Last Saturday I decided to lend all Dreamcast games that my friend owns. And so I got both Shenmue I & II. And I started playing Shenmue I right away. This game is actually the reason why I bought my two Dreamcasts to begin with. I've been reading a lot of Video Game magazines through all of my years as a gamer and I remember when this game came out. The Swedish magazine "Super Play" wrote a lot about it and praised it highly, calling it one of the best games ever and such. So my anticipations for this game was high.

Well, it's been 7 years since Shenmue saw the light for it's first time. And of course it's not as revolutionary nowadays as it was when it first came out, the Dreamcast is no longer the graphics beast it once were and my gaming experience as well as collection has grew enormously throughout all those years (by that I mean that I've experienced so many other great games). So I was a little bit afraid that I was going to be somewhat disappointed.

I've played many Dreamcast games before, and I always feel like the graphics are not that much worse than let's say Playstation 2. Some games, sure they are ugly as hell - and something that could fit onto Nintendo 64, even Playstation. I know that graphics doesn't mean everything, but I think that the time where innovative game makers could make a game that wasn't just an orgy in graphics- but really was built solely on story and gameplay, sadly are over. Everything's built nowadays to be stronger, bigger and better. And sadly I have to follow that as well, and eventhough I don't like it myself I have to come clean and say that "Yeah, I'm more picky when it comes to graphics than before" (Even though I don't own a "Nextgen" console or a PC with the latest graphics card.

Shenmue felt like a fresh wind. The seven year old graphics really impressed me, and I had no idea that the Dreamcast actually could produce such great graphics. Since I have been unemployed for a while now I had the time to play the game straight through. It took me five days, and I don't even want to know how much that is in hours.

I'm not going to sit here and write what the game is about etc. If you already own a Dreamcast you've probably played this game and it's sequel as it's viewed by many to be the best game the DC has to offer. If you don't own a Dreamcast - I don't think it would interest you to read more about it, and if so there's lots of great reviews of the game. But if you seriously think about buying an Dreamcast for this game - THINK NO FURTHER! I did, and I'm so glad that I did! I actually started playing some Shenmue II this day, and hopefully I can have as many hours of joy with it as I've just spent on it's prequel.