It combines many things I have always loved; martial arts movies, games, virtua fighter, Japan, Asia as a whole, the 1980s, it will always be highly ambitious, it had interesting characters, and many others. I still have my receipt when I bought the Japanese version on December 31, 1999. I am not ashamed that the first thing I did when it hit midnight to mark the year 2000 I was playing Shenmue. It was one of the main reasons why I got a Dreamcast as well. I felt that Shenmue was a game that spoke to me. It was the game I was looking for my whole life. Something of a digital soul mate if you will. I love it to the point that if this series is not complete, I am not complete.
I was studying Japanese at my school and I saw it as an opportunity to simulate myself in Japan. At that point, I had been studying Japanese for about a year and a half, I only knew the basic sentence structures and had a descent vocab and the game just motivated me to study my hardest in and out of the classroom. I couldn't understand a good fraction of the dialog, but always understand when I needed to go somewhere, etc. But the cultural and environmental authenticity made me take it seriously. I liked in Yokosuka, everyone somewhat knows you and you already do feel some connection to area. But when you go to China, it is a whole new world and you are discovering it with Ryo where it is much bigger and the people are fishy, etc. I loved imitating the moves and practicing them in real life. I liked practicing the elbow, the tornado kick, the counter elbow, the double palm strike, etc.
Getting a job was kind of fun. I liked earning money and having fun making an honest living. I remember at one point, I wanted to work as a forklift operator at a harbor lol.
I loved the QTE scenes. It just brought this kind of excitement that you could control the outcome of a cutscene within mere seconds creating some results.
I honestly could go on and on but Shenmue is just something to me as if it were my true love.