A great game that deserves a whole lot more.
With that being said, Ryu Hazuki tries to fight Lan Di and gets beat up. Afterwards Ryu's father dies right there in his arms, which fuels anger within the soul of the very young man you assume the role of. So after that event takes place, the true story begins with you (Ryu) who sets out for revenge on the man who killed your father. But first you must find out why he did it, and find out the secretes behind the mirrors.
Shenmue has a very deep plot, as well as a decent yet unbalanced fighting system that mimics Virtual Fighters really well. Ryu's fighting style is very identical to Akira which means you'll spend allot of time practicing.
But the thing that sets Shenmue aside from other action roleplaying titles is that the game is actually "realistic" and feels good this way. Your playing in a real environment interacting with 100's of characters that don't look the same. As a matter of fact, each character you meet in the game will have something different to say, although the thing that kills Shenmue badly is the fact that Ryu is very limited. Which means that he will often or always ask the same questions. In other words if there is a certain person your looking for, and you talk to every character in the game. Chances are Ryu will ask them the same question such as "Do you know where I can find this guy?" Or "Do you know where this area is?" "How do I get to this part of the city?" And etc.
Speaking of limitations, Shenmue doesn't let you do very much in the game. Such as shopping around for new threads, but you do get to play mini games which can be fun for a short while. You can also collect classic capsule figure toys from vending machines as well as learn some basic new moves from certain characters within the story.
Ryuy can also get a job working at the harbor which becomes part of the game. You end up having to deal with several punks mostly near the Harbor where you work. There are three different areas in this game you can explore which also have different residents occupying them.
Shenmue uses the real time battle system as well as real time day changes. But you'll automatically return home after 11:00 PM.
The voice acting in Shenmue is fantastic, so if anyone ever says that American actors are bad compared to Japanese. Tell them to stop watching so much lame a** Anime and try playing video games for once in their lives. Because Shenmue does excel greatly in the voice acting department.
The fighting system might feel a bit stiff, but you'll learn to get use to it. You do however fight against 70 characters all at once in some part of the game, but its a fun battle and the game never feels cheap, too easy, or too hard which means anyone can pick it up and learn how to play it. You will have to learn the KTE curves, which is when commands pop up on the screen and you have to input them in to avoid certain attacks and vise versa which adds a little challenge into the game.
But the biggest disappointment in Shenmue lies within its game length. The game is very short even if you take your time with it. Shenmue is 3 disc long but that does not extend the gameplay time limit.
Graphic wise, characters look very life like up close even though Ryu might look somewhat blocky at times. He's a tall character with a funny shape, Although the music makes up for this because Shenmue has some very inspirational music wether your listening to it through the story or playing around with juke boxes. You can even collect tape decks so you can listen to some of the in game theme songs.