Shenmue launch

[Niode]

I bought this game on the day of release. I had read about it in CVG years before it came out. When it was still called Project Berkeley. How they were saying that no single art resource would ever be used twice. How it would be the most realistic looking and immersive game to have ever been released. Looking at the screenshots back then it looked phenomenal.

This game is a masterpiece. One of the greatest 3D fighting systems i've ever used. Probably the finest hand to hand combat system to handle multiple opponents to have ever existed. I mean this thing had more moves than your average 2D fighting game. Mastering that system was almost like learning martial arts yourself. Easy enough for a noob to button mash, but had such nuance that a real master could really school opponents. Criminally underused though.

Shenmue was the first sandbox game imo. You could do anything you wanted, there was no real time constraints. I think I spent days just playing around in the arcades, earning money, buying those damn virtua fighter figures from the vending machine. Buying coffee. Wandering around. Chatting to random people. Collecting every single little figurine from the vendors. Setting a high score on Space Harrier. Go practice some moves in the Dojo. Gambling. All this and you haven't even gotten off the first disc!

Yes it is a little slow in places but with a world so immersive and inviting. It almost begs you to just wander around at your leisure. I really like the fact you controlled the camera with your analogue stick and could move with the d-pad or the analogue triggers. It felt really natural to me. I liked walking around and just looking at things.

I love both my Shenmue games. I've said this a couple of times on this forum now. Shenmue is one of a very small number of titles that has locked my attention from start to finish out of my entire collection. No other game has ever hooked me into trying to see absolutely everything in the entire game no exceptions other than possibly FFVII or Metal Gear Solid.

[RCBH928]

I got shenmue for the dreamcast and 2 for the xbox , both still not played

to me shenmue seems a game series that you can build on it a lot of games
the same idea how resident evil and final fantasy is. It just have enough substance to create many sequels and different games.
I do not understand how it fails, it seems these very same things are the ones that make other games popular(like WOW and fable):
*buying and earning money
*interaction with others
*a unique world
*great story
etc..

I dont know why this failed only with shenmue. If i was Sega I would be milking it to death with cartoon series, a movie, plus ports and working on it for ps3 or 360. Maybe having something like the city would be where ever one meet online(like psn home) , then every body can do his own objective to complete the game.

[Pulsar_t]

This is a snapshot from an old Dreamcast forum demonstrating a few people's disappointment with Shenmue at the time. Clearly the game wasn't universally applauded even by diehard Sega fans.