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Groundbreaking Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you own a Dreamcast do not miss this game. It is primarily an exploration game, with some minigames and CLASSIC ARCADE GAMES playable within the game. You walk up to an arcade game as Ryu, the character you control in the story, and put in money that you have earned. It is very immersive, has spectacular graphics and a great story.

So, where was the game?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Honestly, I couldn't play this game after about 5 days. There was just too much running around, waiting, running around some more, waiting, then finally getting to talk to someone. I do that in real life and it's much more fun. Now, the graphics were outstanding and the voice acting was very good...but I wish they would have spent more time on the game itself. It just didn't have that something special that most other rpg's have.

Shenmue

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

One of the best games EVER MADE. This game is SO in depth, there is no other games out there that are like this game. Its unique in its own style. When I first purchased this game, I was shocked first of all to see the graphics are how good it looked. Being on Dreamcast, it used ALL of Dreamcasts potential. This game has one of the BEST storylines than ANY other game that ive ever played. It keeps you going and keep wanting to play to find out more and more it keeps you locked into the game. You can keep up on your newer objectives and what needs to be done by looking in your "Notebook". Its a free world here. You can do what you want. Talk to anyone you want, go where you want pretty much. Its a free world. You can pretty much walk into any building/store. It has really good fighting battles. Like the timed QTE battles are really fun where it tells you what button to press and you have to press it within a certain amount of seconds, then he does a karate move on them. And also the free battles are really fun.

If you have a Dreamcast and what an awesome game and has an awesome storyline I STRONLY recommend this game now!!!

Best RPG....period

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

shenmue is a great story about a teenager out to get his father's killer to get his revenge. theres plenty of street fights and awesome moves. the game can be slow and frustrating in some spots, but thats how RPGs are. graphics are ok, could be better, but thats probably the best the Dreamcast can produce....since we are so used to better graphics. BUY THIS GAME, YOU WONT REGRET IT.

The main reason I will never sell my Dreamcast

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Yes that's right, I will always hold on to my Dreamcast, there are a number of classic games I own for it but Shenmue perhaps tops them all. Now I hear a lot of people saying that Shenmue is boring, and you spend a lot of time doing nothing, but I couldn't disagree more. I'm the kind of person who loves to explore in games, i play a lot of RPG's and I like to make sure I find all the secrets in a game (if it's any good). That is the beauty of Shenmue, as well as advanvcing the plot (which is great) I can also spend free time down at the arcade, or play pool etc... it is as close as you will get to real life in a game.

Both this and Shenmue II are classics, but I can never forgive Sega for not releasing the rest of the series. I know it was an expensive game to make, but i'm sure there is a huge demand for Shenmue III, I only hope they get their act together and get Yu Suzuki back to working on it again. Back to Shenmue itslelf, the plot is superb, I even enjoyed working at the docks as a forklift driver, while trying to get info on the mad angels. The fighting is superb, both regular battles and the QTE fights (which you see in all sorts of games now), in fact the moves are taken straight out of Virtua Fighter. It also had a great replay value, I completed it numerous times, trying to collect capsule toys and better my scores at the mini games like darts. The best mini game of all though was right at the end, The 70 man free battle time attack.

The 70 man battle involved fighting your way through 70 Mad Angels members, including 3 bosses along the way, and was the highlight of the game. Once you had completed the game you could do it again and try to set a best time for it, as with all the mini games you could then enter it on the world rankings. I can't remember my time, but it was at one stage in the top 50 in the world, and I must of tried to beat it at least 100 times. I haven't even mentioned the classic Sega Games you could play at the arcade, Space Harrier (which is impossible), Super Hang On etc.. were all available to set top scores on, there is just so much to see and do.

If you still own a Dreamcast and not this, then you are mad, pick it up now, before it vanishes off the face of the earth, classic.

Wow

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

My friend had bought this game, hes like "Man you have to buy it now serious!!" and I went to the store looked at it, I was like ehh alright then, the graphics look hott. Took it home, damn that whole night was gone!! Gone playing Shenmue lol. This game is one of the best games ever made. But then again its a really underrated game for how good it is. Its better than most games out there right now but its hardly noticed by gaming fans, I would ask people sometimes if they knew what game Shenmue was and they wouldnt know. But this game has one of the best story lines in any game, and it keeps you playing and playing because you want to see what happens next. The fighting is really fun and the QTE battles. One thing I like is that when you need to wait a couple hours for a place to open etc, you can go to the arcade and mess around on the games, thats fun especially the boxing game lol. But you if you have a Dreamcast, buy this game dont hesitate!!

Yu Suzukies Masterpiece...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Shenmue for the Sega Dreamcast may possibly be the greatest video game experience I've ever had in my gaming days(including Shenmue II for xbox). Shenmue is about a young man out for revenge to find his fathers murderer but theres WAY more too it, I won't spoil anything other then this game is flat out beautiful and should be played by gamers that won't wyn about the slow paced action..

Like the title above, this is Yu Suzukies Masterpiece, the man worked EXTREAMLY hard on this amazing game(Shenmue is also known as one of the most expensive video games ever created). Sadly Yu Suzukies hard worked game never made any good sales because of the PS2's launch, I like many others got it at the time it was first released, This game is just pure brilliance. The visuals are some of the best seen in games...This may be the longest game review I've ever done so lets get to it..

Visuals
This is one of the if not THEEEE best looking DC game ever made, everything is so detailed and the character models are great. The building, the Atmoshpere, thank you so much Suzukie.

Gameplay
ok this is probably the reason this game is the most hated/loved game ever created. IT'S EXTREAMLY SLOW PACED, and may turn off some casual gamers but if you can hold on long enough the action will start to come up. The game play is simple and easy to get use to very quickly. The game plays like a mystery novel, ask people question and clues about something and when you find some clues you go ask other people that may know BUT THIS GAME PULLS IT OFF SO WELL IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY! This game(plus Shenmue II) has THE best fighting engine ever!!! It's taken straight out of the virtura Fighter games. And the Free Battle sequences are extreamly rare yet very fun in the game. Did I mention you can do almost everything in this game? Well not everything but alot of things like getting a job, gambling and alot of the other things that can be done in real life...

Sound/music
When I say this games music is beautiful IT IS, Ten times better then MGS 1. Especially the main theme which you'll notice alot, it's amazing if theres one thing Yu Suzki did well(other then everything els) it's the music in this game, pure brilliance

Controlls
I'm really lazy to get into this but there pretty good
Lemmi just some it up right now

The Good
-Superb Visuals
-Great Controls
-Superb sound
-Amazing Inviorments
-Loads of things to do
-AWESOME FIGHTING ENGINE
-One of the most expensive games ever made
-A beautiful story about vengence but with alot to it

The bad
-action gamers will be turned off by how slow paced this game go's
-For some long, for some a SHORT game, took me about 13 hours my first time but that's because I just did all the story parts and not the side quests
-The sales for this and Shenmue II did so bad that we probably won't see a Shenmue III anytime soon
-For anyone looking for a good challenge for this and Shenmue II, look elswere, it's pretty simple an pretty straight forward..
-If you're looking for a unique game try GET THIS GAME, and get it quick because this as well as many other Dreamcast titles are very hard to find these days(and are already out of print and you'll be lucky if you find it used!)

Other then that Shenmue is an instant classic with everything on the spot, Yu Suzukie created something more then a game....This game is not just good because it feels like you're acctually in that world and living Ryu'S life.....This is good because Yu Suzukie braught us something that just feels so real, and like as if there really is a world like that....acctually there is, JAPAN, duuhh, but still no other game has hit me or motivated to the point were I HAVE TO PLAY THIS GAME more then shenmue....This game is hands down...One of the greatest video game experiences you'll ever have...... When it all comes down to this, I give Shenmue for the sega Dreamcast a

5 out of 5 stars...

Brilliant....Just...Brilliant

Totally a great game a must have for dc fans.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: March 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is a really sweet game. Totally a butt-kicking game. I mean you go around beating people up the game lets you see in real live play beating some one up you know without the pain and nose bleeding.

The peak of gaming.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: November 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

4 years ago, I saw tons of ads for Shenmue. I had never read anything about the game, or knew what it was about, as the ads simply said "SHENMUE" and its release date. I started to get hyped up about it, because they made it seem like this was the biggest game to come out since Super Mario Bros. 3. When it finally did come out, I managed to get it at Target for an incredibly sick low price. Upon taking it home and starting it up, I had a new standard for what makes a game good. I couldn't even believe this was a game when I saw Ryo Hazuki in action, running through an almost photo realistic Japan in the 1980's. It was beauty in motion. But this is more than a pretty game, much more.

What exactly is Shenmue? Is it an rpg, adventure, action, or fighter? It's really all of those. If you don't know by now, it was originally slated to be an rpg with Virtua Fighter characters, which sounds pretty cool. Later on though, everything was changed into something completely original. You play as Ryo Hazuki, a Japanese teenager who arrives home to see a black car parked near his home. Entering through the gates, he finds the housekeeper on the ground, probably beaten up. She tells him that his father's in the dojo and the men in the car are with him. Making his way to the dojo, an "adopted" family member gets thrown out and is unconscious. Finally, Ryo enters to see a Chinese man in a silk robe asking for a mirror. Ryo's dad, Iwao, doesn't tell them, and they begin to fight. Iwao is no match though, as Lan-Di dodges every move without effort and takes him out with a simple kick. Saying that he won't tell him again, Lan-Di threatens to kill Ryo. Iwao has no choice, and tells him that it's buried under the cherry tree outside. But it's too late, and Lan-Di tells Iwao to get up and die with honor. He kills him right in front of Ryo, and leaves with the mirror. The scene is very dramatic and the music addes even more to an already emotional scene. From that point on, it's up to Ryo to track down Lan-Di and avenge his father. Unfortunately for him though, it won't be easy. A lot of time will be spent asking questions around town to get more details on where to go next. This part of the game tends to bore some ignorant people, but it isn't as bad as they make it out. If you actually follow directions, things will be very simple. Sometimes, the people you try to get answers out of take offense, and immediately start a fight. Trust me, the fights in Shenmue are sweet and I was always pumped to get in one. The music, moves, and danger of it all renders all other fights in games obsolete. It took me a long time to get back to turn-based fights in rpgs after playing this.

As serious as it may sound, you can still have fun in Shenmue. Remember, this takes place in Japan in the 80's, so it's a very new world to many people. It's also as realistic as you can get. The designers took the actual weather reports and forecasts from that time period and put them into the game's actual calendar. If it was raining on a friday in December in real life, it's doing the same thing here in the game. If you don't want to wait around until a store opens to talk to the owner, buy some capsule toys of classic Sega characters (ranging from Sonic to NiGHTS to Sega executives), or go to the arcade and play classic games like Hang-On or Space Harrier. Time flies when playing those gems. You can also try out darts, a boxing simulator, and a QTE arcade machine to win capsule toys of said machines. QTEs are pretty cool. During a scene, sometimes a button or direction will flash on the screen, and you have to press it quickly in order to move on. An example is when some bikers attack (well, try to if you're good) Ryo at the harbor. If you manage to hit all the buttons correctly at the right time, Ryo will knock a biker off his motorcycle, causing him to fall into the sea. Even now, four years later, these excite me. Shenmue also has a vast variety of characters- Ryo's potential love interest: Nozomi the flower girl, Tom the hot dog vendor, Goro the street-wise punk with a heart of gold, Mark who supervises Ryo when he gets a job (oh yes, you get to work, and it's nothing but fun) driving forklifts, and many more characters. You can also practice your fighting moves in the dojo or even a parking lot. And you'll want to if you don't want to get beaten up in the many fights. Go out and buy some new move scrolls at the antique shop, or look around the Hazuki house. There's just so much to do here, that I could bore you even more with a second review just to go through it all. And by the time you're even 2 hours into the game, you will actually feel like you -are- Ryo Hazuki. The character attention is worthy of 5 stars in its own.

For the time it was released, nothing could compare to Shenmue. Character models all have nothing but the best detail. Wrinkles in their skin, articles of clothing where you can see each individual stitch, and actual facial expressions. Not just heads that had moving mouths, but real expressions. You can see the anger and determination in Ryo's eyes when confronting members of gangs in the area, shock when Tom demonstrates a new move later on, and grace in the final scene. But the developers didn't just stop with the main characters like so many others do, each individual character has their own unique look to distinguish them from anyone else. Just look at some of the workers at the harbor, or the resturant workers who look the part. On the Shenmue passport disc, there are almost FMV quality graphics in some of the characters that talk to you about the Shenmue world and explain various things. They're so close to being of Final Fantasy X FMV quality. Even today after the likes of the Xbox and GC have set the bar, those graphics look great. If there's anything to degrade in the graphics at all, it's that there's slowdown when walking through crowded streets. It never bothered me, but it does get to some people. Fortunately, this doesn't occur during the incredible fights. The 70 man battle in particular.

There's nothing bad to say about the music. The game's theme will automatically be stuck in your head once you hear it for the first time. And when the Chinese fiddle version is heard, it makes the theme even more memorable. It's epic, plain and simple. The theme is heard a lot throughout the game, but used differently and with variations. There's even a christmas version once December rolls around. Through the game, you can also buy cassette tapes if you want to hear something different. My favorite would probably be Hang-On, which can be won at the Tomato store as a prize. And the music that kicks in during fights, nothing short of dynamic. It's a shame it wasn't carried over to the sequel. That theme alone was worth playing for. And like the graphics, there's one tiny thing I didn't like- some of the voice acting. A lot of the voices are pretty good, but some of the extras just didn't try. If you have the chance, import the Japanese version to get the better voices.

Shenmue remains my favorite game even after the Panzer Dragoon Ortas and Blinxes and even Bust-A-Moves that I've played recently. Please buy this game and show support so the saga can continue. Right now the series is kind of in a rut, and its future isn't looking too good. As long as its finished in some way (even if the official comic manages to get more attention), I'll be happy. Shenmue isn't for everyone, but for those that pick it up and can appreciate it, they'll be hooked. Thank you for making this experience Mr. Suzuki. Here's hoping to more in the future *raises glass of cranberry apple raspberry juice*.

The greatest game no one played.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is my favorite game of all time. Virtua fighter mixed with an rpg! The most detailed and realistic environments I have ever seen. I played this back when it was originally released, and still have not played a game that can blend fighting, action and story together. It's like playing a Martial arts movie. Way ahead of its time. Yu Suzuki has made some of the most important games of our time. Along with Shigeiru Miyamoto they are in a class of their own.

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