Put aside my personal feelings towards this game, my massive collection of everything Shenmue, my backing of the Shenmue III kickstarter and all of that. This is a must play for everyone, though if you want to take it more seriously i suggest changing the language to Japanese and reading the subtitles because recording so much English dialog in the middle of japan for hundreds and hundreds of npc's is gonna make the performances a little hammy and weak. Shenmue inspired so many games coming after it, and i'm not just talking about the fantastic Yakuza series. I remember being mesmerized the first time i started the dreamcast with Shenmue loaded into it, I was thrown into the Hazuki's dojo and witnessed the murder of Ryo's father.. But don't let that drag you down because moments later I was naming kitties, knocking on random peoples doors and collecting capsule toys. The freedoms and non linearity was really a first in games.. This game was known as the Virtua Fighter RPG but aside from the combat feeling a lot similar it's more of a crime mystery with puzzle solving and daily life management. Shenmue 2 really opens up the world, Yu really captured what it is like to be in a foreign country trying to gather intel. They both feel a lot different from one another but i can't favorite one over the other.

As for this port.. It could have been done better. There are quite a few bugs that i've enountered. Putting so much faith in D3T might not have been the wisest idea with a game of this scope. Also because Shenmue fans are extra sensitive to certain things not playing the same way as the dreamcast or xbox versions of the game did. I've encountered everything from arcade machine inputs not working (Excite QTE 2's up arrow) windy flag meshes breaking, cutscenes showing no characters and just the skybox, dialog being delayed, sound effects not showing up.. it feels rather lazy that some of this is still present. That being said this is the only way to play the game on modern hardware aside from emulation, and emulation has far more bugs. D3T also brought some effective improvements to the game. Including newly drawn UI, save anywhere in Shenmue 1 now, bloom effects (it actually works in most cases), less jaggies and flickering textures thanks to some better anti-aliasing and texture filtering. Trophy and achievement support (it's nice getting all these trophies but i think the list could have been a little more challenging). So in conclusion, thank you Yu Suziki and people BUY THIS GAME! also, support Shenmue 3 while you still can (last chance is August 31st)

Put aside my personal feelings towards this game, my massive collection of everything Shenmue, my backing of the Shenmue III kickstarter and all of that. This is a must play for everyone, though if you want to take it more seriously i suggest changing the language to Japanese and reading the subtitles because recording so much English dialog in the middle of japan for hundreds and hundreds of npc's is gonna make the performances a little hammy and weak. Shenmue inspired so many games coming after it, and i'm not just talking about the fantastic Yakuza series. I remember being mesmerized the first time i started the dreamcast with Shenmue loaded into it, I was thrown into the Hazuki's dojo and witnessed the murder of Ryo's father.. But don't let that drag you down because moments later I was naming kitties, knocking on random peoples doors and collecting capsule toys. The freedoms and non linearity was really a first in games.. This game was known as the Virtua Fighter RPG but aside from the combat feeling a lot similar it's more of a crime mystery with puzzle solving and daily life management. Shenmue 2 really opens up the world, Yu really captured what it is like to be in a foreign country trying to gather intel. They both feel a lot different from one another but i can't favorite one over the other. As for this port.. It could have been done better. There are quite a few bugs that i've enountered. Putting so much faith in D3T might not have been the wisest idea with a game of this scope. Also because Shenmue fans are extra sensitive to certain things not playing the same way as the dreamcast or xbox versions of the game did. I've encountered everything from arcade machine inputs not working (Excite QTE 2's up arrow) windy flag meshes breaking, cutscenes showing no characters and just the skybox, dialog being delayed, sound effects not showing up.. it feels rather lazy that some of this is still present. That being said this is the only way to play the game on modern hardware aside from emulation, and emulation has far more bugs. D3T also brought some effective improvements to the game. Including newly drawn UI, save anywhere in Shenmue 1 now, bloom effects (it actually works in most cases), less jaggies and flickering textures thanks to some better anti-aliasing and texture filtering. Trophy and achievement support (it's nice getting all these trophies but i think the list could have been a little more challenging). So in conclusion, thank you Yu Suziki and people BUY THIS GAME! also, support Shenmue 3 while you still can (last chance is August 31st)