In modest appreciation of Shenmue

I received a Dreamcast during Christmas 1999, alongside Sonic Adventure and Soul Calibur. It was like nothing I had even seen before. That console was the last time I was even blown away by graphical prowess. Every other gaming generation afterward felt like just another graphical iteration. But Dreamcast felt like an arcade on my television, or even somewhat better.

In 2000, Shenmue was one of my favorite games on one of my favorite consoles, topped only by Phantasy Star Online and Zelda: Ocarina of Time. That’s how my memory calcified, at least. Before the release of the game in the United States, I was primarily still a Playstation and N64 player, though I picked up a couple games here and there for Dreamcast (Power Stone, Tech Romancer). Walking into an import gaming shop, I caught a glimpse on a CRT screen of an import Dreamcast playing a preview of a game called Shenmue.

Is that full motion video? No, that’s in-game graphics. How is that game even possible?

I bought the game as soon as it hit US shores, poring over every ounce of the game. Completing it, I’d made it part of my internal canon — a crown jewel of gaming in my memory. Twentyish years later, it was re-released on modern consoles in anticipation of the third game (more on that in a future post).

Don’t tell me that rose tinted glasses are cruel. I know it well already.

When I finally ended up playing it again on Playstation 5 via the collected HD edition, my first thoughts were, “uh oh, I’ve made a huge mistake.” The textures in the game were horrendous. The controls were like attempting to maneuver a tank. The vaunted relationship between Ryo and Nozomi was initially paper-thin. What happened to my memories of them saying goodbye in the park? The feeling of suburban 1980s Japanese life at the height of its economic power? And that huge sprawling neighborhood of Dobuita I remembered?

I was suddenly noticing that most of the businesses were boarded up or blocked from entry. I immediately put my positive memories at risk.

It wasn’t until I hit the beginning of the game’s second half that my appreciation for the game started returning. Particularly, there were certain musical motifs and the emerging of the Christmas elements in Dobuita that caused my former senses to return. Then, the dream sequences hit, and the magic slowly started to come back.

Not many people would compare Shenmue to Animal Crossing, but that’s exactly what the time element of this game resembles. The game is the slowest of burns. There is definitely a calendar element that imposes an artificial feeling of needing to rush through the steps, but there’s actually little penalty for taking your time. This is the chief flaw of the game: the passing of days and the variability of characters’ movements always make you feel that there’s a hurry, which contrasts with the benefit of the game.

Today, the world of Shenmue is positively quaint. Those three or four tiny areas of Yokosuka and the dock where you experience the story can be mastered in a couple days, even if you don’t use a map. It’s nothing compared to the sprawling worlds in Breath of the Wild, Witcher 3, Elder Scrolls, or other open world titles.

But that changes significantly, if you just relax and commit to not rushing. The city starts feeling more and more real every day, even with the advancements that today’s technology imposes upon a two-decade old game. It’s not perfect in my mind anymore, but the magic is still there.

The sky effect is completely unnatural as you shift viewpoints, but the magic weather is still pleasant. With the loss of the graphical wow factor, I could now appreciate some random snowfall in-game. The ocean at the docks moves rhythmically in a way that was foreign to other games of its time.

Magic weather still wows gamers. A YouTuber recently discovered a fairly well hidden secret about the family’s sakura tree.

I am also now able to finally turn off that wretched English dialogue and listen to the subtitled Japanese track again. I lost a lot in the re-play, but I received a couple new items.

Even a couple years after Shenmue, we had Grand Theft Auto 3. Twenty four years ago, though, Shenmue wrote the book on graphical immersion and it’s a shame that it’s impossible now to put yourself back in that world. But Shenmue was special. And the only things that Shenmue has today to offer are the virtues of its story, which is more a far-off promise than something immediately on offer.

The game will likely never receive the full remaster or remake that it needs. There will probably never be those promised sequels to end the story, as reviews for the third game were a disappointment and the recent anime version was canceled (thanks, Time Warner 😒). A Kickstarter for a fourth game certainly wouldn’t receive the attention that the one for the third game got.

But hey, I came out of the re-play with a different appreciation for the game.

That’s also why game companies should tread lightly on selling graphical prowess as a game’s selling point, if they want their catalog to last as a testament to their quality. There has to be something else to offer gamers, especially in an era where games are more evergreen. Today’s releases are tomorrow’s upscaled re-releases in “HD Complete Edition” or compilations. Think of the long tail of a game’s lifespan.