Since Rebirth, I have been entrenched in the world of Shenmue. I've played all 3 games back to back to back. When I say "entrenched" I mean it; Without noticing or feeling it, I played Shenmue 3 for 91 hours! That is only 16 hours shorter than Rebirth! How!? In Total, I spent the last 200 gaming hours on this series. I will not review Shenmue 1&2 but I do plan to review Shenmue 3. Here is the my very short and sweet review of the entire series:

This is the most Addictively Charming Mundane series I have ever played.

I see why SEGA had a hard time marketing this game back in the day. Yu Suzuki created Shenmue out his desire to create an RPG, because he was unsatisfied with the limitations of RPG's at that time. His idea of an RPG is so forward thinking; He was trying to create an RPG closer to what we have TODAY!. To the casual eye, it does not contain any of trappings of 'RPG"(it does just in a unique way). Shenmue is sometimes called an Action/Adventure game, but it's lacking in the "Action" or at least what the average gamer would deem as Action. Shenmue has a robust fighting engine based off Virtua Fighter 3 .... that goes mostly unused. The amount of mandatory fights in Shenmue across all games is like 30ish? The most shocking revelation about Shenmue for me is that it has nothing to do with "fighting"; You do fight, and thematically it has martial arts focus story but it is not point of the game. Nowadays, Like a Dragon is used as starting point to recommend Shenmue to new fans. It is the most accurate label but still not correct. Yakuza borrows a lot from Shenmue, but the things it took from Shenmue, Shenmue still does them better. I would look Yakuza as increasing the Action element but reducing the Shenmue.

It really is a testament that even amongst the most elite Shenmue fans there is still debates about how to classify Shenmue. What is my take?: Shenmue is a Life Simulator. The point of Shenmue is to get you, through Ryo, to be a resident in this virtual world. Shenmue is actually closer to something like Harvest Moon/Animal Crossing/than Yakuza. The RPG elements are there though: Grinding means going to a parking lot or sparing with a fellow martial artist to level up your moves. Instead of item shops there are pawn shops. You need money? Get a job or gamble. You interact with the world through a series of mini games in which fighting is just one. That is Action element; It can be fighting, QTE scene, find the item or clue in this room, fishing, gambling, driving a forklift, chasing chickens or just arcade games to past in game time. All that wrapped up in a thriller Kung Fu story. They made it all work!

If I Personally had to compare Shenmue to anything it would be Majora's Mask if fighting was reduced to Mandatory fights. With that being said I get it; I get why this series is so loved. I had an absolutely blast getting though the these games. Shenmue changed the way I think about "RPG's" and "Action" in games and that's my biggest takeaway from the experience. Shenmue is definitely not for everybody, but if slow, atmospheric, explorative thriller is your cup of tea then I highly recommend Shenmue.

Shenmue 1 is the only one I loved tho I competed the first 2. KS the third hated the third. Shenmue was ahead of its time. It was ambitious tho at times is a little clunky. Shenmue 2 did do a couple of QOL changes like skipping time when waiting. But I just loved the cozy small-town atmosphere of 1. I liked the slower pace. I want to live in Yamanose. Big fish in a small pond. WHy II did not work for me? It's the opposite of all that.

I bought an Original Xbox just to play Shenmue II and Shenmue II was my first and last 24-hour play session. Xenoblade came close with 19. Who knew my favorite game of buying the Xbox would be the pack in-game. JSRF. Anyway. I could not get into 3 as the constant draining health like it was Super Hydlide on Genesis. No longer care of a 4 happens or not. Shenmue 1 is one of my fave games for how relaxing it is to just hang out in Dobuita and Yamanose.



Side note I hate all comparisons to Yakuza. I love Yakuza but the series are fundamentally different. Outside of surface level comparisons they could not be more different as franchises. One has a time element. The other does not. NPCS all fully voiced. Have homes. Jobs. The other they are just background with the same repeated models. One plays like an old adventure game with some fighting thrown in and is modeled after VF. The other is a story-driven beat em up. One has a living breathing world with random weather and it's more dynamic. The other acts like an old JRPG overworld. It's a setpiece to get from point A to point B with random battles on the overworld.

Edit if anyone wants something more comparable to Shenmue esp of that era. Try Rent a Hero No 1. There is an English patch out there. It's a great game.

Will definitely check this out! Looks awesome!

I spent 60 hours on Shenmue 1 on Dreamcast back in the day. I think it was one of my first open world type games. I know, it is not really, but just the scope of the game, the fighting, being able to go everywhere was more than I usually had done back then. Visuals were good for their time, but anyone who knows me knows I mainly only played Nintendo back then, so anything would impress me.

Sadly sold my Dreamcast years ago, trying to find another one before they get too far up in price.

Game is on Xbox/PS and PC now.

They aged in too poor a way for me.

Could you give some examples of this?
And why the comparison to Majora's Mask? Does it have passage of time and days in real time, and each day is different? Number of days are limited?

I remember reading about Shenmue when it was new and I thought it sounded very interesting how you could interact with the environment. But I do realize that things like being able to turn a faucet on or off isn't particulary interesting to me anymore.

And how did you feel about Shenmue 3?
I saw some reviews of it, and it looked like it had a lot of unnecesary tasks that wastes the players time.

Dunkey made a funny video about it.

Don't think I have ever played a game on a PC since about 1995, and besides the original Xbox and PS2 and some 360 I have only played mostly Nintendo since 1987.

Bought the Dreamcast from a friend in late 90s or really early 2000s. We convinced him to buy it instead of a Sony device. He liked it for a while, but after about six months was done.

I bought Shenmue and Seaman soon after.

That's the only way I would play Shenmue.

Ok, Shenmue 3 is shit. Dunkey makes trash and he sucks. He's never been funny and I'm going to copy and paste this.

 I hate all comparisons to Yakuza. I love Yakuza but the series are fundamentally different. Outside of surface level comparisons they could not be more different as franchises. One has a time element. The other does not. NPCs are all fully voiced. Have homes. Jobs. The other they are just background with the same repeated models. One plays like an old adventure game with some fighting thrown in and is modeled after VF. The other is a story-driven beat 'em up. One has a living breathing world with random weather and it's more dynamic where different events story or otherwise can happen under random conditions. No single playthrough is the same. Story down to the core is the same but certain events only trigger under specific conditions. The other acts like an old JRPG overworld. It's a setpiece to get from point A to point B with random battles on the overworld. The story and events play out the same in every playthrough.

If anyone wants something more comparable to Shenmue esp of that era. Try Rent a Hero No 1. There is an English patch out there. It's a great game.

Waited 19 years, and he didn't land a single hit was pretty funny.

And I already read your previous post. But besides what you wrote about the NPC's, most of what you described seem like differences rather than the same element but done worse/better. So that's why I asked.