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Shenmue Review
Adam Tapio
00/12/0000
Yu Suzuki's fabulous title, you have to experience it at least once.
In this new generation of video gaming (the seventh), console technology has finally reached the point where true "cinematic" games are possible. Developers can now make gamers feel like they're in a movie, instead of just mashing buttons on a controller while stuff happens on screen. Some of these cinematic games work, like in Metal Gear Solid. Other times, you don't think "wow, I'm playing a movie!" so much as "wow! This game really bites!" (like with Fear Effect).
And yet, despite "cinematic" games being in their infancy, they're now obsolete. Yu Suzuki's masterpiece Shenmue has blasted gaming way beyond providing simply a movie-like experience. Shenmue isn't cinematic...it's literary!
Think about it. What's the hallmark of almost all movies? They're just two hours long, and so have relatively little time to develop worlds, characters, and storylines. Even massive RPGs barely scratch the surface of what they COULD do.
A book, though, is different. In a book, you can have rich, textual descriptions, intense and lengthy character development, and a storyline that progresses over hundreds of pages. In an epic enough series, like The Lord of the Rings, you can even have multiple books' worth of these elements!
Shenmue, then, is a book in video game format. It is the story of young Ryo Hazuki, the son of a martial arts master living in Yokosuka, Japan, in 1986. One day, Ryo is forced to witness the brutal slaying of his father at the hands of a mysterious Chinese man. Vowing revenge, Ryo then sets off on a journey to find the man who killed his father, to learn the dark secrets of his family, and to discover why everyone wants a certain jeweled mirror...
Ryo's journey will take him from the run-down streets of his hometown to the bustling port of Hong Kong, and beyond. This first game in the Shenmue series is just the first chapter in Ryo's story...there are 15 more planned. "Epic" is an understatement when referring to this game.
And, as befits the epic novel nature of this game, Shenmue takes you through Ryo's quest in meticulous, minute detail. Every hour of every day, from the time Ryo's father is killed in early December to the time when the cherry blossoms bloom in spring is played out. You, as the player, have to guide Ryo, from the time he wakes up each morning, through his explorations of the small town he lives in, to his conversations with townspeople and minor diversions, to the time he returns home for bed at night.
To some gamers, this might seem like a recipe for boredom. Those people, though, have no idea of the depth in this game. You aren't just limited to wandering around a small town, talking to a few people and going into a few locations. In Shenmue, you're placed smack dab in the middle of a living, breathing world. Ryo can wander anywhere he likes, knocking on apartment doors, examining (and purchasing) the goodies in the convenience store, playing darts or Space Harrier in the arcade, making calls from a phone booth, taking care of a kitten, interrupting a late-night tete-a-tete between schoolboys and schoolgirls, chatting with his classmate Nozomi, hanging out at the karaoke bar, and much, much more. And that's just on the first disc!
The detail crammed into Shenmue is nothing less than revolutionary. You can read all the individual signs in town, for instance, or pick up and examine the goods in the antique shop. You can stop anyone you like in the street and talk to them (though, as in real life, some are more willing to chat than others). You can even purchase and collect little Virtua Fighter and Sonic toys from those egg-capsule vending machines - never mind that neither game existed in 1986! Virtually everything in town (and the town is HUGE) can be examined or manipulated in some fashion. All of this adds a dramatic sense of realism to Ryo's quest; the plot may be advanced by running from one character and location to another, but it feels natural somehow. And the town lives on its own...don't expect to hop into a bar at 10 AM, and at 9PM all the regular shops are closing up. Even then, though, you can sometimes catch the shop owners as they're walking home. Amazing!
Also adding to the realism are additional gameplay elements, like the Action Selector. This requires you to press a certain button on the controller at a certain time. If you succeed, so does Ryo (catching a soccer ball being kicked around in the street, for example). If you fail, something not-good but not game-ending happens (like the soccer ball bouncing off a clumsy Ryo and hitting a little girl on the head, who runs off sobbing). Combined with a martial arts system modeled after the Virtua Fighter engine (and which lets you add new moves to Ryo's arsenal), Shenmue provides almost infinite branches in story. Everything Ryo does affects the next events, and as Ryo (and you) make different choices, the game progresses differently.
This, I feel, keeps Shenmue from being too much of a Dragon's Lair puppet show. Yes, sometimes you're required to do a certain button move right...but if you fail, the game doesn't end. It just moves forward in a different direction. Shenmue is not as rigid as a cinematic game...it's as freeform as life itself! Okay, so absolute realism isn't yet possible with today's video game technology, but Shenmue gets DAMN close!
This exhaustive detail explains why the graphics may look a little weak. No, Shenmue won't make you throw away your PlayStation 2...at least not at first glance. Shenmue isn't even as graphically polished as Soul Calibur. But that's not because the Dreamcast can't hack it, or because Yu Suzuki is turning into a slacker. It's a matter of focus. When all your game lets you do is fight one other character in a single arena, it's easy to make photorealistic graphics. When every single detail of your huge, realistic town is modeled down to the magazines in the convenience store and the trophies in the closet, though, it's easy to see where all the DC's processing power is going!
Plus, while the graphics themselves may seem a little unpolished, the little details will take your breath away. The characters' eyes move as they talk to people. Their hair flutters in the breeze. Their expressions change depending on mood. Even their hands and fingers change position as they move and gesture! Personally, I'll take this level of astounding detail over anything the PlayStation 2 has offered so far.
Despite my high praise for this game, though, there are some unfortunate flaws. Most notably in the voice acting. While every major character sounds natural and real, some minor characters (especially the children) just have gut-wrenchingly AWFUL voices. Every time I'm forced to listen to one of them, I rend my clothes and weep that Sega didn't include a subtitled Japanese language option with Shenmue!
In addition, the mix of gameplay elements such as conversations with townspeople and the "push the right button at the right time" action sequences may still turn some people off. Yes, each of those individual elements has been used before...but they aren't the point of Shenmue. They enhance Ryo's exploration and story, and are set in the context of a fantastically detailed world. Nitpicking over having to push a button when the command flashes on screen just smacks of sour grapes to me.
Shenmue also requires you to be more proactive than the Action Selectior sequences imply. If you don't stop and look at everything and fiddle with everything you see, you're probably gonna miss something important. This is both a benefit (because it lets you see just how deep the world here is) and a drawback (because it can draw out the game needlessly, and is not really mentioned in the instruction book despite being so freakin' important to successfully completing this game). I also admit that while the degree of interactivity in the world of Shenmue surpasses anything else in any other game I've seen, it still isn't at the level of total immersion.
Shenmue is a remarkable achievement. It's that rarity in gaming, a unique and revolutionary game. While the kinks need to be ironed out of the graphics, gameplay, and world interactivity, those elements are MORE than adequate here to fulfill their role. And that role is to enhance the epic story of Ryo and the people around him, not overshadow it. Unless you're totally hung up on the hype surrounding Shenmue's gameplay, you will LOVE this game. It is an experience like no other, forcing you to use your brains, your reflexes, and your sense of awe and wonder all at the same time. If this is just the first chapter, and was programmed a full YEAR ago, then I can't WAIT to see what Yu Suzuki has for us next!
But in the meantime, if you miss out on Shenmue you'll probably regret it for the rest of your gaming life.
Shenmue is like no other game ever made. It's not perfect, and it doesn't do EXACTLY what it sets out accomplish, I admit. But it's unique enough and does its job well enough that pretty much every gamer on the planet who prefers story and character to mindless shooting will be immediately and addictively drawn into this game. Buy it. Play it. LIVE it!
Anonymous
Date Added:Sun 24th Jun 2007 00:08