this has been a review that i've struggled to find the words for, and put off for some time ... because i love shenmue, but i've been unsure why. or rather, i'm unsure how to explain why. it's one of those games that i'd heard referenced over & over again in my life, but had no picture in my mind for what it was, or why it was so ubiquitous, or anything. so when i finally played it back in 2021 or so, i had zero expectations, except that it was going to be Something Worth Remembering. and it was. it really, really was.

like sure, the voice acting is very funny; how characters clunkily sling their way through conversations with you & speak in cartoonish, hammy cadences is deeply entertaining, i won't deny this for a moment. but what about everything else? what about the setting -- the lovingly rendered & designed small town you live in -- in which you spend your entire playtime, but somehow continues to surprise you with how alive it feels? or the beautiful moody soundtrack, whose humble, mid-energy beats mesh flawlessly with the similarly humble scope of your adventure? or the adventure itself?
isn't there something touching about how day-to-day ryo's journey is? don't you feel uniquely connected to him in some way, running through this community where everyone knows his name & what happened to him, where every step to success is taken one moment at a time? there's something so grounding about how shenmue's story unfolds ... it just feels so personal & real, despite how the characters sometimes feel silly, or how the driving force of the game is an absurd concept on its own.

i think the overall tone of the game is what makes it as special as it is, though. it just feels so genuine, like such a labor of love. i'm not naive enough to think games made at the cusp of the millenium weren't subject to corporate crunch ... but the more i learn about the context of shenmue's creation, the more i hear about how much faith its crew had in it -- and still have in it to this day -- just makes me feel so inspired. everyone truly believed they were working on something amazing, a saga for the ages ... and for a time, they were.

as far as a gameplay experience goes, there's things about this game that feel cumbersome to me. ryo moves like a truck, the massive emphasis on learning moves & training feels pointless when there are only 4 or so fights in the entire game, and when a driving mechanic is investigation & question-asking, it can feel disheartening to ask 20 different people in a day what to do & still not have much clarity for a direction forward. but ... regardless of all that, i still think this game is fun. there's so much to see & do beyond the core story beats, and every new day, i couldn't wait to go out & find more. it's just such a unique, heartfelt game.

which i suppose is ultimately why i loved this game, despite its design downfalls. i love mundanity in game design, but i need that mundanity to have soul ... and my god, does shenmue have soul.