@why I think someone's appreciation of Shenmue will vary a lot depending on how blown their mind is at what it's doing. Once you stop being amazed at how detailed it is and how it celebrates mundane normal life stuff, what you're left with is a) a game that forces you to do long busywork or wait around for progression, b) quite clunky combat that you don't really get to play enough of to get a good grasp on, c) QTEs, and d) minigames that were, again, impressive in context but nowadays if I want to play Space Harrier, I'll just load up an emulator and Space Harrier.

Not saying it's impossible to enjoy, I think I still can sometimes, but you need to have a lot of free time to waste to not feel frustrated at how Shenmue uses that time.