Wow, I'm absolutely beside myself by the responses! Thank you all for your kind words and I'm so pleased to see that I've inspired RyoHazuki84 to talk about his own experiences!
The article came about from a frustration, one that few people acknowledge that the two games were a gift, and have merits that are rarely articulated. When I do notice people discussing Shenmue I always hear or read things along the lines of: 'The game was alright, the forklift driving was the best bit' or, 'Where is the gameplay?' etc.
So I wanted to speak up about what Shenmue really offers and wanted to do everything I could to do it justice. I worked on this article for five days and struggled to keep the content under 2,000 words and had to cut entire paragraphs to tighten the pacing. It took me five days to condense my viewpoint as concisely as possible, so everything posted here means an awful lot to me!
I'm definitely interested in tackling Shenmue II, but first I need to play through the entire game again to completely refresh my memory. I still have my Dreamcast hooked-up and Shenmue II in its frayed-as-all-hell sleeve. I need to find a unique angle that tells a different story to justify writing this, but I'm certainly up to the task.
Special mention to Ziming for his/her incredible dedication and the promotion of my piece!
Cheers all!