The implications of what games could be in the future, and what this game was for its own time, were among the first things to attract me to this Dreamcast gem. Living in this world with an in-game clock, NPCs with a schedule going about their lives, all whilst investigating the death of our father like an amateur sleuth trying to piece together the info was an exciting thought for me. I'm only sad that, after all of these years, I've never played the sequels and I know that the story isn't resolved in Shenmue 3. I want some closure!

If you ever plan to experience Shenmue with the expectations that:
it's a "Proto-Yakuza" or it's an "Action Kung-Fu flick" then you will certainly be in for a disappointment since Shenmue is non of that, I would really classify it more as an "adventure" game.

(outside few key moments), Shenmue's plot could be passively summarized in montage sequences at the intro of any other story but the fact it instead makes an entire game out of it is commendable if not admirable, It certainly takes it's time for world building which modern discourse tend to let you believe it's always views as nit positive, The mundanity of Ryo Hazuki life sells the idea that he's not destined for anything special despite his traumatic and unique circumstances he faced, you're not rewarded cash for fighting on the streets and being a badass, you're rewarded cash for being a good boy and coming home early or working part-time, Shenmue never glorifies violence and instead promotes common Japanese values like abiding the law, being functional member of society and a hard worker, I would like to add that Ryo as a character wouldn't have worked if all you saw him do on screen is just fight all the time, that would reduce his relatability factor in my opinion.

Ryo's an active protagonist, Who desires to seek the truth behind his father's murder, he often tries to avoid needless conflicts and uses his fighting skills as self-defense, while he does have some pride and doesn't take kindly to be viewed as weakling by his piers, it doesn't mean he will standby and see others get abused and extorted by those who have strength, His determination to find the truth is admirable and even relatable but can also be self destructive as the discouragement from many adult figures in his life pile up, he shows some understanding that the road ahead would be rough and potentially cost him of a happy life, But living with unanswered questions is worse for him.

At gameplay side, the attention to details is really great and often rewarding, the game rewards you for both exploration and recontextualizing previous conversations for later events, nowadays, developers would often place "notes/hints" in corner to nudge you to some secrets but Shenmue 1 doesn't pull punches, if you didn't pay attention it's your fault then, with that being said, it's really easy to get disconnect with the game considering how time works and many story moments are only triggered through specific times, Shenmue 1 gonna involve a lot of waiting and that would been fine in 2000s, but nowadays it's easy to pull your smart phone and get distracted by something else while you wait, there are some stuff do to but ends up just being 3 similar tasks, lastly the map I had to pull separate window because I ain't running to the other end of the area just to locate specific building, I don't have much to say on Combat side of things but it's fairly versatile and pulling throws on goons at each other is satisfying.

I would recommend Shenmue under 3 conditions:
1- Switch to JP audio (Frankly most of the bad reputation IB is thanks to the poor dubbing)
2- disable fast travel (this mechanic added in HD ports can make it easy for you to miss special cutscenes, so disable it)
3- keep in mind you're playing slow burn adventure game.

Proof that just because something is revolutionary, doesn't mean it's good.

I'm 20 years late on this one, and maybe that's why I'm missing the appeal of the game because I don't have the nostalgia glasses on, but I really don't understand the hype that Shenmue gets.

Sure, the NPCs have routines, and sure you can talk with all of them in this immersive world. But when 99% of the NPCs regurgitate the same responses, refuse to talk to you, or just point you in the direction of the 1% you DO need to talk to, what is that adding to the game?

All of the ideas presented by Shenmue are good on paper, but executed poorly. Exploring the world to investigate a mystery? Good! Having the "investigation" be asking people the same questions ad infinitum until exposition happens? Not so good. A day night cycle with characters following a routine? Good! Locking players off from certain things until a certain time and not allowing them to advance time in hour-long loops? Not good. I mean for gods sake the whole game up until finding Charlie is a wild goose chase that leads nowhere until you get the Chinese letter!

I'll admit that Shenmue popularised a lot of really interesting mechanics, I won't say it introduced them when examples can be see elsewhere (see Mizzurna Falls doing a lot of what Shenmue did the year prior), but when they're presented like this it makes for a slog that doesn't want to show off the one feature the whole concept was based around; the fighting, which is actually really good!

I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Shenmue, and I will play the others, so I only hope that they learn to take these incredibly interesting ideas and really show what you can do with them, realism is all well and good but when you try to make a game too realistic, you end up losing what makes a video game fun.

truly one of the most impressive games of its time. in its first disk, shenmue really had me hooked with its down to earth character interactions and conversations, and while the english voice acting is a bit iffy, i think that really adds to the vibe. people dont talk perfectly all the time, sometimes conversations are a little stilted, that's just what real life is like, and i think shenmue gets that down perfectly, whether intentional or not. unfortunately, i think once the game started focusing more on the combat and action, thats when it started to lose me. nothing really compared to the atmosphere of shenmue in its first act, and as such the remainder of the game didn't really capture me as much. even so, i'm glad that i played shenmue, and i wouldn't give up my time exploring its world for anything else. even if 40% of that time was spent working a forklift.