Shenmue: A Retrospective

 

 

Shenmue

The Saga of Ryo Hazuki

Sega’s Shenmue is one of the most ambitious and amazing games in the Dreamcast’s varied catalog.  Like many games on the system, it was fresh, experimental, inspired, artistic, and unfortunately, an enormous financial failure.  Yet, nine years later, it still has a loyal international fan base, and maintains a reputation as one of the most notable games available on a console filled with notable games.

Shenmue was the creation of Yu Suzuki, who was mostly known for his arcade games.  Among his successes were Hang On, Outrun, Space Harrier, and Virtua Fighter.  Yet, it was when he decided to create a game specifically for home consoles that the seeds of Shenmue were planted.  Originally conceived as a Virtua Fighter RPG, the game evolved into an epic multi-part story that unfolded through a detailed simulated world.

At first, the game was in development for the Sega Saturn, and it was an impressive technological showcase considering the limitations of the hardware.  However, when Sega decided to change its focus to its newer hardware, Shenmue was redeveloped as a Dreamcast game.  When all was said and done, the budget reached approximately 80 million dollars, making it one of the most expensive video games ever created.  (Only recently has it been exceeded by Take-Two’s Grand Theft Auto IV, which had an estimated budget of over 100 million dollars.)

Shenmue was hyped as a revolutionary game capable of challenging Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the title of “greatest video game ever made.”  Unfortunately, when the game launched in Japan in December 1999, its reception was less than enthusiastic.  It fared a little better in North America in November 2000, but even considering that its lofty budget and the limited install base of the Dreamcast left it with no chance to be profitable, sales were still extremely disappointing.

Nevertheless, the sequel, Shenmue II was released for the Dreamcast in Japan and Europe near the end of 2001.  However, by this time, production of the Dreamcast console had already been discontinued, and Sega was reconfiguring itself as a third-party publisher.  As such, it entered into a deal with Microsoft to release the game in North America exclusively for the newly released Xbox.  The North American Dreamcast version was canceled only a month before launch.  When the Xbox version appeared nearly a year later in 2002, sales were so abysmal that it made the original game’s sales look good by comparison. With that, the Shenmue saga came to its premature end.

Shenmue (screenshot courtesy of Shenmue Dojo)

The F.R.E.E. World

Perhaps the mixed reactions to Shenmue stemmed from confusion about exactly what type of game it was.  It wasn’t really an RPG, at least not in the traditional sense.  It didn’t quite fit the mold of an adventure game, yet it contained elements of point-and-click games.  It certainly wasn’t just a fighting game.  It couldn’t even be called an interactive movie.  Still, it was a little of all of the above.  Shenmue simply wasn’t easy to classify, and as if to acknowledge this, Suzuki created his own term for it: F.R.E.E., which stood for “Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment.”  Of course, such a cryptic label still did nothing to describe the game.

In a nutshell, Shenmue is a simulated world with a story built into it.  While the world of Shenmue is fairly small from a geographical perspective, it’s actually quite large due to the amount of detail within it.  Time passes in a semi-realistic fashion, characters go about their daily business, and you are free to roam around and explore at your own leisure.  You can talk to people, call them on the phone, knock on just about any door, open cabinets, examine objects, buy food and toys, play games, practice martial arts, get a job, take care of an orphaned kitten, and so on.

At the same time, you’re motivated by a story to accomplish certain goals that often encompass finding and talking to a certain person.  It may sound dull on paper, but the flow of the game takes on a detective-like style in which you get a lead and try to follow the clues.  It’s actually quite addictive.  The pace picks up more in the second half when you encounter more Dragon’s Lair-like Quick Timer Events (QTE’s), and become involved in Virtua Fighter-style fights.

The story of Shenmue begins with a young man named Ryo Hazuki who lives in Yokosuka, Japan, in 1986.  He comes home one stormy November night to witness his father, Iwao Hazuki, being beaten by a Chinese man named Lan Di who is looking for a special mirror.  Iwao gives in when his son’s life is threatened, but once Lan Di retrieves the mirror, he kills Iwao anyway and then leaves.  The game starts a few days later on December 3^rd.  Ryo begins to learn a few details about the mysterious events leading to his father’s murder, and he decides he wants revenge.  He spends the rest of the game trying to track down Lan Di, and along the way, of course, discovers that there’s much more going on.

A Little Slice of Yokosuka

So, the simulated world, the mini-games, the collecting, the fighting, the QTE’s, and the involved story make up the various parts of the game, but what does it all add up to?

Yu Suzuki is a man of many talents and interests.  As a designer, he likes to make sure his games provide an experience that is expressive and authentic.  Shenmue provides this with a very organic-feeling portrayal of Japanese culture.  Remember that this game takes place in Yokosuka, Japan, in the mid 1980’s.  The game world was based upon the actual location and time period.  You can find pictures on the Internet comparing scenes from the game with their real world counterparts.  There is also a setting in the game to make it mimic the actual weather patterns of the time period.  Shenmue essentially provides a slice of Japanese life, which perhaps is why the game was more intriguing to non-Japanese players than to those in its own homeland.

What I, personally, got out of the game was a little more profound.  Ryo’s quest to find Lan Di and avenge his father contains an understandable urgency, and the game has a time limit so that you don’t waste in-game months or years without progressing the story.  However, every other aspect of the game seems to encourage the player to slow down and take his/her time.  The various distractions within the game world are generally rather trivial, such as playing video games, collecting capsule toys, or drinking sodas from a vending machine.  The environments, themselves, are so exquisitely designed that they make the player want to stop just to admire them.  Even the instruction manual states, “You have more than enough time to do what needs to be done.  So please take your time and enjoy the world of Shenmue at your own pace.”

To me, these two contrasting sides of the game carry a message.  It’s as if it’s saying, “Don’t get too wrapped up in matters of personal importance.  Remember to slow down and enjoy the details of everyday life.”  I don’t know if that’s what Yu Suzuki intended when he created the game, but I think it’s a pretty nice thing to get out of it.

Shenmue

Postmortem

Despite a mixed critical reaction upon release and initially disappointing sales, Shenmue has gone on to develop a loyal cult fan base and become a media darling.  Ever since the release of Shenmue II, fans have waited with baited breath for the next installment of the saga, yet it has never materialized.

Yu Suzuki’s original vision was to create an epic series of games that could span as many as 16 episodes.  The first Shenmue covers only chapter 1.  After its humbling reception, it became clear that Suzuki’s ambitions would have to be scaled back.  Shenmue II compiled chapters 3 through 5, with the story of chapter 2 being told only in a manga.  It’s thought that if ever there was a Shenmue III, it would simply cram in the last 11 chapters together and finish off the series once and for all.

Unfortunately, it seems that the third chapter made little, if any, progress in development.  But in 2004, another game called Shenmue Online was announced for release in China.  It was intended to be an MMORPG, but a very troubled development has kept it, too, from completion.

So, where does this leave the Shenmue saga?  It appears to be stuck in some sort of bizarre purgatory.  Sega’s business strategies have been more conservative since the company was bought out by Sammy in 2004.  The prospect of releasing a new game in a series that has infamously lost a lot of money is not inviting.  Yet, Yu Suzuki has been careful to avoid announcing that either Shenmue III or Shenmue Online have been outright canceled.  And when asked if the rest of the story could be finished in some other form, such as a book or a movie, Suzuki has insisted that it would be completed as a game.

Fans of the series are among the most die hard of any video game fans, perhaps just behind the  Earthbound community.  They’ve taken it upon themselves to lobby for a new Shenmue at just about every chance they’ve gotten, and spread awareness of the series via word of mouth.  Their focal point for this is the Shenmue Campaign website, which includes a link to an online petition that has, at the time of this writing, reached over 58,000 signatures.  Although online petitions are largely considered a waste of time, Yu Suzuki, himself, has acknowledged his awareness of it in an interview with  Taiwanese website gnn.gamer.com.tw.

Shenmue Campaign

Yet, all the effort has been a discouraging exercise for the fans, as Sega often treats Shenmue like a bad memory they’d rather forget.  At E3 2008, Simon Jeffery, President of Sega of America, admitted that Shenmue III was one of Sega’s most requested “fanboy” games, but that there were “no plans” for it.

One more nail in the coffin was the news that in 2009, Yu Suzuki had stepped down from his role as Creative Officer to manager of the R&D department at Sega’s AM Plus, a development studio that concentrates on the Japanese arcade market.  His reduced influence in this new position all but spells the end of the franchise, as it’s hard to imagine the series continuing without him.

But in the end, none of it can take away what Shenmue was and is.  It was one of the most defining games of the Dreamcast, and one of the reasons the console is so beloved, even today.  It elevated gaming to a higher level, representing the kind of ambition, experimentation, artistry, and execution that we should see more of in the video game industry.  Shenmue’s fans, its legacy, and its place in history ensure that it will always be fondly remembered.