Save Shenmue - Video Games of the Past

Hey everyone!

(Sorry for my absence once again. I'll tell you all about it in another post soon. Let me tell you, though, wearing a knee brace is not fun.)

Does anyone remember a game called Shenmue?

(Wanted to get all of my Shenmue stuff in the picture.. couldn't find my Dreamcast Shenmue II case. Agh. )

It was released for the Dreamcast in 2000 in North America (a year earlier in Japan) and was probably the best experience I've had with any video game in my life so far.

It was my first experience with a more open world type game, exploring the streets of Japan as Ryo Hazuki, a young man determined to get revenge against the man that murders his father. It was an amazing game, and a second game was created for the series, which was also released on Dreamcast, and then later on the Xbox.

Unfortunately, the third game for the series was never created, leaving the game on a cliffhanger.

And now, more than ten year later, fans of the series have started doing whatever they can to make their voices heard. They we want a final Shenmue game. Today, tons of people are on twitter, using the hashtag #SaveShenmue and sending their pleas to Sony, Sega, Microsoft, and even Nintendo. Maybe it won't help Shenmue III get created, but it certainly doesn't hurt to try.

So if you ever played Shenmue and enjoyed it, be sure to join the tons of other voices on Twitter asking for the next game. Maybe together we can convince the game companies that there are tons of potential customers for this game.

Personally, I would even buy a system I don't have yet to play it on. That game would be a system seller for quite a few people, from what I've seen, me included.

Shenmue means the world to me, as it is the most influential game I have ever experienced. I was only about 9 when I played it, and there were a few things I didn't understand (like combos for different fighting moves) but the world of Shenmue drew me in anyway, and never really let me go. Whether I was fighting thugs, or driving a forklift around at my daily job, or even just buying little toys from a capsule machine for my collection, I had fun doing it all.

Shenmue was a game that made me realize just how much was possible for gaming. Even though I had played plenty of video games before Shenmue, I'm certain that this was the game that started my huge love of everything gaming-related. In many ways, it is the most important game to me, even though I haven't played it in far too long.

Which is why I'm willing to try as hard as I can to let people know about this amazing game, and to tell gaming companies that there is an audience for this game if they decide to create it.

Are there any video games from your past you'd like to see a remake of/ a sequel to? Let me know in the comments!