First, a little background. In the final days of the Sega Dreamcast, this title was unveiled. People were amazed at the lifelike characters (most of the available pics were just detailed heads floating in space), and the details of the game. It was hyped for quite some time, then finally released on November 7, 2000, just in time for Christmas.
The game received pretty good reviews, so I got it for Christmas that year. What a mistake...
The game is set in Japan in the 1980's, with you playing some random teenage Japanese dude named Ryo. His father is an accomplished martial artist, and somehow gets involved with a Chinese crimelord named Lan Di. In the opening moments of the game, Ryo's father fights Lan Di, and is killed. The game starts there, with you trying to avenge the death of your father. Unforunately, this is the beginning of a long and boring quest.
The problems start as you realize that the hype consisted of nothing but half-truths masking a totally boring game.
Yes, the character models are quite detailed. What they neglected to mention was that everything else about them was terrible (i.e. annoying voices, repeitive dialogue, general goofiness etc.). From the kid that wanted you to buy him a soda at the vending machine, to the fat grocery story clerk Fuku-San, all of them deserved a punch in the mouth, which brings me to the next point: lack of freedom.
The hype about detailed environments was correct, but what they didn't tell you was that your actions are severely restricted in those environments. You could do thinks like look in drawers and take useless items, buy batteries at the convenience store, or play real classic games at the arcade. However, none of this stuff was relevant to the plot or your progression through the game: it was just put there to distract your from the boredom of the gameplay, which would otherwise have consisted of nothing but walking around a boring town and talking to people who can provide you with no useful information (that's my theory, at least
).That's right: all you could do in the is walk around and buy things. In addition, you could practice martial arts on the children's playground (but nowhere else, not even in Ryo's dojo), and watch the occasional railed fight scene.
And don't get me started on the fights...as a fan of fighting games, I can say with confidence that they are an insult to fighting games. In the the vast majority of battles, you would be told to press a certain button. If you did it fast enough, the fight continued; if not, you got your butt kicked, and then had to start the whole cutscene over again. A few times, you could actually control your character, using the karate moves you practiced on the children's playground. I will admit that I didn't have the patience to play the game long enough to reach one of these, but I can guess from the playground experience that they were lame.
To summarize, if you want to know what Shenmue is like, imagine your favorite Diablo-style RPG, except set in the 1980's, with no monsters to fight, plastic figurines from vending machnes instead of cool legendary items, a cast of characters that you will grow to hate, and lots of scripted battle sequences. Btw, if you skipped to this part, go back and read the whole thing, you lazy bum!
Final Score: 2/10 (I'll give it two for pretty graphics)
So, what did everyone else think of the game, although I imagine that very few of you have ever played it?
