Shenmue Review

Shenmue is a tale of revenge.
Main story is a detective story
A fighting game
An adventure game
An RPG
A game with many layers

You follow Ryo Hazuki, a man who witnesses his father's death before him at the beginning of the game, before unlocking clues as to who the murderer, (Lan Di), your father, and even yourself are.
It takes place in Yokosuka, a melting pot in Japan, where audiences discover the dual cultural identity of the city. It's very realistic, if not real and immersive and very fascinating for those of us, who've never been to Japan, especially that area.

I wish some of the characters had more to say, but the production giving you the choice to talk with everyone was an interesting idea.

Your favorite video games become his, your favorite music in the game becomes his, making you empathize with him, a very powerful form of the narrative.

The game sort of played like Chrono Trigger in that you could skip around like crazy to get to the final part of the game.
It was really like what I wanted from a Phoenix Wright game, considering how linear and game mechanic driven rather than actually detective driven that game was, taking me out of that game whenever I had to

You never knew what kind of weather you would receive on each day prior to making the weather exactly like 1986.

Around the time of Super Mario 64, you could use the first person perspective to observe anything you wanted, a virtual reality experience a movie could not give or interact with a human being with. You could examine objects to progress through the game, something LA Noire as great as it is, just doesn't do as well 10 years later.

There's a feed the kitty mini game in the game.
It was a great video game experience.

Even the supposedly odd voice acting worked, helping give the game an iconic memorable status as a video game classic.