Editor’s note: This review is written by Treavor Clark, a student at Full Sail University working toward a degree in Video Game Design. Treavor is very fond of the world of games and likes to find the good in any game without basing it on the likes of others. He has a YouTube channel where he reviews games and Video Game Tattoos at www.youtube.com/user/TreavorClark.

Shenmue is a game for the Sega Dreamcast, and besides the Dreamcast being some fan-proclaimed god-like deity to what game consoles could have and should have been, it happened to carry one of the most unforgettable games of all time, Shenmue. For its time, it helped define what the Dreamcast could do and what we could expect from games to come. If you play it today, it may blend in well with today’s games when it comes to exploration and detail, but Shenmue wasn’t made in the now; it was made in 2000 — 10 years ago. So to appreciate this game even more, you have to step back to its time and realize how ahead of itself it really was.

Shenmue was to be an ongoing trilogy about a young man named Ryo Hazuki. The game starts with Ryo witnessing his father’s murder, and like any kid wearing a leather jacket, he goes to avenge his father’s death. The story is basic, but the depth to the simple plot really gets deep.

The game is based on simple day-to-day tasks and interactions. It’s not just mindless revenge or nonstop action. I simply cannot put into words what this game has to offer or try to justify its depth. Ryo must go around the area and question people, searching for what happened that night. It becomes a game of chasing down people and digging to the root of rumors surrounding the town.

You live in a small place with Ine-san, who gives you a daily allowance, and with Fuku-san, who plays the role of a close friend constantly trying to teach you to do the right things, such as stay in school and don’t fight thugs, except you do a terrible job of listening to him. Without giving away details or spoilers, Shenmue is a game that wants you to experience a virtual life while setting a goal: avenge your father. This lets you take it at your own pace. As time progresses, small objectives may become something you need to do, such as save your girlfriend or get a job to get a plane ticket to Hong Kong, but again, it is all at your own pace and choice for the most part. Even my first day playing, I spent a day in the game’s time just searching every cabinet and section of my house, which I recommend, because you can find an old Sega Saturn, and down the road, you can get games for it.

The game plays in the third-person perspective. Your main goal is finding details on your father’s murder, and it isn’t always just standing around bugging people. You may have to ask a gang member and risk getting into a fight, your actions may have consequences and you may offend someone in the process, who may find punching your head in easier than answering your question. The game has real-time weather effects and its own sense of time, so the weather is constantly changing, and you have only so much time to your day. You have to sleep and start each day anew, so you’re not some crazy gung-ho killer who runs around nonstop for days.

Shenmue was one of the first to clearly establish and push what we now call quick time events, and these can happen at any time. You may walk around a corner and have to catch a ball by quickly pressing B, or you may have to chase a gang member through the busy streets as you hammer the commands that are prompted. Picking this game up now is a bit different, because Dreamcast didn’t have a second joystick for 360 cams. So to actually look around, you have to stop in your tracks and hit the L trigger to glance around, but once you dive deep into this game, you forgot all about the now highly common 360 cam.

The game was so immersive; I fell in love and had a hard time putting it down. I will admit that in my first play through, there was a storm in the game and later, in real life, I stepped outside and was confused, because it was sunny. I had a hard time shifting reality and the world of Shenmue for the first few days. I actually enjoyed tasks like getting a job and moving crates on the harbor. The harder you worked, the more you got paid, and the faster you got promotions, so that was a fun experience. Even fighting in the game was very deep. The game was originally supposed to be back story for Virtual Fighter, so it kept that excellent feel of arcade fighting and mastering new combos. Let’s put it this way; I can still pick up that game and just disappear in it, because even to this day, you don’t see games as amazing as this, graphically and depth wise.

I highly recommend Shenmue. To me, it is worth picking up a used Dreamcast off eBay just for this game. It is a great piece of history. It is one of the most expensive games to make to this day, and it hardly got the following it deserved. It also only got one more game when it was supposed to have three. Yes, you get terrible cliffhangers, but it’s so worth your time.