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Shenmue (莎木 or シェンムー) (2000) is a revolutionary story-based action/RPG video game for the Sega Dreamcast, directed and written by Yu Suzuki of Sega AM2.
The story centers around a young man named Ryo Hazuki (pronounced Rēo), who returns home one day to find a man called Lan Di questioning his father, Iwao Hazuki, about a mirror. Iwao refuses until Lan Di threatens Ryo's life. After finding out where the mirror is, he asks if Iwao remembers a man named Chao Sun Ming, and then accuses Iwao of killing him. Lan Di and Iwao then begin to fight with Lan Di eventually gets the upper hand, killing Iwao Hazuki. Afterwards, Ryo embarks on an epic quest for revenge and to discover why his father was killed. Shenmue is based in and around Yokosuka, Japan, in 1986, while its sequel (Shenmue II, 2001) is based in 1987 in Hong Kong, Kowloon Walled City, and Guilin, China.
Gameplay is diverse; while most of the game is spent walking around the atmospheric, lifelike locations in a third-person 'chase cam' mode (talking to people, searching for things, solving puzzles, and so forth), it is interspersed with dozens of 'mini-games', including forklift and motorcycle races, bar fights, chases down crowded alleys, full versions of Sega arcade games Space Harrier and Hang On, and 'free fighting' sequences.
The free fights pits Ryo against one or more enemies in a cross between Virtua Fighter and Final Fight; Ryo has a large list of martial art techniques, almost worthy of a full one-on-one fighter, but he fights many enemies at once instead of just one. The culmination of the game involves a gigantic brawl between Ryo, a friend, and exactly seventy enemies.
Shenmue was called Virtua Fighter RPG while in early development, and this is reflected not only in the VF-like fights and RPG elements, but in the variety of toys and posters relating to that game which Ryo finds.
It is notable for entering the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive video game ever developed ($40-60 million).
External link
Shenmue.com (http://www.shenmue.com/)
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