Iwoa Hazuki engaged in combat with Lan Di 

 

The adventures of young Ryo Hazuki began in Japan on November 29, 1986. The story starts off with Ryo heading home only to find his father (Iwoa Hazuki) engaged in battle with a man we only know as Lan Di, the motive becomes clear later on. After an emotionally moving scene Ryo’s father is killed and forced to give up something known as the “Dragon Mirror” to Lan Di and his henchmen. We won't focus much on the story at this time. Keep in mind, however, that Shenmue’s story is a marvel that must be experienced firsthand. You owe it to yourself to play this game and find out more for yourself.

 

Development started in the mid 90s during the Sega Saturn era. The game was developed as a first party RPG and spinoff of the acclaimed Virtua Fighter franchise with the intent of further developing the characters of the Virtua Fighter universe. As the game progressed so did the concept behind it. The game consequently moved away from the Virtua Fighter spin off idea and became a fully fledged, self contained franchise. Despite the move the game still features some elements from the VF series, such as the fighting system, and the noticeable physical resemblance of Ryo to Virtua Fighter’s Akira.

 

The game was originally intended to be the Sega Saturn's “killer app,” the game that would set Sega’s console apart that generation while showing developers worldwide what the system was capable of. Judging from the early screenshots and footage still available Shenmue could have arguably met expectations and shown developers the true power of the Saturn—and possibly even saved it from oblivion.

 

 

(Note: The video is from the beta build hence the animation and lip sync issues)

 

Shenmue was shelved after Sega discontinued the Saturn, but not for long. After word got out of the release of the Sega Dreamcast work quickly picked up. The development process was code named "Project Berkeley" and was used to showcase what the Dreamcast was capable of pre-launch.

 

Shenmue was also one of the very first games to use methods previously used only for film, such as unique dialogue for every single character in the game. In that same vein, every character, no matter how minor, was given a unique clay model for the developers to better render them in game. This was not the only ground breaking feature of Shenmue, there were many more to come.