Japanese Dream (Shenmue (DC))

Member Name: enjoy incubus

Product:	Shenmue (DC)
Date:	06/05/02 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful, Adictive

Disadvantages: Involves waiting

Shenmue is an RPG or role playing game, and for those of you who haven't already encountered the genre I’ll tell you what this involves. In an RPG you are the hero, through some sort of coincidence most probably very spurious you have a task, either to enact revenge, save a woman in distress or stop an evil dictator. At the beginning you will have very few resources, all the research, finding items, and puzzle solving is left up to you. The world revolves around the you, everyone you speak to can be useful in the right circumstance and every bit of information will most probably lead somewhere. This is the backdrop against which Shenmue is set.

Story
In the opening cut scene we meet our Japanese hero Ryo Hazuki. He is hearing a ruckus and runs out to find his mate beaten on the ground clutching his chest. He whispers that he’s OK but that Ryo’s father is still in danger. Ryo runs to the dojo (hut for fighting in don’t you know) and finds his father Iwao fighting with an evil martial arts genius and getting his ass kicked whilst talking of a mysterious mirror. Ryo being the dutiful son runs forth to defend his father, he gets punched to the floor and wreaths in agony whilst Lan Di (evil guy) threatens to kill Ryo unless he is given the mirror. Iwao gives in to save Ryo, hands over the mirror and is subsequently killed. Noooooooo screams Ryo, and from that moment forth he swears to avenge the death of his father.

OK so this sounds fairly clichéd and well, is but I didn’t cry at the end of Zelda, I find Simon The Sorcerer hilarious and I loved the mindless violence of Half-Life. In short I don’t play games for the story line. And yet Shenmue still entertains me, the story is simple, easy to follow and engaging, there's a cute kitten to pet and speak sweet nothings to, a girl who likes you but is too shy to say anything about it. Its really quite brilliant, and when compared to other such works as the
aforementioned Zelda, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Final Fantasy and the like it’s actually quite realistic.

Gameplay
Time – In Shenmue the world works in real time, you wake up at 8:30 and go to bed at 11, it rains, snows and occasionally the sun lights the sky, with all the beautiful weather events following the actual course they took in December 86. The activities you can indulge in depend on the time of day, for instance some shops are only open in day time, some bars only at night. This inevitably means a good deal of time is spent waiting, and this is the biggest of most people’s complaints about the game. I myself don’t actually mind that much however, there are always things to do to pass the time, the Arcade in the village has actual games from 1986, Space Harrier, Hang On and other Sega classics of the time so you really shouldn't get bored.

Talking – The main stem of the game as with all RPGs involves talking to people, either to your maid in the house, would-be-girlfriend Nozomi, or Tom at the Hot Dog stand they all can give you tips and information on how to further the game.

Graphics
On coming to Shenmue for the first time my only expectations were based on a friend’s vague recommendations and a typically enthusiastic blurb on the box. This it now seems was no bad thing because first impressions are what Shenmue is great at. The game of course starts with a cut scene, and on seeing this I was fairly impressed, stylish character models, a great fight scene (regardless of it meaning the death of my father) and pretty realistic speech animation. But then you expect this in a cut scene and coming straight from my N64 I was just waiting to lose the quality, the softening of the edges and the beautiful lighting effects on switching to real time, but it didn’t happen.

The graphics are amazing not just in the pre-rendered story scenes but equally throughout the entire game
. Here you have hair which is independent from a character’s head, those of you who have pulled a head shot into a ponytail on Perfect Dark will know what I mean. This is really great stuff. The character’s hair sways in the wind, dust on the floor doesn’t lag behind the character and the scenery is just incredible. The streets are rugged and dirty in the downtown area, stylish and clean on the main streets. The beautiful real-time transition from night to day is smooth to the point of you not even being aware of it until you look at the watch in the bottom right of the screen and see that the time in the game has now reached 9:30pm, that the moon is up, the streetlights are on and the hooker outside the bar is starting to eye you up. This a game of incredible cosmetic detail, every character looks different, has their own accent and something different to say even if it is just a variation of ‘leave me alone.’

Fighting / Interaction
There are two types of fighting in Shenmue QTE or quick time events are the first, these can happen at any time without warning in a cut scene meaning that if you don’t pay attention for a second that cute little girl of eight just got hit in the head with a football. To explain how these work I’ll use an example from fairly early on the game. You walk into a bar, talk to the bar man and behind you a chunky sailor runs up and tries to punch your head in, ‘A’ is flashing on the screen. You press it and Ryo kicks out a foot and smashes the guy in the crotch. Another guy comes a running ‘B’ flashes up, and you reach towards the button, your enemy is picked up and thrown over a table. Looking good eh? On pressing the wrong button it is slightly more gruesome, the consequences vary from getting a punch in the face to getting your throat slit and while this sounds pretty terminal you should know you can never end the game completely through screwing up like this,
either the sequence restarts or the game route changes. You will not spill your guts on the bar floor.

The next type is free battle these fights are straight out of Virtua Fighter and if you’ve ever played Tekken, Street Fighter or pretty much any beat em up you’ll know what to expect. ‘A’ is kick, ‘X’ is punch, ‘Y’ is evade and ‘B’ is throw. On starting the game you have a number of set move combos, much more then in a standard beat em up, say 30 – 40 set moves. As usual these are performed by various button combinations -->X being about the simplest ranging to about as complicated as -->Y+X+L. These my friends are easy as pie but oh so enjoyable within the game. Do realise though that losing these can have fairly depressing consequences such as losing all your cash to a couple of lank hair mofos with a switch blade. So try your best now kids.

OK this is about it now, so I bid you farewell, do buy the game, do enjoy it and don’t buy dodgy second hand Dreamcasts from eBay.

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