Shenmue is a relic of another time. The fact that it is boring and mellow was kinda what the creator was going for.
I always felt that it would've worked better as a visual novel of sorts.
They simply didn't know what to do with all dat technology yet. Which is in fact common with a lot of the most ambitious Dreamcast games.
"HOLY SHIT WE CAN DO THIS NOW" but they hadn't yet figured out what to use it for.
Shenmue is also why millions of developers have to listen to their publishers and can't just blow millions on flying mediocre voice actors around the globe.
Death Stranding in many ways feels like it could end up being the next Shenmue. Burning a huge hole in Sony's pocket books for no particular reason.
Nintendo is about to re-release a GameCube tech demo called Luigi's Mansion. The gameplay is a bit better but I expect similar results.