Playing Shenmue 3’s recently released demo is like coming across some strange relic, unearthed and polished off by curious digital archaeologists looking to understand turn of the century video games. The pace is stately to the point of being somnambulistic, its voice acting feels like it’s been phoned in from half a planet and a couple of decades away, and the scope is limited in the extreme. I could not be any happier with it all.
I’m getting ahead of myself a little. The first thing that takes a while to comprehend is that Shenmue 3 exists, is playable, and is something I spent several happy hours playing over the weekend. The second thing that takes a short time to process is that, after all its various trials, Shenmue 3 actually might be . As a fan who’s been waiting eagerly, at times impatiently, for nearly 20 years, I am not disappointed in the slightest.
It’s probably worth setting some context, though – I most definitely a fan, a backer on Kickstarter and outside of that probably up to stalker-tier level when it comes to my support of Shenmue. I’ve made a pilgrimage to Yokosuka to see the setting of the original Shenmue, and have followed Yu Suzuki around the world to trace the project from its first seeds through to its eventual development.
And as such I’ve got my own quite personal take on what makes these such fine video games. Shenmue was always a modest game – I think that’s so much of its charm, really, as well as the exciting contradiction at the heart of the Sega originals given that they’re miniature, naturalised worlds delivered with boundless ambition and budget – so it’s to this follow-up’s credit that it remains equally modest, and even more so that it has that same ambition with a fraction of the original budget. It’s an experience about the gentle chatter of a playground soundtracking your slow stroll through a humble lived-in village, gathering stories from NPCs with lived-in faces.
Shenmue 3 Trial Demo Gameplay! First look – No Commentary – PC 4K – English Voices Watch on YouTube
Back in the day – and long before Hideo Kojima was getting up to similar shenanigans – Suzuki dubbed the nascent genre he was helping create as Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment. We’d probably call it open world these days, but that feels like it’s missing the point – instead, Shenmue is about drinking in detail. Back in the day it was about observing the routines of the citizens of Yokosuka, or heading to the local convenience store to pick up some cat food for the kitten you found in your care – it was about the everyday being brought to life.