It was December 29, 1999 when Joystick Fun managed to get me an imported copy of Shenmue. And Shenmue hit me like a bolt from the blue. It was unbelievable for the time — a game that pushed far beyond the boundaries of anything I was used to. I remember two precise moments that made me realize this magic wasn’t affecting just me, but other people as well (and anyone who denies it is lying).
Back then I used to play every noteworthy release with a close friend of mine. We’d meet at my place with chips and Coca-Cola and spend entire weekends playing, carefree. When we started playing Shenmue, we were wide-eyed the entire time. It was more than we could even process: “How does time pass like this?”l, “Wait, we can go anywhere?”, “There’s day and night?”, “Hey look, gacha machines!”, “Hey, a kitten.”, “Wait… is it raining now?”
There was simply no escaping the charm of that game. Impossible. At some point, about six hours in, I ran out of cigarettes (I was still smoking back then, fortunately I later decided to quit). I looked at my friend and said, “Let’s go get cigarettes at the tobacco shop.”He looked at the screen and replied, “Okay, tell me which way it is — I didn’t see where it was.”
I looked at him, confused, and said, “No, I mean in real life. Let’s step outside for a minute — I need to buy cigarettes.”
That moment made me think a lot. Something as mundane as going to buy something in the real world had suddenly become a plausible action inside a video game. Today it might sound trivial, but in 1999 it absolutely wasn’t.
The second moment happened at Ubisoft. I had brought in the Shenmue demo — called What’s Shenmue that let you inspect the characters up close. You could zoom in on these polygonal models and see their textures and details, completely out of proportion with what we were used to at the time (remember: this was 1999).
I loaded Shenhua, and there were about ten people gathered around me. I zoomed in on her eyes, and one of the programmers jokingly said, “Look, you can even see our reflection.”
Everyone leaned forward to check if they could see themselves reflected in Shenhua’s eyes.
Of course that wasn’t possible — it would have been insane to think otherwise. But the magic was so strong, and the technology felt so alien, that for a few seconds it actually seemed plausible to a small group of mesmerized developers.
Anyway, recently I decided to replay both Shenmue I and Shenmue II. Back then I actually played Shenmue II on a Microsoft console, which meant I couldn’t carry over my save file from the first game.
That’s where a friend of mine, Alessandro, comes in. He helped me bring my old, battered Dreamcast back to life. He replaced the capacitors, installed a silent 3D-printed fan, added a chip to remove the region lock, replaced the drive motor, and even swapped the motherboard, which had become very unreliable Installed the reader motor with the metal gear, the removable battery holder, and a 220-volt power supply so I don’t need to use a converter.
In short, he restored it like new.
So I prepared accordingly. I bought a brand-new Dreamcast controller, still sealed. I bought a brand-new copy of What’s Shenmue, never opened. I connected the Dreamcast through VGA to my RetroTINK 4K, dimmed the lights, and it was like magic — I was transported back to 1999.
I replayed all of Shenmue with the fireplace burning and snow falling outside. I revisited every corner of the game, every conversation, feeling emotional at every turn.
Now, with the proper save file ready, I’m preparing to face Shenmue II again.
God, how I wish Yu Suzuki could finish this saga. Governments should give him the money to do it — not letting him finish it feels like a crime against humanity. Now I truly want to play Shenmue II again. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid that once I finish it, I’ll have to move on to Shenmue III on a non-Sega console… and then nothing.
I truly hope the future still has a new chapter of the Shenmue saga waiting for us. I see I’m not the only one hoping that Shenmue will one day return and finally complete its saga. There’s a channel I regularly follow run by passionate Shenmue fans called Shenmue Dojo—I’ll leave the link here.
Just like me, they’re still hoping for the saga to make a comeback. Following them is always a pleasure, and I fully share their passion and enthusiasm.
Honestly, with the incredible engine used by the team behind the Yakuza games, I sometimes wonder why Sega hasn’t decided to make it happen yet.