After years of hearing about this game, I finally order a copy of Shenmue off Amazon last week; it arrived yesterday and I pop it in my Dreamcast and played it for the first time.The reason why I decided to purchase this game now is mainly because of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Dreamcast.  I'm far from completion of the game but I already played a chunk of it.
 
It's pretty surreal playing a game that I've been hearing about how amazing that game is for years now. When I first jumped into the gameplay, i was surprise by the game's controls - it's the tank-like controls that was found from the early Resident Evil games. The first thing I was told to do is to meet up with a character in the dojo were Ryo's father was killed in the beginning of the game; but I decided to do is look around Ryo's house and growing accustomed of the game's mechanics. I was overwhelmed to know the amount of details the game has - I spent a good amount of time just walking around, opening up cabinet doors and searching for items, it was also neat that I had control over Ryo's arm when a item is found and up close to the camera. What I found was a flash-light and a couple of pictures, and then I begin to ask myself, "Do I need this stuff? I guess I'll find out later."  
 
As I went out experience the world of Shenmue, I begin to notice the game's strongest aspects. The game has no linear progression what so ever, most of what I was doing is just walking around and talking to people to gain new leads on the man who murder Ryo's father. That may sound boring but it was just interesting to know how the story unfolds. At times I was going to turn off game and take a break, but I just didn't felt ready to leave the world of Shenmue yet, I said to myself, "Okay, I'm done for now. . . . .Nah, I'll go find one of the members of the "Three Blades" and then I'm done"  There is some combat in the game and it's 100% Virtua Fighter (Hell, some of the sounds are taken from the Virtua Fighter games).
 
For a game that's nearly nine years old on a system that's nearly ten years old, Shenmue is a impressive game. I do have a original Xbox and I plain to find a copy of Shenmue II. The series may not have been successful, but if it's any consolation, the Shenmue series has gain a new fan.