SHENMUE REVIEW!

Developer:	Publisher:	Release:	Genre:	Cost:	Players:	Age Rating:	Peripherals:
AM2	SEGA	Out Now!	F.R.E.E	Ł39.99	1	11+	VMS, VGA Box.

The most amazing game EVER!

"Open your eyes to the most compelling form of interactivity ever experienced outside the real world. Shenmue is a passionate and gripping story, captured in a beautifully rendered 3D world, brought to life using 'Magic Weather' and 'Time Control' technologies. Interact with a huge cast of characters with movements as intricate as a twitch of a finger, experience real-time fighting and discover a host of online features available. This is clearly not a game, but an experience never to be forgotten."

Oops! My preview was a bit off!
Remember my preview of Shenmue? It seems I was a bit off with it. So after sitting down and playing the complete game a lot of stuff I didn't fully know about was revealed so I'm about to amend these mistakes in this massive, in-depth review of the most gripping (and expensive) videogame ever!

The most amazing gaming experience ever! To be experienced by everyone!
The year is 1986. And Ryo Hazuki is running back home through the snow and there is a black car parked outside his house. Who's is it? Then Ryo sees his family's name post snapped in 2 on the steps, Ryo enters the Hazuki residence and sees Ine-san lying on the ground! He rushes over to Ine-san to find out what's happening she tells him that some men in black suits have arrived and are at the dojo. Ryo runs over there and as he approaches cautiously his sparring partner, Fukuhara, is knocked through the door and lands at his feet. Fukuhara loses consciousness and Ryo enters the dojo and there are 2 men in black standing at the door and stop Ryo from going any further. Ryo's father, Iwao, tells him to stay back and the other mysterious man, Lan-Di, there demands that Iwao tells him where the mirror is. Iwao refuses and is ready to fight to keep it secret. Iwao attacks and the stranger dodges every move with ease before kicking Iwao in the face then roundhousing him and he spins to the ground and lands with a hefty thump. Enraged by this Ryo breaks free of the 2 men in black and tries to attack the stranger but he avoids Ryo's attempts and knocks him to the ground. He yet again demands to know where the mirror is but Iwao still refuses, so the mysterious stranger picks Ryo up by the neck and tells Iwao to reveal where the mirror is or he kills Ryo. Iwao tells Lan-Di that it's buried under the cherry tree. Lan-Di drops Ryo to the ground and the 2 other men go to to get the mirror. Lan-Di tells Iwao to stand so he can die like a warrior and in one, final valiant attempt Iwao still tries to defeat him but he dodges again and with a 2 palmed blow he knocks Iwao off of his feet and to the ground. The 2 other men have got the mirror and they leave with Lan-Di and Ryo goes over to his father and with his last breath he tells Ryo this: "Keep friends, those you love, close to you." and with that he dies and Ryo screams out "Father, NOOOO!". 4 days later Ryo is in bed having a nightmare of what happened that day and wakes up and now it's up to you to decide his destiny.

What's the game about?
For those of you who don't know what Shenmue is, here's what it's about. It's a graphically intensive adventure RPG that has actually invented a new genre descibed by Yu Suzuki as F.R.E.E which stands for "Fully. Reactive. Eyes. Entertainment." and it seems to be true. You can fully interact with almost everything in the game! Every drawer in your house can be opened, every picture hung up on the wall can be taken down, every vase on the shelf can be picked up and inspected, in fact, In my first Shenmue day I spent almost the whole day searching Ryo's house! You can talk to anyone (who speaks in fully lip-synced english) and get important info from them, you can also go into shops and buy stuff from them! You can also buy milk and fish for the kitten who was orphaned when the killers of Ryo's father run over it's mother. You can also buy drinks from the drink venders and toys from the toy machines! And it just doesn't stop there, oh no, every time you play it's a different experience! This is a new step in gaming.
You take the role of Ryo Hazuki and you are out to find who killed his father and this takes you on an amazing adventure that spans 3 discs full of amazing graphics, intense fight scenes and lovely emotional sequences with a perfect musical score and reasonable voice acting that suits the characters perfectly. This is only Chapter 1 of the game which is apparently the first of 15! This is an amazing adventure set to redefine the way you think about games forever.

Shenmue: The BEST looking game ever!
You couldn't help but have noticed that Shenmue is the BEST LOOKING GAME EVER! As you can tell from the screenshots the game looks amazing and that PS2 games just pale in comparison. The game not only looks amazing but it's animated brilliantly too! THERE IS NO SLOWDOWN AT ALL! Yes, that's right! It's so brilliantly animated that it never slows down! It's positively packed to the rims of polygons and still manages to run along at 60 frames per second which is amazing when you see it in motion. AM2 have done a great job in making Shenmue look amazing and it's taken them ages too! The game engine that runs Shenmue is in fact older than the Dreamcast! AM2 have been working on Shenmue for over 3 years and spent over $70 million to make it amazing. And thankfully Shenmue plays as good as it looks! The classic arcade Sega games, Hang On and Space Harrier, (that can be played at the "You Arcade") are also arcade perfect.

How does it sound?
Shenmue has a superb musical score that suits the game perfectly and the music changes with the mood of the game considering if you are in the free adventure, QTE or free battle. There is also music for the shops that you enter and the arcade. The arcade games such as Space Harrier and Hang On have their music and makes them even more arcade perfect. You can also buy music tapes for your tape player! The voice acting is also good the characters are all fully lip-synced in English and their voices suit them perfectly. There is a few swearing words such as ass*ole, B@$*ards and Sh!t but this is a mature game and is for a mature audience so don't be expecting a clean mouthed game the whole time.

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!

Well Shenmue looks and sounds good so how does it play? Well there is the usual exploration elements of any standard RPG but with more interactivity, there is QTE sequences that can happen very quickly and free battle mode that plays just as good as Virtua Fighter but a bit slower with kick, punch, dodge and grab as the basics which can be combined in a Virtua Fighter style to pull off great special moves. Ryo is moved using the d-pad which does make his movement a bit stiff and the analogue stick is used to look around and R-trigger zooms in on a perticular object, L-trigger makes Ryo run, A is the action button, X brings up Ryo's notepad, Y is Ryo's item screen and B cancels certain things. This is awkward to use the D-pad to move first but, you'll get used to it. Obviously these controls are different when in the free-battle mode.

This is Ryo, he's tough so don't piss him off!

Will I come back to it?
Shenmue is a gripping adventure with has a very tight grip on you for a long time. Even after finishing it there is still the Shenmue passport to play about with. Watch the best movies from the game and the preview trailers, get a full explanation on how to play the game from 7 Shenmue characters, listen to the game music you have heard and go onto the internet and trade some of the stuff you bought in the game for exclusive things available from the exclusive Dreamcast only Shenmue site. You might even want to play the game over again to see if you can get a different experience from the last. And don't forget that there is still the arcade games to play and beat your high scores on (which can be downloaded to the net).

The Game Overall!
An amazing game that every Dreamcast owner MUST own! Buy it! Buy it! Buy it! Buy it! Buy it! Buy it! Buy it! Buy it!!!!!! Then buy the next chapters when they come out! We all sulute you, Yu Suzuki!
The Mark!

Graphics 99%
Sound 96%
Playability 96%
Lastability 95%
Overall 98%

This is the lovely Nozomi. Will she ever show her love for Ryo?

Screenshots and pictures courtesy of Dreamcast Europe, Sega.com and Segaweb.
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