Shenmue I & II: The Ultimate Way To Experience Yu Suzuki's Masterpiece

I thought long and hard about how to approach writing an article like this. I've never made any secret of the fact that while I find Shenmue to be a marvellous technical achievement and a glittering jewel in the Dreamcast library, I also found the original experience to be a rather cumbersome affair. The stilted scripting, the awful controls and the constant loading screens juxtaposed with sublime visuals, deep and interesting storyline and a dazzling amount of extras in terms of in-world detail, meant that - for me at least - the whole experience was rather uneven. On the one hand it is incredible; but on the other there are many minor annoyances.
When Sega initially announced that Shenmue and Shenmue II were being repackaged and released for the current crop of consoles and PC, the gaming community went into a bit of a nostalgia-fuelled meltdown. It was as if a long forgotten king was coming back to reclaim his crown from the usurpers. Shenmue was coming back to reclaim it's crown as the greatest videogame that most people had never played.

1986 never looked so good

See, even though the majority of people who come here to read our articles may be considered dedicated Dreamcast fans, and by extension are more likely to have actually played the original Shemmue or its sequel (on either Dreamcast or Xbox); there seemed to be something amiss with the celebratory outpourings of emotion on social media. That being, that while the re-issue of Shenmue and its venerable sequel was indeed a cause for celebration, it seemed that a significant majority of those voices proclaiming a victory in having 'saved Shenmue' had never actually played the thing in its original guise.

In this life or the next!

For this reason alone, doubt crept into my mind. Would the people screaming to the heavens in ecstasy upon hearing about the re-release of Ryo Hazuki's (as yet) unfinished quest for vengeance actually appreciate the foibles of the game once they actually got to experience it? I won't lie - I was a little worried that resurrecting Shenmue and Shenmue II for a new generation of gamers who didn't have to put up with the grinding of the GD drive, the d-pad controls, and relatively small gameplay areas filled with countless painted on shop fronts and houses in which 'no-one's home,' would sour the experience and rob Shenmue of its deity-like reputation.

Please excuse the battered boxes

Shenmue is a game of its time if ever there was one, it is slow and it is plodding. It makes the player work for the next reveal in the plot line. There is no huge tutorial and there are scant onscreen prompts. You literally have to sit and read Ryo's notebook to work out what you're meant to do next, and in this current climate of instant gratification and the apparent unwillingness of a certain demographic to actually read anything, I was apprehensive. However...

Guess who's back...?

Upon playing the new Shenmue and Shenmue II re-releases on the PlayStation 4, it's clear that I needn't have been worried. That's because this is a masterclass in how to bring back an old favourite. But not just that. It's a masterclass in how to repackage an old favourite and make enough quality of life changes to the overall experience in terms of controls, game flow and presentation that it matters not a jot if you never even touched the Dreamcast originals.

You'll be seeing a lot of Ryo's notebook

This is by far and away the best way to experience Shenmue whether you're an old hand who enjoyed it on the Dreamcast back in the day; or if you're a complete newcomer to the series. In the rest of this article (which isn't a review, I must emphasise), I will take a brief look at how the HD versions of Shenmue and Shenmue II take the original 'draft' and build upon them with significant improvements.

You will be purchasing a lot of capsule toys...

For those who aren't familiar with the plot, in Shenmue you assume the role of one Ryo Hazuki, a determined and eager young man whose father is killed in front of his eyes by the mysterious Lan Di. There's something about a mirror and his father's dark past...but that's pretty much it. You are then thrust into the world of 1980s Japan with little more than a notepad, a Timex Expedition and some kind words from the housekeeper; and so begins the great Dobuita detective tale. Who is Lan Di? Why did he want that mirror? Why did he kill Ryo's father?

It's nice, but it's no Triumph Bonneville...

The resulting adventure takes Ryo all over town and into a series of bad situations - some of which can only be solved with a bit of fisticuffs. By the time the sequel enters the equation, Ryo has travelled to Hong Kong and things get even spicier as the descent into the criminal underworld goes even deeper. There are some really unsavoury characters to meet, some great arcade games to play and some really interesting plot twists, too. Not to mention a ridiculous number of mini-games, side quests, quick time events, weird and wonderful locations to visit and people to interact/fight with. As I said earlier, this isn't really a review but I wanted to set the scene so as to give the uninitiated a little bit of background on what the whole Shenmue experience is all about.

"A pack of woodbines and a pound of corn dog, please"

With that out of the way, lets turn our attention to the matter in had - the brand new release of Shenmue and Shenmue II for the PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Due to the fact that I own a PlayStation 4 Pro, I am basing all of the following on the PS4 release, however I fully expect that the experience will be nigh-on identical regardless of which platform you're playing on, such is the scalability of what Sega and developer d3t have achieved with the original Shenmue source code.

Visuals
The original games on the Dreamcast were truly ground breaking for console visuals at the time. When Shenmue hit the scene, there simply wasn't another console format available that could produce the types of high quality character models and solid-looking environments that Yu Suzuki's game offered. Naturally, things have changed drastically since those heady days of the early 2000s, and anyone going in to Shenmue or Shenmue II expecting to see the type of visuals you might expect from a remaster of an Xbox 360 or PS3 game will be disappointed.

16:9, enhanced resolution, bloom on

4:3, reduced resolution, bloom off

While everything is up-rezzed beyond belief, the same Dreamcast and Xbox games remain at the heart of what is being shown on your screen. What this means is that while polygons are razor sharp, textures are hugely degraded. Floors and walls and the contents of store shelves and bedroom drawers are very low res, taking on the type of appearance you may see in an emulated Nintendo 64 title. The Dreamcast game was never intended to be displayed at the types of resolutions that the current gen consoles can kick out, and in the cold light of the modern gen, it all looks a bit strange. Almost as if it's super sharp, yet super blurry all at once.

The 'fade in' of NPCs is less noticeable in the Xbox derived Shenmue II

These modern releases do add some nice graphical extras, such as light bloom; and some of the slightly iffy Deamcast effects are totally re-done (the motion blur effects in particular look a lot nicer). Slowdown in outdoor areas is eliminated and the 'fade in' on NPCs as you traverse the more densely populated areas is less obvious. There are some cool extra options in terms of resolution and screen aspect ratio too, so if you want to experience these games as they originally looked running on a Dreamcast, dropping the resolution down and opting for a 4:3 ratio will give you a fairly authentic recreation of what it was like to be sat in front of a 14" CRT back in the day.

Controls
The control scheme used in the original Dreamcast releases of Shenmue was - let's not mince our words here - utterly awful. Controlling Ryo using the d-pad and using the analogue stick at the same time to control the camera was a feat best left to someone who only had two left hands. Obviously, the developers could only work with what they had, and only having a single analogue stick on the Dreamcast controller really hampered a game like Shenmue.

The Dreamcast controller and VMU on the options screen is a nice touch

This wasn't so much of an issue with the Xbox release of Shenmue II, but for all intents and purposes, this is the first time you've been able to experience the first instalment of Shenmue with decent controls. On PlayStation 4 you can control Ryo with the analogue stick or the d-pad, using the right stick to control the camera. Triggers are used to run, focus on items or enter first person while the various face buttons are always displayed onscreen and their functions change depending on the situation. Overall, Ryo does seem to be a little less rigid in his movement than he did on the Dreamcast and that's to be welcomed.

Audio
If there is one area above any other where the new ports of Shenmue suffer, it has to be the sound. While the musical score and sound effects are as rousing and crisp as they ever were, the quality of the voice overs leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not talking about the quality of the acting - no, I'm talking about the actual audio quality of the voice samples. It's clear that the same audio has been ripped from the Dreamcast game in the case of the original Shenmue, and because of this it sounds very low fidelity.

The opening scene of Shenmue II is a treat

It's actually quite jarring, especially considering how well the visuals and the controls have been brushed up. It could well be that the original high quality audio recordings have been lost to time (highly doubtful, but what other explanation could there be?), but the audio quality on the dialogue really is quite poor. On the one hand it does give the game an authentic 'turn of the century' feel, but on the other it just doesn't sound right. Of course, the alternate dubs of the game in Japanese are available in the first game if you wish to play it that way; and likewise the US-only English dub from the Xbox version of Shenmue II is set by default in the sequel.

The Timex of yore has been replaced with this fetching Sega timepiece

Apart from the oddly low quality of the voice sampling though, everything sounds just as you'd expect it to. From the glorious intro theme and instantly recognisable background beats, to the shrill menu select sound effects, this is unmistakably Shenmue.

Conclusion
It's pretty simple, really. If you've never had the opportunity to experience Shenmue in its original form on the Dreamcast, or the sequel on either Dreamcast or Xbox, then you need to purchase this collection. Hell, even if you own the aforementioned versions (as I do), then it's an essential purchase. There's never been a better way to jump in to Ryo Hazuki's adventure and see what all the fuss was and is about, and all the little improvements make this the definitive way to become immersed in the atmospheric and engaging world of Shenmue.

The world of Shenmue is beautifully realised

Keep in mind that these are games from another era in gaming, but titles which undoubtedly planted the seeds of what modern, sprawling, story-driven adventure games have become. Keep this in mind and you will not be disappointed. Furthermore, the budget price point means you really are getting a hell of a lot of game for the admission fee.

Of course, there will be purists for whom the thought of playing either of Ryo's adventures on anything but a Dreamcast will be akin to heresy; but you owe it to yourself to give the Shenmue & Shenmue II collection a fair crack of the whip. At this price point and with these improvements over the original iterations, you really have no excuse not to.

Where it all began...

The Shenmue I & II collection is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC both physically and as a digital download. Prices vary but are generally in the £25 - £30 range. Thanks to Sega Europe for providing preview versions of Shenmue and Shenmue II for the purposes of creating this article.

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