Born of Yu Suzuki's creative genius and SEGA'S desire to sell the Dreamcast, Shenmue 1+2 the innovators of the 'Open-world' have finally been re-released for the current generation.
Director Yu Suzuki had an idea that would change the video game industry forever. Shenmue, his new game, would be part Martial arts adventure part life simulator, in a realistic Open-world Yokosuka, Japan, with complete freedom for its protagonist to wake up and live every day (over 6 months in 1986) as the player wishes. The Open-world genre had yet to be even given a name, so Yu Suzuki called it 'FREE' (Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment).
The ambitious plan would grow into a now legendary development process, including the planning of an entire game series with an epic 11-chapter script filled with plans for 300+ NPCs with back-stories and 1200 rooms, characters that were fully voiced and motion captured and an orchestra that was used for the soundtrack. Hardly surprising then that this would make it the most expensive game of all time in 1999, reportedly costing somewhere between $47-70 million (while also including Shenmue 2's costs).
Shenmue 1+2 were the crowning jewels of the Dreamcast when they were released, but have the two decade-old games stood the test of time?
In a single word, Shenmue 1 is 'immersive'.
The first scene sets up the series with protagonist Ryo Hazuki's life changing in an instant. His father, a karate master, is murdered by a man known as Lan Di in search of a mysterious Chinese mirror. This life-defining moment forces Ryo's life on a dramatically different path, one of discovery and revenge.
Running down clues will take you across town and to the murkier sides of Yokosuka where you ask anyone if they saw your father's murderer fleeing the scene on that snowy night. There are no quest markers shown on a map, leaving it up to you to find the relevant place or person to get the next clue. Keep returning to the Heartbeats bar after the bar fight and the bar owner will call you an idiot for not being able to figure out what to do next. Tremendous.
When our young martial-artist decides to investigate with his fists it plays swimmingly through Suzuki's Virtua Fighter 2 engine. Your moves evolving the more you use them, while your move set is customisable with learned or purchased moves. The battles are integrated into the story, coming unexpectedly and keeping you on your toes. They vary from 1-on-1 up to an epic 70-man fight.
QTE (Quick Time Events), which involve quickly hitting the right button after prompted on-screen, existed prior to Shenmue but were completely revolutionized by the games. Their usage during cut scenes allows for free-flowing action with differing consequences depending on the player's input. These cut scenes are so well directed that when Shenmue 2 was released on the X-Box, they included a 'Shenmue Movie' DVD summarising the entire first game comprising of cut scenes alone.
In a single word, Shenmue 1 is 'Immersive'. This immersion is achieved through realistic feature density - the day/night cycle makes the days feel meaningful, the design and smaller size of the town give everything purpose and the town's NPCs make it feel alive. The NPCs that Ryo knows will have 3-4 different things to say every time there's a shift in story. If you were to talk to all of them at each beat of the story it would total 80 hours of gameplay. If that wasn’t enough to make them feel realistic, they also have their own daily schedules - they go to work, eat lunch in a restaurant, go back to work and then go home and their animation equally aims for perfection, like the shop owner who practises his golf swing in the middle of the street.
It's not all sunshine and golf swings with the NPCs though, as due to the Dreamcast’s limited processing power, NPCs will 'pop-up' and appear out of nowhere when walking through the town and occasionally even block your path when they have yet to even appear. This isn't as big an issue as it first sounds though, and standing and watching people walk through the streets is still a joy.
A sublime soundtrack perfectly complements the atmosphere, with multiple audio tracks based on the time of the day and stage of the story, changing the tone of the game with you, while each shop has a track memorable enough to know where you are without even looking.
This is the Shenmue series in a nutshell. Its countless details convincing you that anything is possible in its world.
When you wish to go off on a tangent from the story, the Open-world's activities allow for this, with an arcade containing a couple of Yu Suzuki's own games developed for the arcade in the 1980's - Hang-On and Space Harrier. Hang-On and OutRun (from Shenmue 2) are both excellent and are worth the purchase of entry alone. You can also collect SEGA Gatcha Gatcha toys, care for an injured cat or practice your Kung-Fu moves.
After finding your way to Yokosuka harbour, you start working to better get to know the area by driving a forklift and shifting crates around. You also get to race the thing. This is the Shenmue series in a nutshell. Its countless details convincing you that anything is possible in its world.
In contrast to the relaxed pace of Yokosuka, the final third of the game builds tension and action slowly all way up to a crescendo at the end, making for a tremendously exciting conclusion.
Shenmue is still a uniquely immersive cinematic masterpiece. Remarkable from a technical point of view, but even more so because it takes the story slowly, day-by-day, never balking at the pressure for all-out action, convincing you that you are looking through a window into another world, its atmosphere hooking an entire fan base.
After an easing into the series with Shenmue 1 where the foundations are laid for the protagonist's journey, Shenmue 2 positively launches us into the stratosphere in Hong Kong, with a change in scenery that gives you the exhilaration of going travelling while at the same time feeling homesick.
Shenmue 2 not only improved on the original, it perfected the formula
Gone are the existing relationships and the forklifts and in their place are the series' most interesting characters with moneymaking activities that include arm wrestling, gambling, box moving, Lucky Hit, prizefights and duck racing. Yes, you can go duck racing - with your own duck. The arcade of course is a holdover from the first game and includes two new games, two more of Suzuki's arcade hits - OutRun and Afterburner.
Shenmue 2 not only improved on the original, it perfected the formula, increasing the size of the game, adding more action and increasing the pace of the story. The story no longer inwardly focused on conveying Ryo's hometown life but instead focused his growth as a Kung Fu practitioner and person. You can now fast-forward time to the story's next point (i.e. to a shop opening time or meeting time with someone instead of having to wait around), the fighting is smoother and faster, and based on the design of the streets, pop-up is less of a problem. Unfortunately, a consequence of making narrower areas, while reducing pop-up, highlights the issue with the controls, which up to this point had been mostly limited due to wide streets and open areas. Ryo's turning-circle still feeling like an 18-Wheeler when attempting tight turns.
Differing from current Open-world games, which focuses on just one, Shenmue's FREE system has multiple Open-world areas, which the story transitions the player across. This not only allows the story to maintain tension effectively and create a sense of a journey, it also allows the worlds to keep their density, ironically solving the issue with current Open-world games 20 years ahead of time.
Each area's colour design perfectly conveys the story's tone: The Kung-Fu master, in a calm blue dress, attempting to temper Ryo's vengeful anger conveyed with deep red trees in the temple garden; the depressingly grey and ominous Kowloon Walled City conveys tension and danger; the green Guilin conveys growth and innocence.
Just when you think you know where Shenmue 2 is headed, it dedicates an entire section to some wonderful atmospheric storytelling with Ryo's introduction to the companion on his journey, Shenhua. This makes the sequel the more well rounded of the two games, including aspects of just about everything.
Shenmue 1+2 re-release
The long-awaited re-release is just that, a re-release, rather than a remaster. As that is the case, the fans expectations perhaps have to be tempered somewhat. Maybe SEGA knew something we didn’t..
The developers of the re-release, D3T, were hamstrung from the start, missing both Shenmue 1's source data (from the Dreamcast) and original assets available from both games (with the sequel using the X-Box version). To get around this they reverse engineered some elements including the audio, which they unfortunately lowered the quality of in certain cases. Among issues from the originals that couldn't be resolved are the 4:3 cut scene resolution, low frame rates, pop-up and also the clunky controls. The latter two being the least flattering, and the ones showing the series' age.
The changes they were able to make include an HD resolution, improved loading times, the occasional texture improvement and the inclusion of both the Japanese and English audio tracks. The increased resolution and shorter loading times, of course, are changes that greatly improve the game experience, but the update in the textures, while good overall, perhaps could have gone further.
Features included in the Dreamcast version but missing from the re-release include online leaderboards for the arcade games top scores and also the content from the ‘What’s Shenmue’ demo. But considering SEGA’s seemingly low expectations of the release and the amount of bugs D3T released the game with, it perhaps makes it a bit too optimistic.
Individually, these games are some of the best ever made, so getting both on one disc and allowing a new generation to experience them is huge for a series waiting for its conclusion. The unfixable issues are understandable, but not further improving the textures and then worsening the audio quality is a bit puzzling. The PC mod community have already addressed both, but console editions won’t see any improvement.
Re-release verdict- 9/10
Despite giving the Open-world genre 20 years to catch up, Shenmue 1+2's density and interactivity still remain unrivalled, and their enthralling adventures remain unique. Granted, there are some issues but nothing affecting their standing as timeless classics. They are also a fantastic alternative to the current gun-toting standard of Open-world gaming that severely lacks the pacing and heart of this series.
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