This is going to get emotional. Right from the very beginning visionary director Yu Suzuki envisioned the Shenmue series as a trilogy. The first title in the series, released on the Dreamcast, was listed in the 2006 Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive video game produced for its time, with a budget of around $95 million. With a grand, sweeping and epic storyline that was supposed to unfold over twenty four chapters, the action RPGs - which included a cast of dozens and movie-like cinematography - the story centres on 18-year-old Ryo Hazuki, who's seeking revenge on the man who killed his father. Yeah it's kind of like the Princess Bride in that and absolutely not other ways. Instead what it was was a totally innovative, inventive and ambitious series that looked to tell the most involved, complex and dramatically engrossing story ever committed to disc, to the point that the first two games still frequently crop up in "greatest video games of all time" lists. That's despite the fact that the last game came out all the way back in 2003 and the third game in the series has never materialised, at least partly because the high production costs and disappointing sales of the first two left them considered a financial failure. At this point Shenmue 3 is a running joke in the games industry, but one of those running jokes that we laugh at to hide the tears. We've no doubt that Suzuki has the whole story planned out, and knows exactly what the identity of Hazuki's father's killer is. That doesn't really help much, however, since we've been on tenterhooks for over a decade after Shenmue 2's cliffhanger ending, and despite Sega and the director's occasional reassurances that they're deffo going to get around to the last game at some point, we're really not convinced. And that makes us very sad.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
