Shenmue

This game did a lot of things new for its time and is now a cult classic. By the maker of the arcade game Virtua Fighter 3 among others, he was rewarded with free reign to make a completely unique game for the Dreamcast, SEGA's last console that saw a great year of innovative game releases. Shenmue and its sequel are perhaps the most revered of all those games.

The game lets you run free round a limited but highly programmed set of environments interacting with objects and people all while day/night, season and weather change around you as you slowly uncover the mystery of your situation and pursue revenge. While some areas of the game can waste your time, the level of connection you forge with the environment and characters keep you involved and the addictive beauty of the real-time changing world keeps you hooked.

At the time of release it was at its height of technology but it has aged relatively well while also having a lot of retro charm in its styles. However, it does require your patience.

The game's action involves a combo deep combat system similar to Virtua Fighter games as well as minor combat situations and other fast action moments being dealt with by quick time events (QTE). This is where a button shows on screen to be pressed straight away to succeed at an action, and people generally love QTEs or hate them, but I think they're used well and sparingly in Shenmue.

A feature I love is being able to play a couple SEGA arcade games in full at the arcade within the game although my personal favourite doesn't appear until Shenmue 2. The game is heavily Japanese which feels very authentic. If you don't have the time to invest as a working adult to play, you can find longplay videos online totalling about 8 hours to get an idea of the experience without the full emersion or shortened story videos for highlights.

So yeah, this is a cult classic and worth looking into, but decide your level of interest as acquiring the game for dreamcast can be difficult or costly.

This is not only one of the best videogames around in technical terms (graphics, sound, gameplay), but it also pioneers in a way of telling an story. It has a cinematic presentation, many dramatical and emotional scenes, but the viewer lives the story rather than watching it. It's the viewer/player the one who explores the environments, the one who makes the events happen, the one who knows the characters and in some degree influences the relationships with them.

The story itself is a little plain, and in fact this game is more like a prologue to the whole story that develops in further chapters, but even in this case the global immersion you can feel is extraordinary. I strongly believe this model of videogame hides a great potential, and should be developed in time.

Amazing game for these years back to 99 shenmue 3 back 2019 i hope its good

This is my favourite game (Along with the second one) of all time. The story drags you in and you feel for the characters, the music is beautiful and the graphics at the time were the best, this was the most expensive game ever made and the quality speaks for it's self. I love this game so much, like the tagline say's not a game but an experience (something like that.) And for me that was true.

Shenmue 1 & 2 are my favorite games of all time, I loved these games because of the atsmphrere, graphics/art design, music, sound effects, level design, storyline, characters, voice acting that's funny and cheesy(which imo adds charm and likability to the game) in English but sounds great in Japanese. The game has so many things you can do to by pass the time with being able to play arcade classics like Space Harrier and Hang on, play darts, buy drinks, listening to music tapes and practicing martial arts to get better. there is a lot of variety in it's gameplay from detective work, Fighting up bad guys, riding a forklift, QTEs and buying items from various shops. The camera does a great job for the most part and it's controls are good and responsive( the only down side is the walking controls which can be a bit awardward at first but you can adjust to it over time plus the rest of the other game modes are fine)The pacing is a bit slow but then gets better as you progress through the game Shenmue is a fantastic experience and something I recommend to people who like sandbox, fighting, RPG plus a good storyline.