Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we start a new series on 1999's Sega cult classic Shenmue. We've visited 1999 before, so we briefly set it in context before moving on to the salient question: What even is this game? We talk about the way the story begins, the environment interactivity, and the "open world" and time, among other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up until we're looking for Warehouse 8 Issues covered: what this game was relative to 1999, the most expensive title of its day, lack of commercial success, a strange turn for Yu Suzuki, the importance of SEGA in the industry at the time, how much of Ryo's story has been told, Dreamcast's weird experiments, the change of the Japanese market, not even really knowing what this game was, starting from scratch even from a genre perspective, "full reactive eyes entertainment" or FREE, getting into the cold open, motivating the player, giving you a