PixlBit

This legendary game is both ambitious and boring at the same time

Sega is known for its cult classics: Space Harrier, Sonic the Hedgehog, Ristar, NiGHTS, just to name a few. No doubt you've heard of a little game by Sega called Shenmue. It's an action/adventure game that was released for the Dreamcast in 1999 (Japan) and 2000 (North America). It was developed by Sega AM2 and published by Sega. The game was pushed as the Metal Gear Solid of Sega, a cinematic game with life-like characters and incredible detail.

To some degree this is true. The graphics are quite impressive. Shenmue was also one of the first open world games, meaning you could freely move about the city, talk to people, enter shops, and do so in a day/night cycle that was certainly too fast. The game takes place in Dobuita, Japan (which is a real place, by the way). There are a lot of places to visit here: shops, bars, the fortune teller, travel agencies, the arcade, the slot house, etc. People roam the streets, more during the day than at night. You can usually find one or two drunks staggering around late at night. The world is realized quite well, the buildings and environments seeming very life-like.

The story for Shenmue goes like this: a man in a dragon robe visits Ryo's father, fighting him to the death. He forces him to tell him where the dragon mirror is, and he does so for Ryo's safety. The evil man (who's name is Lan Di) leaves with his men in a black car, and Ryo's father dies in his arms. Ryo is now furious and wants revenge for his father's murder, but he also wants to find out what's going on. What's all the hooplah over this dragon mirror? So he sets out to seek answers.

In this case, you find answers by asking people questions. This is where the game becomes tedious. Ryo will ask everyone the same question, and most people will not give any helpful info. Once you do acquire a clue, you must now ask everyone a new question. Sometimes you'll be pointed to a certain shop or park. Ryo's journal will keep you up to date on any new information you get. The problem is, you don't have a map for Dobuita, so you have to wander around and figure out where all the shops are. It takes some getting used to.

Asking people questions is sooooo boring. The repetitive dialogue gets annoying fast. To make matters worse, the entire game is voiced, and the voice acting is atrocious! Ryo has a very boring voice, and everyone else is just bad. Stiff, wooden voice acting at its worst. When you talk to someone, Ryo will automatically ask them a question. I wish you could have been given a choice of what to ask them, as sometimes there are multiple things going on and Ryo asks about the thing we already know.

The controls are a little odd. You move Ryo with the D-pad, not the control stick (which moves the camera), which is tricky at first, but you get used to it. You can run by holding L, which you'll be holding the whole time as Ryo walks slower than your grandma. You can save the game by going to Ryo's room, located just inside his very Japanese home.

Shenmue also has a day/night cycle. Time is very sporadic in this game. One moment it's 7:18 pm, the next it's 10:37 pm. The game will tell you the time every time you enter a new area or enter/leave a shop. Certain events are dependent on the time of day. For instance, one part of the game has you searching for sailors, who only come out at night and hang around in bars. So I had to wait until night to progress the game. It's a good thing time flies by very fast.

Luckily, you can go to the You Arcade and chill by playing some classic Sega games. Here you can play Space Harrier, Hang On, and some made-up QTE games. Ryo will have to pay in order to play, though, but you always have plenty of money. The arcade is a good way to kill some time if you need to.

Shenmue also has a lot of Quick Time Events, something we're all familiar with today. The first one is when a kid kicks a soccer ball at Ryo; should you fail to press the button in time, the ball bounces off Ryo and hits a girl, causing her to cry (yes, I failed on the first one). But certain QTEs must be done successfully if you want to move on in the game. One scene had Ryo taking out some dudes in a bar (which was an awesome scene); you would press a button to kick a guy and press left on the d-pad to dodge his attack. Pretty sweet.

If you go to the park, you can practice your fighting moves. There are tons of combos to perform! The fighting aspect of the game takes some time to get used to, but is pretty cool. You can move in all directions, like in a 3D brawler, and can perform combos like in a fighting game. So the fighting is a cross between a brawler and a fighting game, and while a little clunky, it's thrilling when it happens. Sadly, you won't see your first fight until about three hours into the game, after hearing tons of repetitive dialogue. I was extremely excited to finally fight someone! The second fight in the game has you taking on four dudes, and you feel like a pro when you take 'em all out.

Besides the three-disc main game, Shenmue also gives you something called "Shenmue Passport," which used Sega's online network. Nozomi (a girl in the game) is here to help you if you get stuck. You can also watch movie scenes from the game, but only the ones you've acquired so far in the game. Along with this, you can listen to music from the game, but only ones which you've heard so far in the game. Some of the music in Shenmue is pretty good. The "passport" allowed you to connect to the internet to use special functions such as network ranking, data review, urgent messages, and even look at shenmue.com. All of this is cool, but the Dreamcast's online capabilities was a little too early to the party.

Final Verdict--3 Stars: It's Okay

While Shenmue is a legendary game and very ambitious, it is also very boring. I don't enjoy wandering around, asking the same question to people, hearing repetitive dialogue and terrible voice acting. The fighting is certainly exciting and fun, but is awfully rare throughout the course of the game. The open world experience is done well and the graphics are very good. It would have been better if they made the story more intriguing at the outset, as it's awfully boring too. Overall, you can find enjoyment in Shenmue, but you'll have to suffer through some painfully boring stuff to find it.

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