Its announcement and subsequent arrival on Dreamcast were quite an event - the culmination of everything Sega-AM2 had learned throughout its storied history. However, it's also a sequel produced very much as an indie production with limitations that impact the scope of the project, and by extension, how refined the game actually is.Ī lot has changed since the original Shenmue was released. This is Shenmue viewed through a modern lens, which is absolutely fine. Its sheer being is something to be treasured, but fundamentally, is it actually a good game and a worthy sequel? I'd say that the results are mixed. It's a miracle that I'm now playing a modern sequel to a game that came out 18 years ago, a game that was - by all financial criteria - a major flop. It's an impossible sequel, a game that shouldn't really exist owing to a whole host of reasons, but somehow here it is. Shenmue 3 is something very different, but equally as unlikely. At Digital Foundry we've talked about 'impossible ports' before - games like Doom 2016 and The Witcher 3 on Switch that seem to deny technological limitations and still bring the essence of the original experiences to a new audience.