Shenmue Chapter One: Yokosuka Appreciation Thread

[Tsukuyomimagi99]

While Shenmue II remains the critical darling in the saga; the first game in the series still stands strong in its own right. That is of course if you allow the game's charms to work on you. The rich amount of detail, the wonderful ambiance, memorable characters, outstanding composition, excellent story, and deep combat forge an absolute masterpiece in my eyes. These videos articulate the game's strengths far better than I ever could.









How about you? What are your favorite memories of playing Shenmue Chapter One: Yokosuka?

 

[Nigel]

I'll never forget the impact the first Shenmue had on me aesthetically (esp. the music, in a less internet-saturated/multicultural world). I turned more to 2, but came back to the 1 before 3 with the HD release.

In a word: while I'll always prefer 2, I noticed this time just how good the proportions of the original were/are. Two things stood out to me on that playthrough:

a. The excellence balance of content in relation to the size of the map
Gacha, move scrolls, leveling up moves, high scores (incl. slots), cassettes, the cat, little easter eggs with Nozomi-- with a map this small, there's always something you can do rather than progress in the plot, even if you don't want to do it. I always recognized this, but I think I appreciate it more in an era when open world focuses more on being open than a world. Even though I love exploring in 2, the "largeness" wears off once you've found it all. In 1, it feels compact in the right way.

b. A heightened sense of the amount of detail
Again, this was caught even as a teen, but the number of dialogues, the clever use of FREE music when his mood/the plot changes, the differing crunch sounds for how much snow you're running through-- while I think Suzuki is a perfectionist, I'm glad he was given this game to show that he's not just blowing smoke up our rears. Given infinite time/money, he'd make something wild.

(I'd mention some other things like characters, but I think 2 matched it almost as well on that front.)

 

[BruceWayne911]

Shenmue 1 the game that started it all. The purest form of Shenmue out of the 3. The most impressive thing about Shenmue 1 is while not the biggest game scale wise the gameplay was immersive and never felt repetitive. I was hooked on Shenmue 1 just off the opening cut scene. Its incredible how good this game still holds up in 2020.

 

[code l name]

The original Shenmue really opened my eyes to the scope, immersive nature and quality the medium was able to produce. To say it was groundbreaking or extremely formative would be an understatement.

There's so much to say and I think that's why 21 years after its release we still talk about it but one aspect I did want to highlight was the incredible amount of conversations most players would never see. I mean at every story beat there's unique conversations you can get from the majority of characters and often times you get little insights into their character, their relationship with Ryo or sometimes just funny gossip. Occasionally someone will highlight a piece of dialogue I've never heard until this day, even though I've replayed the game more times than I can count. Here's a couple of videos that show aspects I love about the game;







Credit goes to @LanDC who originally created the bottom two videos.