i remember when the pc had REAL ambitious open world games long before the sega weebs got a limited museum experience 
Ambitious, but also filled with game-breaking bugs, obtuse interfaces, and a total lack of any kind of direction. The game Drinky posted below I vaguely remember on Genesis, and it was pretty bad (to be fair maybe the Amiga version is a helluva lot better).
Shenmue may have been more limited compared to them, but still had polish in heaps and spades, a robust combat engine, and lots of fun minigames/diversions. Yeah it's boring but I like boring sometimes!