Played the HD remaster on PC with widescreen and texture mods. At around the 80% mark I started having issues with crashing and uninstalled said mods to finish. It was definitely a rough adjustment but not enough so to tarnish things on any meaningful level.

I loved this just as much as I expected to having enjoyed my time with 2 back on the original Xbox. Some quality of life improvements could've went a long way (mainly in regards to having to wait around for things) and the combat wasn't my cup of tea but everything else was incredible.

The aesthetics, music, and general world ambience were all wonderful. One of the most immersive games I've played in a bit. Can't wait to play 2 in full for the first time soon.

There's just something about it. Walking around a warm village in Japan, talking to wise-elderly people, helping little kids look after kittens and hanging out at the arcade... and looking for sailors, because something to do with avenging your father or whatever.
The plot is a standard revenge story, the opening is admittedly incredibly cinematic and emotional. So much so that the game that follows is a comedown in tension. Whilst the game does have action setpieces, I think of the majority of tranquil gameplay soothes in the way a Studio Ghibli or Yasujirō Ozu film does, especially when firing it up on the gorgeous Sega Dreamcast.
It's not a perfect game, its ambition is both its strength and weakness. The open world is truly awe-inspiring and irresistible, whilst the expansive narrative designed for 5 or so games probably didn't help the game sell as well as it should have done.
It seems to divide gamers, but I'm sure lovers of immersive open worlds, gentle, slow storytelling and all things Japan will have something to take from this unique experience.

It's incredibly unique and one-of-a-kind even to this day there aren't any other games like it. The story is a basic martial arts movie premise, but it's still pretty compelling due to the characters and cheesy/awkward dialogue.

'Have you seen a black car?' 'Do you know of any places where sailors hang out?'

The life sim stuff is really boring to me personally, but I still respect it a lot and can see why some people love it.

The game has forklift racing though and that alone makes it worth playing

When I finished the first half of Shenmue 1 & 2, I felt no desire to move on to the next installment. The idea that there are 5 or 6 or however many more planned entries in this saga seemed ludicrous to me. Not because the game was bad, the opposite in fact: Shenmue 1, on it's own, already told a genuinely powerful, succinct, and standalone story of a boy who gives up his girlfriend, hometown, and life to pursue a meaningless quest for revenge that will destroy him.

It's been two years since I played this, and I still don't really want to play the sequels. Everything I've heard about them tells me that they are just elaborations on what was already here. Shenmue makes you fall in love with it's town, a space better realised than any game up to this point, so it can make you understand what Ryo is throwing away when he finds those sailors and gets on that boat, but also why he does it. The game is both celebratory and revealing in it's mundanity. When you're spending an hour on a forklift, knowing that this was your life if you were to stay here, wouldn't you go on a quest to escape it?

It's just really good. A classic, but not really in the ways anyone told me it would be. Know when to leave well enough alone, Suzuki.

Shenmue was hugely progressive for its time -- the realistic, detailed world design, the ambitious mix of gameplay genres, the enormous scope -- though as AAA games have iterated on the formula, Shenmue has basically been remembered as a rough-edged curiosity that exists more for historical discussions than to actually be played.

I went back to Shenmue in 2020. Its rough, sure, but I really do think there's something special here? Shenmue will make you intimately familiar with a Japanese town in the late 80s, rummaging through furniture in first person, talking to locals and navigating city streets by landmarks and real maps (no minimap or compass here)! Solving the mystery of your fathers murder feels consistent and well-earned, and the weirdly amateurish/quaint charm of the production kind of synergizes with what I think is a legitimately compelling mystery adventure game..?

Everything does not stick the landing, though. Controls are clumsy, the fighting never happens often enough to really figure out how it works, and there's not enough distractions in this small town to fill up the days of waiting that happens during this slow-burn, slice-of-life story.

The game has a slog of a forklift section near the end. If you enjoyed the game as much as I did up until that point, you have my permission to skip ahead to the FAR more interesting Shenmue 2. You basically know all you need to know by that point.

No departamento audiovisual, envelheceu mal pra caramba. Apesar dos pesares, ainda tem seu charme. O detalhismo dos ambientes é admirável até hoje e o gameplay loop baseado nas rotinas de personagens e locais me agradou (meio que me lembrou Majora's Mask). O combate é bem profundo, reminiscente de Virtua Fighter, mas acaba sendo muito subutilizado em prol de QTEs, que é uma pena. O plot é... Ok. Tem bastante encheção de linguiça, pra ser sincero. Espero que a história avance de maneira mais substancial no II.

There’s something strangely enjoyable about playing through every second of a man’s life as he tracks down his father’s killer. Ryu’s hometown feels like a real home, and it has a very engrossing atmosphere. There’s not a whole lot to do, and the voice acting is terrible (although very enjoyable), but this game feels super experimental despite its MASSIVE budget for its time. Everything is really impressive for its time; the story is relatively engaging, the combat is sufficiently complex, the environmental puzzles are simple, yet realistic and the game overall just has this homely vibe to it.

Loved how immersive the gameplay was, with almost everything being interactive. It's deliberately slow-paced, but it also reminds you to manage your time. I couldn't get enough out of talking to people, going to the arcade, or collecting capsule toys. I also found the story to be engaging, and when it ended, I was definitely interested in seeing what comes next.

You can make fun of the English voice acting all you want. It's definitely cheesy, but I think it's also part of its charm. Some sentimental moments do feel genuine at times, so I can't... completely fault it.

The combat is clunky, but still doable. I'm not a fan of the QTE's. They break the pace a bit.