In 2011, Empire wrote that "the digital environment created by Shenmue was revolutionary at the time ... Even by today's standards, its rich and affectionate vision of urban Japan is inspiring." In his 2010 book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die, David McCarthy wrote of Shenmue's "paradigmatic impact on the entire video game industry". According to McCarthy, while it appears "crude and blocky" compared to modern games, Shenmue "recreated the real world with ... attention to detail that has never been rivaled". In a 2014 retrospective, Edge wrote that "some were entranced by the game's abounding atmosphere and visual detail. Others left frozen by clumpy interaction with an unthreatening, almost rustic world ... where they'd wander the districts of Yokosuka while asking unusual questions to pensioners and hairdressers."

Reviews of the HD ports of Shenmue in 2018 were less positive. Destructoids Peter Glagowski wrote that Shenmue had "interesting concepts that are marred by poor execution", and criticized the combat and slow pacing. He concluded: "This open-world design was truly original and fascinating in 1999, but there really wasn't a need to include half of the features that Shenmue has." The Escapist critic Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw disliked the "relentless" and "frenetic" combat, and felt that the open world lacked content between key story moments. The critic James Stephanie Sterling wrote that "Shenmue is dreadful [...] Maybe at the turn of the millennium when this game was worth a shit it could get away with being bold, but boldness is no excuse for wasting the player's time, having absolutely no respect for the audience or its patience, and generally expecting people to make their own fun in a game that doesn't really give all that many tools to have fun with."

Shenmue attracted a cult following. Fans visit Dobuita Street in Yokosuka, where most of the game is set. It has been included in several lists of the greatest games of all time. In 2007, Edge named it the 50th-greatest game, and in 2008 it was voted the 25th-greatest in Game's reader poll of more than 100,000 votes. In 2008, IGN readers voted Shenmue the 81st-greatest game. In April 2011, Empire ranked it the 42nd-best game. That September, readers of the German games magazine M! Games voted Shenmue the best game of all time, and in October MSN UK named it one of the 20 best. In 2014, Shenmue was named the 71st-best by Slant Magazine and the seventh by Empire.

Shenmue is credited for pioneering several game technologies. Shenmue is also credited for naming and popularizing the quick-time event, In a public poll held by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2025, Shenmue was voted the most influential game of all time.

Sequels

Suzuki planned Shenmue to cover several games. Shenmue II, developed simultaneously with Shenmue, was released in 2001 in Japan and Europe and 2002 in North America. It was also a commercial failure, and Shenmue III entered a period of development hell lasting over a decade. In 2004, Sega announced a massively multiplayer online role-playing game for PC set in the Shenmue world, Shenmue Online, but it was never released. In 2010, Sega announced another spin-off, Shenmue City, a social game for the Yahoo Mobage mobile service; it was shut down in late 2011.

In September 2011, Suzuki left Sega to focus on his development studio Ys Net. At the E3 conference on June 15, 2015, he announced a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to develop Shenmue III with Ys Net for PlayStation 4 and Windows having licensed the rights from Sega. The campaign reached its initial $2 million goal in just under nine hours. On July 17, 2015, Shenmue III became the fastest-funded and highest-funded video game project in Kickstarter history, raising $6.3 million in total. It was released on November 19, 2019.

Ports

Sega created ports of Shenmue for PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but these went unreleased. The programmer Makoto Wada said this was due to problems with the product placement contract, which only covered the Dreamcast version. A remake of Shenmue and Shenmue II, featuring new models, textures and lighting, was canceled in 2017 due to technical problems.

On August 21, 2018, Sega released high-definition ports of Shenmue and Shenmue II for PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One. The ports were developed by the British studio D3T, Some details, such as the product placement, were omitted, and cutscenes were presented in their original aspect ratio due to technical limitations.

The ports were released in Japan on November 22, 2018, and debuted at number four on the Japanese charts with 37,529 retail sales on PlayStation 4. They remained among the top 20 bestselling games in Japan until December 2, 2018, having sold almost 45,000 copies. IGN reported numerous bugs affecting graphics, cutscenes, controls and saved games. In 2021, a fan project to remake Shenmue based on the 2018 ports using Unreal Engine 4 was announced.

Other media

Sega released a soundtrack album, Shenmue Orchestra Version, on April 1, 1999, before the game's release. A two-disc soundtrack album, Shenmue OST Chapter 1: Yokosuka, was released on March 23, 2000. Data Discs also released a vinyl edition. A compilation of Shenmues cutscenes, Shenmue: The Movie, was released theatrically in Japan in 2001 and packaged with the Xbox version of Shenmue II. An anime adaptation of Shenmue premiered on February 6, 2022.

Notes

References

  • Shenmue at Mobygames