and Free Battle, which is where Ryo engages in combat against his foes.

Free Battle was a highly touted feature since Suzuki claimed he based the combat on Virtua Fighter’s, which just happens to be arguably the best in any fighting game ever. By reading scrolls, Ryo would learn new combat moves that he could use when beating the crap out of local thugs. Although players could spend the time necessary in learning Ryo’s entire repertoire, it wasn’t entirely mandatory since crazed button mashing could very often be just as effective.

For all the great things Shenmue did, many reviewers at the time belittled the game by saying it was too slow paced and it got boring. While they’re certainly entitled to their opinions, I’d wager to argue that they didn’t understand Suzuki’s grand vision when he made the game. You see, Suzuki wanted to create, like I said before, a living, breathing world where people went about their daily business whether you interacted with them or not. Due to this, players often had to wait somewhat long times for NPCs to arrive at specific locations to continue the storyline.

After hearing reviewer’s complaints, Suzuki and his team at AM2 fixed this “problem” in the game’s sequel, but I always appreciated this little part of the game. You see by doing this, it forces you to see more and further interact with the beautiful world that Suzuki imagined, and if you’re not doing that in the first place, you’re not playing the game the right way.

In the end, Shenmue is certainly not without its faults, but it still holds up quite nicely when compared to the games of today. Sure, with each passing generation, Shenmue’s graphics and gameplay will continue to feel more dated, but time will never take away the memories we felt when first playing through the Dreamcast’s crowning jewel. Ultimately, Shenmue will most likely be remembered as one of Sega’s greatest games it ever created.