After 20 years, Shenmue is still unique in one aspect
Yamanose, Sakuragaoka, Dobuita and Yokosuka. Four places I’ve never visited but all are close to my heart.
I’ve never been further east than Cyprus, let alone venture out all the way to Japan. I’d love to, but the travel and accommodation costs combined with the reality of modern-day life means that, at present, it hasn’t happened for me.
Almost 20 years ago, I visited these places in Shenmue and while the towns aren’t identical to their real-world counterparts, Shenmue was built in such a way to make it feel warm, loving and homely. That’s right, homely. A video game created a virtual environment that elicited a feeling of home, despite being rooted in a different culture and unable to produce life-like graphics modern computers are able to now.
Sure, Shenmue had its looks at the time and was arguably the best looking game of its era but the looks weren’t the point of it all, it was the feel.
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Shenmue made you feel, not just for its characters and story but for the world. It gracefully imbued you with a sense of belonging, one which games these days just seem to forget. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a wonderful game, chock full of things to shoot, people to hit and places to go. It never once felt familiar for me, often leaving me with a sense of loneliness despite being part of a close-knit gang.
Modern open world games focus on the bigger picture — how massive the landscape is, how tall the mountain is you can climb or how deep you can swim in the sea. Shenmue instead draws your eyes to the little details. Details that go missing in modern games. From rummaging through the draw in your home to find an old cassette recorder to finding an old picture of your Dad; walking past the same people as they go about their daily routine or even becoming a little bit embarrassed at the shop keeper who still calls you “little Ryo.” Shenmue is the home you never lived in, the place you never saw but the one that intertwines your emotional feelings with it.
There are times when that immersion breaks due to its drawbacks, for example when people vanish in Dobuita for a time or some of its questionable voice acting but even that has a charm that few video games have.
While Shenmue II moved away from a cosy world that players were familiar with in exchange for a bustling metropolis, a game hasn’t replicated Shenmue’s feel for a world even 20 years on. It’s not perfect but whenever I see an old friend wandering the streets of Dobuita, pick up some capsule toys in Sakuragaoka, feed the cat in Yamanose or run into Goro in Yokosuka, it elicits feelings that I’ve not had anywhere else while playing a video game.
For many, Shenmue is the definition of home and for others, it is home.
