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From...
Dreamcast owners anxiously await Shenmue
January 14, 2000
Web posted at: 2:51 p.m. EST (1951 GMT)
by Uncle Dust
(IDG) -- One of the most highly anticipated and intriguing videogame titles to be released in years has finally arrived... in Japan. So as Sega of America readies Shenmue for its American release, GameProWorld decided to give you a glimpse of what to expect from this genre-bending adventure/RPG game.
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Created by Yu Suzuki, the mastermind behind the Virtua Fighter series, and featuring some of the best, most detailed graphics seen on the Dreamcast so far, Shenmue looks to extend the scope and range of videogames, creating a world more immersive than anything you've seen before. Now, you've heard that kind of hype before, but as it looks from the Japanese version, Shenmue could very well deliver on those high-profile promises.
Hard to define
What makes Shenmue so interesting is how hard it is to classify. The premise seems very RPG -- you travel around immense worlds, from small villages to the hulking metropolis of Hong Kong, searching through over 1,000 rooms and interacting with more than 500 different characters.But instead of turn-based battle systems and experience points, Shenmue incorporates four modes of gameplay. The first is Free Quest, which is the investigative and human interaction part of the game. Next is QTE (Quick Time Event), where action sequences are controlled with a single press of the d-pad or buttons (like Dragon's Lair or cut scenes in the Dynamite Cop/Die Hard Arcade series). Then there's Free Battle, which incorporates battle with a deeper control scheme and View Mode where you can examine the fine detail of the graphics.
The environments burst with interactivity, from buying and drinking a soda to playing videogames in an arcade, and extensive in-game cinemas move the story along. The game is a whopping three discs long (that's 3GB of info, as opposed to FF8's 2.6 GB for four CDs, which was mostly filled up by pre-rendered cinemas). The limited edition Japanese release comes with a fourth disc with internet links and loads of information about the world of Shenmue and a CD of soundtrack music.
Watch and wait
Unfortunately, for now all the American (non-Japanese speaking) videogame audience can do is bide their time waiting for the game to be translated and hit the U.S. shores -- and a firm date hasn't been set yet. But stay tuned for more information on both the U.S. release as well as more details about the history of the game and its creators, as well as the story and gameplay of Shenmue's Japanese version.
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