Kick'em In The Ghoulies

Pal European Box Art 

(C) Sega 2000

The Experience is F.R.E.E.

If I had to choose a video game that summed up the Martial Way then the mighty Shenmue would be the one.

Created by legendary Game creator Yu Suzuki from Sega's AM2 department it was the first video game that immersed you in to a Real life world where you had to go to sleep at night, travel to places, find jobs and generally pass the time .

Hence the label by Yu Suzuki as F.R.E.E. which stood for '' Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment'' Giving Shenmue it's own Genre and one that has never been approached in the same manner again, though Sega's own Yakuza series on PlayStation 2 / 3 and 4 are similar in it's style and story driven proceedings. 

Shenmue was originally bench-marked for the Saturn console ,under the working title of Project Berkeley, but when the Saturn failed to stand up against the might of Sony's Playstation with it's dedicated 3D chip  heavy games it was decided that the Saturn best be put to rest.

Yu Suzuki who had been working on the title was not to troubled by this as he was involved in  Sega's work on the new KATANA console ( Renamed Dreamcast for launch), he was sure it would be easy to transfer the idea to Katana ( he was probably pleased as even he said Saturn was a bugger to program for), with the ease of Katana's programming techniques and the fact it used a open world operating system made life easier to.

Now for you Dreamcast (Katana) owners two dates are important to you ,the first is ''November 29th 1986'', the next date varies to where in the World you are .

So if your in the region of Japan it would be ''December 29th 1999''

if your in North America then it would be '' November 6th 2000''

and if in Europe then the date would be '' November 24th 2000''.

Yes the first date is the date when you start the game Shenmue, the second date is of course the release date for the game in various regions. If only they waited another 5 days in Europe, how cool would that be?

Now with nearly a year between the Japanese and American and Europe releases Dreamcast owners in the latter regions where on tender hooks for months. Unless of course you could understand Japanese then you could import the game and make your friends jealous.

Of course the translation of the game into English took a while ( if they had subtitled like part 2 it may have been sooner) .

Everyone new of this game, but by the time the game arrived in the west it looked liked Sega where spewing money from every orifice. But at that time Dreamcast was starting to gain respect and selling consoles, partly due to Sony's failure to deliver enough Playstation 2's for the Christmas 2000 rush.

I for one remember waiting for the date in Europe and picking up my copy on the day of release . Nothing could prepare me for the experience that the Dreamcast would unleash on me that day in November 2000.

But it was not just me that got swept away in a story that would literally take over my life for weeks ( I was thinking of changing my name to RYO by de-pole at one point ) , I had spoken to others and the story was the same, in fact I was part of a band of people who's lives where disturbed by real life events like having to go to work, wash, eat, sleep or anything else you actually you need to do, why because in my mind I was already doing this in SHENMUE.

SHENMUE had arrived and the fine line between gaming and real life was never the same again.

So what is it about this game?

SHENMUE the Story

Shenmue takes place in a Harbour town called Yokosuka, within the town is the Hazuki Dojo where Young Ryo Hazuki lives with his Father. The game starts with a cinematic event in the life of young Ryo Hazuki.

Ryo returns home to find his father Iwao Hazuki in confrontation with a man by the name of Lan Di, The man who is tall and dark wears a Green Kung-Fu suit . He demands from Iwao an item by the name of the Dragon Mirror.

Iwao refuses, but when Ryo acts on impulse and attacks Lan Di he gets put down by this ominous man. With Ryo's life in the balance Iwao reveals the location of the mirror to save his son.

With the mirror recovered by Lan Di, Lan Di tells Iwao of a man by the name of Zhao Sunming, a man allegedly killed by Iwao Hazuki.

The two engage in battle once again, Lan Di lands a deftly blow to Iwao leaving him for dead. With his final moments in Ryo' arms Iwao dies leaving young Ryo in despair and hot for revenge.

By now I was hooked, like some Kung Fu movie I had been taken in and had to know the truth, but this time it was really up to me, for I had become Ryo Hazuki and I wanted revenge …..

Again the wharf Harbour area has many other elements where you can be sidetracked ,such as playing darts in the workers café,and of course doing your job of driving a forklift truck, which is vital to progressing in the game, if you don't get the job by a certain time then your be left in Shenmue limbo unless you have previously saved game from a earlier area so you can try again.

But if you manage to do the right things at the right time, Shenmue will reward you with a sense of fantastic achievement .

Nothing is more exciting then having to fight a 70 man battle and providing you have trained well your have little to no trouble getting through. But if you have failed to train your senses or techniques then chances are your be fighting the battle time and time again.

At the end of it all the clues will lead Ryo to have to venture to Hong Kong and as he sets sail you can only feel happy that you have succeeded but also sad as your time as Ryo Hazuki has come to a end …

Of course Ryo will return in Shenmue 2 when he docks in Hong Kong but that's another story and another game.

Now as I mentioned earlier Shenmue will take over your life,  I use to frequent the local games shop close to where I worked everyday, the guys in there I new for many years and Shenmue was big news,  I would go in every morning as I picked up breakfast, everyone would be talking Shenmue .

Each one telling each other where in the game they had got or how many hours they spent in the arcade playing Space Harrier, Hang On or darts. Everyone would be bleary eyed as they had often got home after work entered their new found world and basically lost all sense of time, finally realising at three O'clock in the morning that they had not eaten, washed or relieved themselves . ..

No wonder I felt so tired, I  was living two lives. I remember listening to my brother telling me how my nephew was going on about getting a job at the harbour, it took him a while to realise he was talking about a video-game. Who's fault was it ?, well mine of course I had persuaded everyone to have a Dreamcast and then said you have to have Shenmue!

The cost of Shenmue

In terms of buying the game Shenmue was average, think I paid around £36.00 for my package after my in-store discount (hell some people buy newspapers everyday , i use to buy video games). 

In terms of the game it self to produce it is said that it cost in the region of $70'000'000, it was also said that every Dreamcast owner would have to buy the game twice for SEGA to break even .

Truth be told the game cost around $47'000'000 to make in 1999. Combined with part 2 it amounted to the $70 million , still a lot of money and at that time SEGA was running at a loss with Dreamcast Consoles stock piled as not enough people took the challenge , many waiting to see Sony's new PS2 which included a DVD player ( a big selling point at the time) Even by only subtitling part 2 and selling it for a very reasonable £29.99, they could not entice more consumers to go the Dreamcast route.

Released in Japan prior to the Japanese release ,as Shenmue was delayed in Japan, anyone per-ordering the game received ''What's Shenmue '' on the original day of release    ,it was playable version of the game covering Dobuita, you wondered around town and your quest was to find the offices of Sega executive Yukawa San.

Not all sections of Dobuita where accessible and some characters blocked paths to other areas. There was also a giveaway of the preview on Japans gaming magazine  ''Famitsu'', this version featured a orange cover as opposed to the blue one.

At the time 'What's Shenmue '' was quite a in demand item for Shenmue collectors and often sold for more then the game originally sold for in Western Regions due to it being a Japan only item. 

The Instructions from inside the 'What's Shenmue'' disc.

Yes i think i understand.

Shenmue Music OST

Shenmue also had a vast musical accompaniment which consisted of 32 tracks ,amounting to over two hours of music, The official soundtrack was released on the March 23rd 2000 by Toshiba EMI. It was mainly composed by SEGA'S Japanese video game composer, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi. A further fifteen tracks where composed by Yuzo Koshiro.

Consisting of mainly instrumental tracks there is however one vocal track which is sung in both English and Japanese.

The soundtrack which was released only in Japan can fetch good money when it becomes available on sites like eBay and such like.

Shenmue the Movie was bundled with the Xbox release of Shenmue 2 ,.

Where as in Europe we where lucky enough to get Shenmue 2 on Dreamcast as well as the Japanese, in North America because of the decline of SEGA and Microsoft launching their new Console the XBOX it seemed fit to port Shenmue 2 to XBOX and launch it with a movie consisting of cut scenes from the first game to give newcomers the whole story. 

For this to happen SEGA had to agree to not release Shenmue 2 on Dreamcast in the USA. 

There-fore forcing any Shenmue fans in the USA to fork out for a new Console to play part two or try and import a European copy of the game, and with not a vast number made for distribution in Europe this looked impossible. 

Of course here in the UK  I was unwrapping my new copy of Shenmue II on Dreamcast.  Funny thing as I also purchased the XBOX version as well when it was released.  I think just so I could see the movie.

In a way Shenmue was such a important game in truth it would not have hurt Sega if they had also ported the first game to Xbox as well. They would have captured a new audience for the game and not just desperate Dreamcast owners who in the USA had no real choice but to buy a Xbox to play Shenmue 2.