Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Shenmue.
We’re marking an important anniversary today! Shenmue – a title which, for many folks, came to define the Dreamcast and Sega – launched in Japan on the 29th of December 1999. This game is one of my favourites, not only of the Dreamcast nor of the early 2000s, but… ever. Even twenty-five years later, and despite all of the problems that the saga has faced, Shenmue is still up there as one of my favourite games of all-time.
Here in the UK, we didn’t actually get Shenmue in December 1999. We’d have to wait eleven months for the game to arrive, but I already owned a Dreamcast at that point and I really couldn’t wait! I’d read all about Shenmue in the first issue of the UK’s Official Dreamcast Magazine, and I was immediately hooked in by how the game looked in those very first teaser screenshots, but more importantly how it was being described. This felt like a genuinely revolutionary title.
So for months I was left in limbo, waiting to get my hands on the game for myself! After the dust had settled on the excitement of the celebrations for Millennium Eve, a new year got underway – and I knew that, at some point in the year 2000, I’d finally be able to play Shenmue! It really was one of the entertainment experiences that I was most looking forward to – and it remained in that position all year.
Perhaps it’s because I picked up Shenmue in early December, but it’s a game that I associate with this time of year. There are some in-game Christmas events, too, with a Santa Claus figure appearing in Dobuita, snow falling, and Christmas Day being noted – if you’re still playing when the calendar reaches that point! So for me, Shenmue and the holiday season have always been joined at the hip, and it’s a game that feels particularly well-suited to this time of year. Playing Shenmue in December also, I would argue, adds a little something extra to the role-playing side of things!
I’ve enjoyed video games since I first picked up a joystick at a kids’ club in the late ’80s. This’ll have to be the subject of a longer piece one day, but I think what fascinated me the most about gaming was being able to control what was happening on the TV screen. I can’t remember a time without TV, and being able to be “in charge” of what was going on on the most important screen in the house… I remember it being a really powerful and exciting feeling.
But by 1999, I was beginning to feel that I’d gone as far as I could with games. Most games I’d played on the Super Nintendo and N64 were basically digital toys – and I don’t say that with too much disrespect intended! There had been some fun games on the N64, which was the console I’d owned before picking up a Dreamcast, and I was still enjoying several of them in 1999/2000. But none of those games were what you’d call “cinematic” or “grown-up,” and I guess I was beginning to feel like I was ageing out of the gaming hobby – particularly as I was working, commuting, going to school, and trying to balance all of that with my social life and finding time for friends and family.
But Shenmue changed all of that. It was the first game I played that felt gritty, realistic, and genuinely cinematic, telling a modern-day story set in the real world that would’ve been right at home on the big screen. It’s hard to speculate and deal in “what-ifs,” but I’ve wondered more than once if I’d have kept playing games beyond the early 2000s if it hadn’t been for Shenmue showing me what interactive media could be when it’s at its best.
It’s hard to put into words how many ground-breaking gameplay, visual, and narrative elements were present in this one single title. Things players have taken for granted for years – like lip-synced dialogue or hands with individual fingers – leapt out at me when I finally got my hands on the game for myself, and they felt like a gigantic leap forward from the blocky, polygonal graphics of the N64 generation.
Perhaps the most impressive feature of Shenmue was its world. No one in 1999 knew what the term “open world” would come to mean, but Shenmue was the first game I played that is reasonably close to that category. The limitations of the Dreamcast still kept Shenmue divided up into several areas – but these were large, densely-packed, and diverse. Moreover, they were incredibly well-detailed, making just strolling down the street in Ryo’s home town of Yamanose feel like being transported thousands of miles across the sea to Japan.
Within Shenmue’s open world, every non-player character had a purpose. They ran a shop or went shopping, they swept the road outside their house and then went inside to take a break; they had jobs, they had objectives… and they felt real in a way that, even today, many NPCs just don’t. These characters, their schedules, and the way shops and businesses would open and close as the day wore on… they were completely revolutionary things at the time, and features that some open-world games today are worse and less realistic for failing to include. Shenmue also opened up almost every shop and building in the game for exploration – even those that had nothing whatsoever to do with the main story.
For someone who had grown up playing games that had been, up until that point, pretty linear experiences, the freedom Shenmue allowed me felt incredible. I was free to totally ignore Ryo’s quest, instead taking his pocket money and squandering it on collectible figures – or at the arcade! An arcade which, need I remind you, contained two full-size games from the 1980s, as well as a fun darts mini-game and a QTE mini-game to boot.
I hadn’t played Space Harrier before I played Shenmue, but I have a vague recollection of playing Hang On – or a game like it, at least – on a rare visit to an arcade at some point in the late ’80s or early ’90s. So to get that experience again inside of another video game… it was a huge treat. I spent hours playing these games-within-a-game; it was just so much fun to visit the arcade and put other activities and the quest on the back burner!
Having Space Harrier and Hang On inside Shenmue’s arcade felt like a real power play from Sega – wrapping up two games inside of a much bigger, more elaborate game was a real flex and a way to show off how much bigger and better the Dreamcast was. And for someone who grew up in a rural area where there weren’t any arcades, being able to visit a digital arcade was pretty cathartic, too!
Shenmue began life in the mid-90s as Virtual Fighter RPG, a spin-off from Sega’s established fighting game series. Taking one of the Virtua Fighter characters as a starting point, creator Yu Suzuki began to build his magnum opus. Development was originally planned for the Sega Saturn console, but this later switched to the Dreamcast. The connection to Virtual Fighter was also abandoned, with the game taking on a fully standalone story. Shenmue and its sequel – Shenmue II – were in development at the same time, with work on the second game being well underway by the time the first game was released.
Shenmue is famous – or rather, infamous – for its development budget. In 1999, it was reported that the game cost over $70 million to make, though this also includes part of the development costs of Shenmue II. Regardless, Shenmue was an expensive undertaking, and a big gamble for Sega. If the Dreamcast had sold as Sega hoped, and Shenmue had been its “killer app,” recouping that investment would’ve been possible. But with the Dreamcast underperforming, there was no way for Shenmue to make its money back, leading to the game being best-remembered outside of its fan community as one of the most expensive failures in video gaming history – at least for the time.
Of course, I didn’t know any of that at the time I bought a Dreamcast! I was dimly aware of the game’s reputation as an expensive undertaking, but at the time that just seemed like an even bigger boast on the part of Sega! “The most expensive game of all-time” shipped with some incredible features and an insane level of detail, genuinely changing my relationship with games and setting expectations that, time and again, other titles fail to live up to in one way or another.
At the heart of Shenmue’s story was a relatable protagonist caught up in a quest for answers – and revenge. Ryo Hazuki is an incredibly well-written character, someone who’s sympathetic and relatable, while also being from a completely different culture and having at least some characteristics of an anti-hero. Several times in Shenmue, Ryo’s friends and confidants would try to dissuade him from pursuing his quest for revenge, but he’d remain steadfast.
The concept of revenge is a difficult one, and the game doesn’t shy away from that. Rather than reporting the crime of his father’s murder to the police – which you can literally attempt to do in-game using the telephone – Ryo is determined to solve things on his own. He wants to kill the man who killed his father – but along the way, he’s forced to confront difficult questions about who his father truly was and how well he really knew him. There’s a lot of complexity and nuance to this story, and while Shenmue firmly places the player in Ryo’s shoes, questions linger about how justified he is in taking this course of action.
There are areas of Shenmue that, by today’s standards, seem a little dated. The control scheme was designed before twin analogue sticks were a standard part of control pads, and on the Dreamcast, movement still used a four-way D-pad. This could feel clunky and often led to awkward moments as Ryo struggled to navigate a doorway or successfully climb a flight of stairs!
The clunky controls also extended to fighting sequences. Complicated multi-button combos worked well in Virtua Fighter and other 2D fighting games of that era, but I never felt they translated all that well to a fully 3D environment. I’m far from the best gamer, but even in the Dreamcast days I’d find Ryo flailing around, swinging punches and kicks at mid-air as an opponent moved out of range or to one side. In bigger fights with multiple enemies, that was less of a problem. In one-on-one situations, though, it could occasionally get annoying!
In keeping with Shenmue’s philosophy of F.R.E.E – full reactive eyes entertainment; an early open-world, free-roaming idea – it was possible to practice fighting in one of several areas around the game world. I confess that I probably didn’t practice as much as I should’ve, and I didn’t make use of very many of the more complicated multi-button moves that Ryo could learn. I found that once I had a couple of solid kicks and strikes in my arsenal, the rest were just superfluous! Was that the right way to play? Well… isn’t that the fun of a game like Shenmue? That there are different ways to approach some of these sequences?
For me, the fighting portions of the game were really just bridges in between exploration and story sections. As long as I could get through a fight without losing repeatedly, I was content to play through them to advance the story. And that was a genuinely new feeling for me at the time – the idea that a video game could have such an engrossing story that the actual gameplay side of things was in a distant second place. Sure, I’d played story-driven games before Shenmue – titles like Shadows of the Empire and Jet Force Gemini come to mind – but this really was the first game with a realistic, gritty, and truly engaging story that I found myself getting lost in.
For better or worse, Shenmue was the game that coined the phrase “quick-time event” and introduced this mechanic to a wider audience. We can debate whether QTEs were invented by Shenmue or not, but Shenmue’s marketing came up with the name – and QTEs have, in the years since, become rather controversial!
I’d like to defend quick-time events in Shenmue. Firstly, they felt genuinely new and revolutionary at the time, taking a part of the game that would’ve otherwise been a non-interactive cut-scene and making it part of gameplay – with consequences for messing up. And secondly, QTEs as they appeared in the first Shenmue didn’t feel overdone or particularly obtrusive. Shenmue’s QTEs felt like a big leap forward in terms of interactive storytelling.
Quick-time events have acquired a reputation through over-use in other titles in the years since Shenmue – rather than because of the way they were used in this game in particular! And sure, as the title that popularised QTEs, Shenmue might come in for some criticism – and I get that. But I maintain that the way they’re used in Shenmue itself is actually fine, and if other games stuck to that formula, maybe players today would have less of an issue with QTEs. But we’re dangerously close to veering off-topic.
Aside from Ryo himself, who was an especially well-written protagonist, Shenmue’s world was populated with some wonderful secondary characters. Ryo’s friend/crush Nozomi is sweet, and the interactions the two have across the game really raise the stakes when she’s put in danger later on. Tom, Ryo’s friend who sells hot dogs, is a great character too – and the friendship the two built up really packs an emotional punch, especially when Tom leaves Japan toward the end of the game. Fuku-san and Ine-san are the familiar faces of home that Ryo leaves behind – and occasionally seems to push away – as part of his quest. And Ryo’s other friends all have an impact, too.
Then there are the villains. Lan Di, though only seen in person at the beginning of the game, just oozes strength and power, and the mystery tied up with Iwao, Ryo’s father, is tantalising. Then there’s Chai – a genuinely disturbing, weird little guy! Chai’s way of speaking, his facial appearance, and his crouching gait all come together to make a really unsettling presentation. The way Chai interfered with Ryo’s quest was infuriating, too – deliberately so! A truly well-crafted villain that, to this day, makes my skin crawl!
At the harbour we also have the occupants of Warehouse #8: Master Chen and Guizhang. This mysterious father-and-son duo have a connection to Ryo’s father – and to Lan Di. Just tracking them down is a whole mystery in and of itself, and sneaking into their base can be difficult! I’m not really in favour of mandatory stealth sections in games, but once you know what you’re doing and get your bearings in the Old Warehouse District, getting there shouldn’t be too difficult.
The harbour is probably my favourite individual area of Shenmue’s game world. It’s so atmospheric, with large warehouses, a rippling sea, and tired sailors and workmen all milling around. Particularly at night, the harbour really feels like a real place – but also a strangely nostalgic one, if that makes sense. I could spend hours at the harbour just walking around, soaking it all in.
The harbour is also where Ryo would get a job – and despite what you might’ve heard, driving a forklift and stacking crates was a lot of fun! The forklift race at the beginning of each day was great, too – and another totally unexpected gameplay feature in a game laden with mini-games, creative mechanics, and different things to do. The forklift gameplay was also strangely relaxing; the kind of “cozy” gameplay that makes people fall in love with simulator titles. Picking up crates and stacking them just right was a lot of fun.
The only downside to Ryo’s forklift job is that it’s relatively short and comes at the beginning of the end of Shenmue. By the time you start the job at the harbour, you’re basically on the path to the endgame and the climactic final battles – and I could’ve happily spent an in-game month or two just having fun playing forklift driver at the harbour!
Ryo and Guizhang team up to take on seventy opponents at the end of the game; an epic, climactic battle that throws wave after wave of opponents at them at the harbour. This battle is difficult, but it’s also a ton of fun compared with some of the earlier one-on-one boss fights. Ryo has moves that can knock back several people at once, like his spinning kick, and smashing your way through huge numbers of gangsters… there was nothing like it at the time! The closest comparison I can think of to the game’s climactic seventy-person battle (from the same time period) is Dynasty Warriors 2, which released about six months later.
Shenmue was more than just a game. This landmark title completely changed how I came to see interactive media, set expectations for narrative games that, even today, many titles fail to live up to, created a living, breathing world years before anyone else even tried it, and above all, kept me invested in gaming as a hobby at a point in my life where I might’ve otherwise began to drift away. Twenty-five years on from its launch, it remains one of my favourite games of all-time.
For me, that’s Shenmue’s real legacy. It’s a game that set the bar for narrative action/adventure experiences, and even today I find myself comparing brand-new games to Shenmue, or noting that Shenmue was the first game I played with a particular feature or gameplay mechanic. I revisited Shenmue in 2017, shortly after it was re-released on PC, and I had a blast getting lost in that world all over again. Although some aspects of the game are definitely dated today, it’s amazing how well the world itself holds up.
I wanted to acknowledge Shenmue’s milestone quarter-of-a-century anniversary, and I hope I’ve been able to adequately convey just how much this game meant to me – and how much it continues to matter all these years later. Despite the disappointment I felt at the developers’ inability to bring the story to a conclusion, I still look back on Shenmue with incredible fondness.
I’m so glad I got to play through this game on the Dreamcast, and it’s still a title I find myself recommending to players who missed it the first time around. With a port currently available on PC and PlayStation 4 – usually at a reasonable price, especially when there are sales – it’s incredibly easy to get started with Shenmue, and I honestly can’t recommend it enough. Sure, it’s a piece of gaming history nowadays – but it’s also an incredible narrative experience.
A few weeks ago, I tackled the difficult question of whether the Shenmue saga has a future. Five years on from Shenmue III, is there a chance of yet another reprieve for this incredible – yet overlooked – series? Check out my answer to that question by clicking or tapping here! And at some point soon, I’d love to watch and review Shenmue – The Animation; the anime adaptation of the first two games. So be sure to check back for that.
Until then, I really hope this has been an interesting look back at one of my favourite games… ever. Shenmue blew my mind twenty-five years ago, and I really wanted to celebrate its anniversary in style. If you’ve never played it, do us both a favour and try and track down a copy! If you like games with a strong story, I really don’t think you’ll regret it. If you loved Shenmue in the Dreamcast days, or came to it after the fact when it was re-released, I hope you’ll join me in raising a glass to one of the most revolutionary, creative, and transformational games of its era.
Happy anniversary, Shenmue!
Shenmue I & II is available now for PC and PlayStation 4. Shenmue – The Animation may be available to stream on CrunchyRoll. Shenmue is the copyright of YSNet and/or Sega. Some images, screenshots, and artwork courtesy of Sega, YSNet, Shenmue Dojo, and Wandering Through Shenmue on YouTube. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 