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Initial Impressions
Shenmue
Let me take you back, the year, 2001 (short trip i know, but hey, still back). A young guy has finally experienced the wonder of dreamcast, and seeing the hype surrounding it, he goes on ebay and wins himself a copy of Shenmue.
This is what i'm trying to remember, i love this game now, i have the first two on the dreamcast , the first dvd and the xbox version of 2 as well. Normally i wouldnt've done anything like this before. If i liked a game i'd buy it, but not different versions, thats just a waste of money right? Well thats normally what i think, but this game is really just that impressive.
The thing is though however good a game is, you can rarely, if ever, recapture exactly how you felt in that opening scene. Your first impression is just that, a one time deal. But here i'm gonna try and send myself back and go into exactly what i thought that first time i played it.
So anyway, this was my first console of this generation, and Sonic Adventure had already blown me away in the impressive department but nothing could have prepared me for this.
The guy i bought it from had told me it came with the passport and that worked, and from this alone i was already intrigued. "A game that comes with a passport? what exactly is that?" At first i thought of the N64 passport, the cart that allowed you to play import games. But somehow i figured that Sega, as innovative as they are, would still not include something to play imports. Companys never seem to happy over the import thing. Mystery is always a good thing to surround the game. But it'd all make sense in time
So it finally arrived and as soon as i got home from school i was excited, i just went up to my room and slipped the disc into the dreamcast and changed the channel. Then i did something i rarely do with a game, i just sat there and watched, not going straight into the game skipping any intro movie, but something compelled me to watch this time. I just sat back and when it started o.O whoa..
I really knew i had something special on my hands here, you just see that intro, the colours, the detail. And its amazing. You also have to remember i'd bought this game 2 years late, yet it still blew me away. I listened to the intro too, again a rare occasion, and then finally went into the main menu and the game. Then i'm greeting with your general RPG-Story based adventure game, an opening sequence. You can't skip it like you tend to find these days, but i found out that even if i could, i wouldnt've wanted to.
You can tell AM2 and Sega have REALLY put some effort into the game, even now. 4 years after the game debuted it still looks incredibly impressive and at the time, well, i'd just plain seen nothing like it before. So after a little while, the sequences having ended. Now normally when you have sequences, if you've played most other games , Final Fantasy is a good example, you expect the sequences to be much better looking than the game, but i was amazed to see that the graphics are actually almost exactly the same when you go into playable mode, they are a bit more functional if you like, but they are just as good to look at.
Now i'm not normally one to complete a game, but every time i've played it, and yes it does have that replayable value, i just have to go through the game, i have to complete it
But this for me was a sort of dawning of a new era of gaming, you have the 2d era, the move into mostly 3d but still some very impressive 2d stuff, and this well, it really was something new.
With this game i was well and truly sucked into the story, i felt for the characters, and really wanted to play it to help them, to find out what happened, to try and solve the mystery and so forth. I normally bought (and still buy) games on impulse, but i could tell i had really picked up something special for a change here, and this is one of the reasons i am really impressed and such a Sega fan these days.
It doesnt happen too often with me, getting sucked into games, at least for the duration, but 2 years and a game on, i'm still waiting in anticipation for the third of hopefully still many more to come from the series. I'm still desperate to find out what happens with it, to and experience all the goodness Sega , AM2 and Yu Suzuki have installed within it. That shows just how good this game and series really is.
But another thing that really stunned me the first time i played this (i had the chance of playing this with little to no knowledge of the game, it was a lot more special , as i had no idea what to expect) was the fact their are genuine arcade games within the game. So the first time i played this, i spent the majority of my time after the first two days unsure what to do i found myself spending time in the arcades. And every well done they are too, theres little dark time between inserting the money and the game coming up, and great classic games they are too ^_^, hang on, space harrier, and even more in the sequel.
When i finally got to the end of the game, i realy was disappointed, i couldnt believe that it could just end like that. It was in no way a bad ending, not in the least, but the first time i played through, i just NEEDED it to continue, and i still NEED this game to continue on now (any sega employees who stumbled across this please take note and bug AM2 for me?). Thats just how good it is. From time to time i still play through the story, because its not just a good game, but a good story too, made so much better by the fact that you do indeed control his destiny, and its upto you. In fact writing all this has made me wanna play the game again, or at least put some of the music on...So you may see a review of it sooner than i planned too..
Today the game still looks and plays well, unlike some 'good graphically' games before, who soon look bad soon after release and play worse. All the hype and the breathtaken-ness was not misplaced. I urge anyone who has yet to taste/try this game to buy it now. Purchase a Dreamcast if neccessary but buy and play this now. Even if you have little monthly playing time, dedicate it to this, you wont be disappointed, and those who are have no taste..