The problem is twofold: introducing good mechanics into a good game (sometimes good mechanics get lost in a bad game), and introducing interesting mechanics that aren't actually fun. This is what I suspect happened with Shenmue on a grand scale. Making a weather system based after Yokosuka in 1986 is really interesting, but it doesn't make a game better.
Some mechanics are a lot of work for little gain. Your shop example is something that can easily be exploited, and requires a lot of work to make each item and have it be interactable, and implement the shop in such a way that it's not trivial to shoplift.
A lot of good game design is smoke and mirrors, and there's a disconnect between what people say they want and what's fun. FEAR is often cited for it's brilliant AI and how even modern AAA (now AAAA) games can't match it. The thing is, FEARs enemies are not that smart. They are smarter than most, yes, but a lot of their behaviour falls apart at the slightest prod. Like enemies running around a wall, just so they can dive through the window away from you. What makes them seem smart
is they shout a lot. So an enemy might decide to run to a random spot behind the player. Dumb. But have the squad leader shout "try to flank him!" when it does this makes it seem super smart.
Another example is in the modern Doom games where
enemies rarely attack from off screen unless it's high difficulty. This prevents players feeling cheated by being killed by an attack they didn't see. Better for gameplay, even if it's less "smart" or less "realistic".
As for Shenmue. I've not played Yakuza myself, but on paper it does a lot of what Shenmue tried to do. Martial arts combat in a real world setting recreated in autistic detail with lots of mini games.
Another mechanic I'd add is how Metropolis Street Racer had the real world time reflected in game. So if it was 3am in Japan in real life, your race in Tokyo would take place at night. I loved that feature, especially as you saw day turn to night each race if you played around dusk, but I never saw another game do that, and I don't think most people really noticed. I wonder if it would be possible to do that with weather data as well?
my attempts at trying to communicate just how impactful that game was to so many people, and to me personally as a gamer and FF fan, just came off as gay and cringe. I know our life experiences are separated by a nontrivial number of years, but it hasn't been that long, has it?
You're fighting an uphill battle in a number of ways. Look at how consoomer has become an insult, and quite rightly too. Yet back then, it wasn't a problem and was even a good thing. People being in awe at the Zelda "blades will bleed" trailer, and rumours of one guy bursting into tears of joy, sound cringe and gay today.
Zoomers have so much time in the world, yet they will never dedicate a portion of it in trying older games beyond what is popular. They will dedicate grinding hours on battlepasses on always-online games like Genshin and Valorant, yet they will never or flatout refuse to touch older games, like the older FF games, or even older games like old Doom and Wolfenstein. They have no respect for me and should be bullied till the end of time itself.
I clear must be living under a rock because I can't comprehend how the fuck people are flocking to all those shitty demakes and demasters.
You're both under a rock.
There was a bit of a kerfuffle/controversy recently about a study that found zoomers spent more than 60% of their gaming time on average on games a decade or more old.
As for the shitty remakes and remasters. Some people can't get past the bad graphics and nonstandard controls. A frustrating one for me is the claim that Resident Evil was always a comedy because those graphics, writing, and voice acting can't possibly be taken seriously. The only shitty remakes people flock to are the Resident Evil ones, and in those cases I'm considered the bad one for not wanting to play a cut down, censored version of the game.
