Your personal stories with Shenmue

Joined
Apr 22, 2021
Hi everyone!

I searched a little and found no topic like this, sorry if there is one already made.

What I'd like to tell and read from you guys is your personal story with Shenmue. How you got to know the saga, what brought you or any kind of thing you'd like to share.

Here goes mine. First of all, let me apologize for my english, it's not my native tongue and I may make some mistakes.

When the first Shenmue was released in the West I was 10 years old. I had no idea that the game even existed, by the time only recently I had the PSX (I used to play on PC to mostly older games and in a NES) and my knowledge of gaming was centered towards that system. I knew the Dreamcast was already out but in my country at least, Spain, it was pretty expensive. My family was humble and we couldn't afford to buy a new console, so I never even asked them to buy it.

While watching a satellite channel called "C:", dedicated to games (where I got to know most of the Dreamcast catalog, specially Space Channel 5 and Crazy Taxi), they made a coverage of a new Sega game called Shenmue. And I felt completely in love since the first moment I saw it. It had everything I could expect from a game. A realistic open world (open worlds was something I dreamt of a lot, PSX games weren't open or with many, many restrictions like Driver 1 and 2), an everyday life with its character, a cinematic story, unbelievable graphics, kung fu... I recall specially the fact that they said if you ran out of batteries for a flashlight you had to go to the shop to buy new ones and you had to work to earn money.

Nowadays maybe this sounds ridiculous but that was a dream for me, everything they said and shown was like out of this world for me. I became kinda obsessed, I was waiting to see if any emulator could bring the game to PC (although my PC wasn't strong enough even if it existed), waiting to see if the game released for PSX (yeah, yeah... I was a kid) or later PS2... all to no avail. So for a long time Shenmue was something that existed only in my dreams.

I had a PS2 in 2002 and all my gaming was for that console. But in 2006 everything changed at last. We had a better situation at home and consoles were no longer expensive. At the end of 2005 I had the Xbox 360 and soon after they added some backwards compatibility. I learned that Shenmue 2 released on Xbox but it wasn't one of the games that could play on 360. But in July 2006 I found Shenmue 2 for Xbox in a "Game" shop, it was second hand and for only 10 euros. I bought it. Even I couldn't reproduce it, I still wanted it just in case.

That night I watched the Shenmue movie and fell even more in love. But I still couldn't play. Later that month, maybe a week or two after having the game, my mom gave me a big surprise: she told me to buy an original Xbox which was pretty cheap by that time (I was 15 so I had no income of my own). So that 24th of July 2006 was, after almost six years after knowing Shenmue, when I could finally play it. And I was astounded when I started it and was even better than I could imagine. The music, the environment, the combat, the QTE's... I just can't describe it.

I reached Kowloon, but in August (I think it was around the 5th) a friend of my father lent me his old Dreamcast, I told him about Shenmue and he had it but almost never played it. He lent me the console with Shenmue and finally could play the first one. So I left Shenmue 2 aside to beath the first one. Still to this day Shenmue 1 is my favourite game of the saga and my third favourite game ever (only surpassed by two games that changed me way before: MGS1 and MGS2), I beated it and loved every second of it. But I didn't return to Shenmue 2.

Well, that's my story of how I got to know, play and love the saga. BTW I had a problem/curse with Shenmue 2 that I just never beat it. I played Shenmue 1 several times and although I started 2, never managed to reach the end for one reason or another. It wasn't until 2014 that I finally reached the credits. And I'm very happy I did that, because it was one of the last games I finished in my old house, where I lived since I was born and had to leave at the end of 2014. I have an illusion: if someday I get a lot, lot of money I'll buy that house again and I'll play a game that wished for many years to play there: Shenmue 3 (and hopefully 4, 5...)

Thanks for reading. What's your story?
 
Wonderful thread! I enjoyed reading through your story a lot.

As somebody in their early 20s, I was pretty young when Shenmue hit the scene, but I vividly remember watching my older brother play it. We would spend countless hours taking turns playing the arcade games and collecting toy capsules. I believe my brother did play through the story, but I was probably too young at the time to really appreciate it. Regardless though, even back then it felt special to me. The vibe and atmosphere was unlike any other video game I'd ever played. Even if the only thing I knew about the game at that time was walking around Yokosuka, it still stuck out so much.

As time went on and I became older, I never did forget the game. And even though the Dreamcast had been boxed away and replaced with an Xbox by this point, I still felt the urge to play it, but for real this time. So I took ownership of the dusty old Dreamcast and started my first real playthrough of the game. And oh boy, discovering that one of your favourite games actually goes so much deeper... it was just an incredible experience.

And for a while, that was it. I played the game and moved on. It wasn't until a lot later that I played Shenmue II. The game kind of flew under my radar for a while. But when I did finally get round to playing and finishing it, that's when I'd say I became a true Shenmue fanatic. Not only did Shenmue II turn things up to 11, but that cliffhanger! It left me wanting more. I took a look online and found that I wasn't the only one. I found communities such as Shenmue Dojo which I lurked for a few years before eventually signing up myself in 2014. I involved myself more and more in the community and joined the campaign to get Shenmue III.

I was watching live the night III was announced. It was an ecstatic feeling. Like time had slowed down. I remember staying up all night watching the pledge counter rise and rise. The feeling of accomplishment seeing the game finally being announced and knowing that the story will finally go on... it's something I don't think I could accurately describe to anyone outside this fandom.

And that pretty much brings us to today. The game came out, for a glorious moment the story continued, and now it's back to business as usual, campaigning for even more Shenmue!

But all in all, I could never have guessed that the game from my childhood 'where you run around and buy capsule toys' could have had such a massive and long lasting influence on my life. And I wouldn't want it any way either.

Shenmue is special. And no matter what, it always will be.


Here's another little funny side story from my early days of playing the game. I remember my brother and cousin made up this rumour that if you got Ryo to buy the coffee from the vending machine, there would be a chance that he'd chug it and then violently spit it back out. Even though that obviously isn't true, I still have these strong fake memories of actually seeing it happen šŸ˜…
 
Wonderful thread! I enjoyed reading through your story a lot.

As somebody in their early 20s, I was pretty young when Shenmue hit the scene, but I vividly remember watching my older brother play it. We would spend countless hours taking turns playing the arcade games and collecting toy capsules. I believe my brother did play through the story, but I was probably too young at the time to really appreciate it. Regardless though, even back then it felt special to me. The vibe and atmosphere was unlike any other video game I'd ever played. Even if the only thing I knew about the game at that time was walking around Yokosuka, it still stuck out so much.

As time went on and I became older, I never did forget the game. And even though the Dreamcast had been boxed away and replaced with an Xbox by this point, I still felt the urge to play it, but for real this time. So I took ownership of the dusty old Dreamcast and started my first real playthrough of the game. And oh boy, discovering that one of your favourite games actually goes so much deeper... it was just an incredible experience.

And for a while, that was it. I played the game and moved on. It wasn't until a lot later that I played Shenmue II. The game kind of flew under my radar for a while. But when I did finally get round to playing and finishing it, that's when I'd say I became a true Shenmue fanatic. Not only did Shenmue II turn things up to 11, but that cliffhanger! It left me wanting more. I took a look online and found that I wasn't the only one. I found communities such as Shenmue Dojo which I lurked for a few years before eventually signing up myself in 2014. I involved myself more and more in the community and joined the campaign to get Shenmue III.

I was watching live the night III was announced. It was an ecstatic feeling. Like time had slowed down. I remember staying up all night watching the pledge counter rise and rise. The feeling of accomplishment seeing the game finally being announced and knowing that the story will finally go on... it's something I don't think I could accurately describe to anyone outside this fandom.

And that pretty much brings us to today. The game came out, for a glorious moment the story continued, and now it's back to business as usual, campaigning for even more Shenmue!

But all in all, I could never have guessed that the game from my childhood 'where you run around and buy capsule toys' could have had such a massive and long lasting influence on my life. And I wouldn't want it any way either.

Shenmue is special. And no matter what, it always will be.


Here's another little funny side story from my early days of playing the game. I remember my brother and cousin made up this rumour that if you got Ryo to buy the coffee from the vending machine, there would be a chance that he'd chug it and then violently spit it back out. Even though that obviously isn't true, I still have these strong fake memories of actually seeing it happen šŸ˜…
Great story! Thank you for sharing it!

As you mention 3, I also was there the night it was announced at E3. For me, the leak (I think it was one day before the Sony show) ruined it. I mean, I was so happy of course, but when the music started to sound it was a confirmation. I can only imagine how I would have reacted if it was kept a secret as it had to. I probably would have freaked out and cried.

Because in September when backers got our demo, I cried as soon as I started it. After 15 years of thinking that we would never get the third one, years of hope and sadness, it was actually true.

I know some people, even fans, don't like 3 too much and I get it, and when they are constructive I respect their opinion totally. I'm also not very happy with some decisions. But it still holds a very special place in my heart, and playing it now once again (and with mods that make it even more faithful to the DC ones) without the "hype" I'm loving it even more.
 
I don't know where to start with my stories. Most of my exposure to Shenmue has actually always been to the original Japanese version. When I went to high school in Gilbert, Arizona, I was living near a store that specialized in selling imports. It was where I was exposed to the greatness of the Sega Saturn (ie, X-Men Vs. Street Fighter). It was where I first played the Dreamcast when it came out in Japan around November 1998, and the following May (meaning four months before the North American launch), my parents got a Japanese Dreamcast for my brothers and I, which paved the way for getting Shenmue on December 31, 1999.

One simple memory is when midnight struck to start the new millennium Arizona time, I was playing the Japanese version of Shenmue.

In addition, I was taking Japanese lessons at my local high school, where it was offered. I recorded a lot of Shenmue footage and wrote a lot of stuff in my notebook. I would bring my notebook and video to school and ask my teacher about what such and such meant. We still have a relationship to this day.
 
My brother purchased the game shortly after release on account of this trailer, which was on an Official Dreamcast Magazine demo disc, and... subsequently never played it. I, too, was wowed by the trailer, so I was eager to play the game, which I did as soon as I was able. Having never played an open-world game until that point, I was completely out of my depth, but I was intrigued, so I soldiered on and everything fell into place soon enough.

On my very first attempt at playing the game, I got lost in the Hazuki house and had to restart. (I was thick as pig shit as a child.) On my second attempt, I spent so long messing around in the Hazuki house, Yamanose, and Sakuragaoka that Yamagashi-san was nowhere to be found. (Evidently, not especially conscientious either.) As a result, I restarted once again because I thought I had missed my opportunity and fucked up the playthrough. On my third attempt, I rushed through everything up to Sakuragaoka, finally found Yamagashi-san, was granted entry to Dobuita, and the journey began. At some point during the playthrough (might have been at the beginning of disc three), I acquired a guide and followed that right to the end, which I now regret doing.

I remember feeling so bummed when the game ended. Not only did I not want it to end, but it felt as though the game was never going to end, in the best possible sense.

It was a long wait for Shenmue II, let me tell you. But I will save that for another post šŸ™‚

EDIT: Forgot to say that, during my second attempt at playing the game, I won the "Mr Yukawa (Happi)" prize from Abe Store on my very first try of the raffle draw. Didn't have a fucking clue what was going on!
 
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Aw manā€¦ my first experience of Shenmue.

So it was 2000. Iā€™d raided my 14-year-old savings account to buy a Dreamcast in March of that year. It had started to gather dust, but nearer the end of summer, I played the hell out of Sonic Adventure and rented Crazy Taxi from Blockbuster Video. I also became involved in the Wireplay UK forums (which later became the forums of mail order company Gameplay) and caught wind of the buzz building around Segaā€™s software lineup for the end of 2000ā€¦ which, in hindsight, was really their last great push. If weā€™d only known. I got Jet Set Radio, I think, for my 15th birthday, and played the hell out of it.

I also became aware of the threat of the PS2, and like any 14-year-old with limited access to funds, I went into (what, in hindsight, letā€™s face it) was fanboy defense mode. I was sort of glad that I had something all of my own, thoughā€¦ my friends were waiting for the new Sony machine but I was enjoying neon colorful Japanese magic right now.

Then on a family holiday weekend, I bought a copy of the UK Official Dreamcast Magazine. SHENMUE was mentioned in huge letters. I asked for it for Christmas and my mum told me to go ahead and order it from Amazon.co.uk. This was what I needed ā€“ the $70million epic (because every teenage fanboy knows that the more something cost to make, the better it is, right?) that would wipe the smirks off my Sony-aligned friendsā€™ faces.

When the game arrived (along with Quake 3 Arena), I naturally snuck into the corner of the house my mum had hidden the package and opened up the shrinkwrap and put the disc inā€¦ you know, just to ā€œtest it outā€, after my parents had gone to bed. Just to make sure it works, yknow?

Honestly, at first, I wondered if this was a dud. The first thing I thought was odd was how pixelated and retro the English screen text in the menu looked. (I didnā€™t notice its amazing similarity to the Sega Saturn menu font until years later, and of course, we eventually found out why ā€“ I almost had them rumbled, back then!). It seemed really odd for a game that cost $70m to make.

I sat through the opening sequence and was tentatively delighted at how it looked. It was pretty stunning, in an era where this sort of thing would normally be rendered as MPEG video, to see this level of acting and cinematography in-game.

Then when the game started, the niggling doubt returned. I remember reaching the Abe Store and buying the capsule toys and getting Ristar (a game I loved playing on my friendsā€™ Mega Drive, and also MS-DOS emulators) out of it and loving that touch. Then I decided I was pushing my luck and packed the game back into its box.

On Christmas Day I started exploring more, and started to get sucked in to the world (and okay, I admit it, with the help of a GameFAQs walkthrough). Unusually for someone who loves neon and color and brightness, I even found myself admiring the realistic grit and grime of Dobuita. I think I gave this a pass because it felt like a sort of ā€œVirtual Japanā€.

My other memories from this Christmas were playing a ton of Jet Set Radio, Evolution, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and Quake 3. And watching Toy Story 2 many times over on DVD by connecting my little portable TV to my computerā€™s MPEG-2 decoder card. (Yes, it was a separate card).

I still have that copy ā€“ as well as DC Shenmue 2, of course ā€“ on my shelf. I no longer live in the UK but brought all my Dreamcast stuff with me. Games, the very same magazines I bought, all of it.

I still remember where I was and what I did that January evening when the news of Sega pulling the plug came out. I wasnā€™t so much sad, as I was embarrassed, initially, for backing the wrong horse. But that feeling didnā€™t last long. I was too busy playing PSO and looking forward to Shenmue 2.

A tiny part of me is stuck in that era. It was lightning in a bottle, and you had to be there at the time to understand what a magical console this was. And to compound that, I was a young adult starting to grow up, and having the DC changed my life. It taught me that the most popular option is not always the right one, for me.
 
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This game was a huge reason as to why I wanted a Dreamcast.

I was already a SEGA kid as was. I was SEGA through and through. I loved Virtua Fighter 2 and 3 so damn much. It was the two games I would play religiously at both my local arcade and bowling center. I grew up a fighting game fan. I was way into video games. I was that geeky kid at high school that would usually sit on his own and always have a gaming magazine in hand. While my friends were being pubescent teens professing they knew all about sex when really they knew fuck all -- I was that geeky kid who was engrossed in gaming magazines while everything around him might as well had been white noise.

That was my first taste of Shenmue. When the Dreamcast was being hyped up in these magazines pre release, there was always talk about Yu Suzuki's secret RPG...how it was supposed to be Virtua Fighter RPG and how it was going to reinvent RPG's and how it was gonna be unlike anything we had ever seen before. Now, at the time, I actually was not a fan of RPG's. This was 99 and I wasn't really a fan of RPG's...I'd never really given an RPG the time of day. Final Fantasy didn't do much for me in terms of grabbing my interest at that point. I was a fighting game guy. I liked action games. I was a score chasing type of guy. Those were the games I liked and those were the games I stuck too. I knew what I liked and I liked fast paced arcadey type games.

But I was super intrigued nonetheless...how do you make an RPG out of a fighting game? So I followed it based on my love of VF and love of SEGA in general.

Christmas 2000 came and I finally had a Dreamcast in hand. I went with the Dreamcast over the freshly launched PS2 because Dreamcast had games I wanted to play and PS2 had nothing expect for Tekken Tag Tournament. So I decided PS2 could wait until Metal Gear Solid 2 came out. But I had a Dreamcast and I got a stack of games with it. Among them was Shenmue.

At the time, I was playing two games specifically. For all this talk about how Shenmue was going to change RPG's...I wanted to play at least one traditional RPG at the time and settled on Final Fantasy VIII. Final Fantasy VIII was my cherry breaker for Final Fantasy and weirdly enough was the game that finally made me understand the appeal of RPGs. I started Final Fantasy VIII in late November and played it right through December before finally beating it. I absolutely loved it. It changed my mind on RPGs and made me more interested than I ever was before in the genre.

So, late December and I pop in Shenmue. I had one RPG under my belt and I wanted to see how this game differed from a "traditional RPG of sorts." The opening cut scene kicks in and I was immediately hooked. The opening cut scene to this day is still one of my favorite opening cut scenes in any game to this day. The combination of the music, the mood and atmosphere and the sudden jolt of "your dad's dead! What the fuck just happned? Cue intrigue" is still damn near perfect to me.

Then the game begins. Here I am as Ryo in my bedroom. I find myself coming to bearings with the controls. Figuring out what does what. I look around at the bedroom and am instantly amazed at just how detailed it is. Coming from PlayStation One graphics, the jump was fucking astounding. I'm looking around the room and look at my desk. Holy shit! I can open desk drawers! Holy shit there is a tape player in here that I can take with me! That simple act alone was so damn cool! Being in that bedroom and discovering the look functions.

Then I took my first steps out of his bedroom. Walked around the house taking it all in. I had seen the screen shots in the magazines but seeing it running in person was something else and seeing that it was all running in real time and was stuff you could manipulate...it was jaw dropping.

Then eventually I worked my way out onto the streets and suddenly you're talking to everyone in sight...and they all have something to say fully voice acted! Again, just mind blowing...especially coming from FF8 where it's all just speech bubbles.

I won't go through the entire experience but the gist of it goes like this... The staggering amount of attention to detail was simply amazing. It felt like you were playing the future of video games with all this stuff you could now do that you couldn't do on a PlayStation One. It made me excited for the future possibilities of video games.

Going from FF8 to Shenmue, you noticed the difference immediately...this didn't feel like an RPG to me...this felt like something else. Actually at the time I remember thinking to myself "this feels more like an advanced version of something like Police Quest".

I remember watching my older brother and his friends play Police Quest and kind of was amazed by it as a kid. Sure, my older brother and his goofy friends were typing in random shit trying to see what Sonny would and wouldn't do. But I was kind of amazed by those Sierra Adventure games. Again, I didn't know games could do that. I was used to side scrollers, beat em ups and arcade games so watching those adventure games as a kid was a moment of "you can actually do this in a video game?"

That's when it dawned on me that Shenmue kind of reminded me of those games. It didn't feel like an RPG to me...it felt more like an advance version of Sierra's Quest games. But I was hooked nonetheless.

Just wandering around town and soaking it all in. Looking at street maps figuring out where to go. Getting lost looking for the obscurely hidden Tattoo parlor. Losing hours in the arcade. Talking to everyone on the streets even when they had nothing of interest relevant to the plot to say. Having that wonderful moment of accidentally walking into a car park and finding out "wait, I can practice my moves here?"...So many little details the game doesn't tell you but instead lets you discover for yourself.

That's what amazed me about Shenmue on first playthrough. It was all the little details...hell I missed so much on my first playthrough that I didn't even see the rest until subsequent playthroughs. But that was the beauty of it...figuring out it's a game that allows you to play however you like giving you the freedom to do so.

Long and short of it...it felt like I was playing witness to the future of video games. It felt unlike anything else on the market at the time.

At school, my friends would laugh at me when I told them about my experiences with it. They didn't get it at all. Especially when I would tell them that I would spend in-game days just rummaging through the house pulling off every picture frame in the house looking for secrets...or that I spent a week driving a forklift and had fun doing so! They didn't get it at all. But for me, there was just something about it that was absolutely mind blowing. It was that same experience of watching my brother and his friends play Police Quest experimenting looking to see what they could get away with.

Needless to say I was that guy who liked weird things in games. Probably explains why I was the guy playing shit like ICO a few years later while normie friends had no clue what ICO even was.

But yeah long and short of it...I sometimes wish I could have that first playthrough experience of Shenmue again...just because I kind of want that feeling again. That feeling of "Wait, you can do this? That's so fucking cool! Video games are awesome!"
 
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Had a blast reading all these stories. I only have a short one but I think it`s a sweet one:

When I first played Shenmue it was right after Shenmue II for Dreamcast came out. When my older brother got through Shenmue II he told me I had to play it, because it was really good and something I really should experience. I was pretty young back then but I did own a personal Dreamcast just for myself so what my brother did is only give me one disc at the time without the jewel case. So every time the Dreamcast told me to change the disc I had to go to him to exchange my disc and get the next one.

Now the best part is the following: right after the rooftop fight I thought "this is as awesome as a climax can get!". Just like the first game it took three discs and Shenmue II at that point already felt quite long (and amazing!) but to my surprise at the end it said there is a 4th disc! So I went to my brother and he said there is a small epilogue but that I`m essentially done with the game.

What he didn`t realize is, that Guilin in Shenmue II actually became my favourite part in the Shenmue Saga and I consider it to be much more then just an epilogue. The courage to have a chapter like Guilin after a picture-book climax that is the rooftop fight to me is so brave and respectable! In hindsight I think it was a blessing to not know how many discs Shenmue II had...
 
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