Shenmue is a fighting game. Shenmue is an arcade game. Shenmue is an RPG game. Shenmue is even a driving game.... what can we call it?? well Yu Suzuki has created a totally new genre called FREE (Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment).

You play Ryo Suzuki, a Japanese school boy who lives with his father in his family dojo. His father is a master at martial arts and has taught Ryo over the years. One day you arrive home, walking up to the door you find a black car. It looks suspicious, you walk on... finding the housemaid terrified on the floor your carry on to the dojo... suddenly the doors smack open followed by the Yukusan (a martial arts student that has been living with you for some time). He falls unconcious. You walk into the dojo to find your father and some stranger. He wears a robe that looks as if its chinese. He asks your father for the 'mirror'. Your father refuses. The stranger proceeds with some amazing style of martial arts. Your father is knocked down. You plunge at the stranger only to get knocked down. Your father still refuses to give away the mirror. The stranger grabs you by the throat and lifts you into the air. Unable to breathe our father tells the stranger where the mirror is. After getting the mirror the stranger walks off with two odd men. Your father is on the floor barely concious. You lean over him. There he dies.

After that its up to you. The year is 1986 you live in Yokosuka and you can do whatever the hell you like. Want to find out who killed your father? Or do you just want to chill in the arcade.

Im not going to tell you anything else of the story line, thats for you. What i can tell you is every time you play this game it will feel different. You can play it at your own pace.

There are many different forms of play. The most common is FREE QUEST where you can run around Yokosuka, Sakaragaoka (or somin like that!), Doubita and the harbour. You can talk to people to find information, go into s
hops (and buy things!!!).

Then there are the QTE (Quick Time Events). These are cinematic events that you partly take control of. For example.. you are chasing someone down the street you dont do the running however say a bike gets in your way you will need to quickly press the corresponding button quckily enough otherwise you will go straight into it and loose the person.

The other is Free Battle mode... this is very fun, its a bit like Virtua Fighter but scaled down a bit.

There are also minigames such as in the Arcade, you can play darts, super hang on, space harrier etc... its very good to pass the time..

thats another good thing about Shenmue.. the time system. Each day is 1 hour. You wake up in the morning and go about your daily information gathering, fighting, exploring etc and come back at a reasonable time (otherwise you will begin to feel more tired).

also the Magic Weather system is amazing. You will never see a certain place the same as the weather is so varied... snow, rain, dull day, sunny day...

that moves me onto the graphics. I have to say, you will be GOBSMACKED... this is the Dreamcast... it has the power to produce amazing graphics but Shenmue has really pushed it to the limits.. so much so that I think it looks better than any PS2 game, and im not alone on that opinion. Everything is so detailed, the shadows are excellent and the animation is very realistic.

Some complain that this game can become boring. I agree it COULD become boring but only if you treat Shenmue the wrong way.
Firstly you need to free up a lot of time to play this game, not because its a long game but because once you start playing it ou wont be able to put the controller pad down.

some also dislike the control system, i think the control system is very good althoug the FREE QUEST controls need to be mastered a bit first.

This game is the best game for the dreamcast.. i would go as far as sa
ying its the best game ever. It is an inspiring game full of twists and turns...

i dont want to give anything away on what happens, you have to see for yourself otherwise it spoils it.

BUY THIS GAME!