Do you have any examples of this?
I did post a few examples earlier in this thread, but all of the people calling this video 'honest' criticism seem to have conveniently missed it, so I'll elaborate further.
SEPW starts by complaining about the dialogue and, like many of his other complaints, there is some validity to this. Unfortunately, to demonstrate this point he chooses the opening dialogue between Shenhua and Ryo and then goes on to remark that 'conversations are filled with these really strange fades to black'. Whilst this remark may be true of the cut-scene he chooses to show the viewers, I can't recall another single instance of this happening anywhere else in the game. Yes; it was a poor and baffling design choice, but it is in no way representative of the game's cut-scenes as a whole. Of course, you wouldn't know that from watching this video.
He then chooses two more clips to highlight how poor the game's dialogue is and, wouldn't you know it, in a game with over ten thousand lines of dialogue, he happens to choose two of maybe four or five nonsensical dialogue lines found in the game. I wouldn't have a problem with this if the clips were presented as being two of the worst examples of the dialogue/localization, but they're not. They're presented as 'the dialogue and localization are absolutely terrible throughout the game and these clips are a typical example of what the game's dialogue is like'. Again, a complaint that's grounded in reality being over-exaggerated for the purpose of justifying his click-bait title.
While we're on the subject of the title, I've seen posters here say that the click-bait title is justified because he is (or was once) a fan or that because it's a long video it can't be considered click-bait. I'd welcome an explanation as to how either of these sentiments makes any sense whatsoever, because I fail to see how either are remotely valid.
Moving on, anyway, and we come to his criticism of the morning routine in the game during which he focuses mainly on the Bailu section of the game. Ignoring for a moment that these sections only make up around 30-60 seconds of a one hour plus day in Shenmue 3, he states that it is the same cut-scene every day and that it can't be skipped; neither of which are true.
By developing Ryo's relationship with Shenhua, the player unlocks 2 further variations of the morning cut-scenes, meaning that for the 15-20 days that the player spends in Bailu, they probably see each cut-scene five or six times at most. Is this good game design? Maybe not; but the reality is at least somewhat better than the notion that there is no variation whatsoever.
He later talks about the morning routine in Niaowu and suggests that it is more of the same, but as well as falsely stating that neither of these cut-scenes can be skipped, he neglects to mention that the cut-scene with Shenhua here serves as a recap of where the player needs to head next and instead allows the viewer to believe that it is once again the same cut-scene over and over again.
In this section, he also implies that entering the raised area that triggers the shoe-removal cut-scene is something that is easy to do by mistake and something that players will likely do multiple times during their play-through because the controls are so bad (I don't recall doing this once, let alone multiple times) and then goes on to describe traversing the world of Shenmue 3 as 'a struggle' due to the poor controls. Could the controls be better? Of course they could, but at no point did I ever feel that they impeded my ability to get from point A to point B. Maybe this wasn't the case for him, but as a fan of the first few games, I find it difficult to believe that he struggled with the controls of Shenmue 3 given that they are an improved version of those found in previous games and that many of the environments the player needs to traverse in Shenmue 3 are a lot more open than some of the environments in previous entries.
His initial criticism of the food/stamina system is fair (in that it makes little sense that stamina drain lowers endurance in fights), but complaining that when you're tired you can't run or that if you don't have food you have to run 'all the way back' to the village seems a little strange. Both of these mechanics are in keeping with pretty much every other game that has a food/stamina system and each area contains multiple areas at which the player can purchase food - meaning that running 'all the way back' to buy food probably never takes more than a 60 second round trip and can be easily countered by stocking up on food in advance. I am aware that I am defending a flawed system here and that me offering ways around it doesn't make it any less flawed, but it is nowhere near as big of an issue as the video makes out.
His critique of the combat system and the story is a little more honest, but even then, it's a little simplistic, a lot of the things that he criticizes are things that were found earlier in the series and the criticism itself doesn't arrive until the viewer has sat through the mountains of hyperbole in his critique of the exploration elements of the game.
To me, this whole review came across as a reviewer that didn't enjoy the game but knew that he would get a greater reaction (mo' clicks, mo' money) if he completely trashed the game rather than presenting his criticism honestly (evident by the fact that this video has garnered more views in four days than his unbiased video looking at the history of Shenmue did in over a year). He gave it a click-bate title that he knew would appeal to the average YouTube viewer (as well as drawing in views from fans of the series) and then set to work exaggerating his complaints to present the game as being just as 'terrible' as his click-bait title says that it is. What makes it worse is that a considerable amount of the things that he complains about are things that were present in the first few games and whilst he does acknowledge this, he makes no real effort to elaborate on exactly
how Yu could and should have learnt from modern games (unless you count his fan-fiction ending which I’ve discussed already at length earlier in the thread).
It's a little hard to point out that positive reviews are being disingenuous since I have no idea what you like. Unless the review is attempting to tell me that needing $7000 + expenses isn't annoying and grinding for money has always been the highlight of the series, but even then, maybe you're like a really weird accountant.
Well let's say that I made a video that exaggerated some of SEPW's complaints in a positive way to make the game sound better than it is. "The dialogue still maintains the classic Shenmue charm, the quality of the voice acting has improved across the board and the cut-scenes are great." (show clips of Ryo bursting into the castle and confronting Lan Di and Niao-Sun surrounded by flames), "The morning routine develops the more you get to know Shenhua and you'll never have the same morning routine twice." (show three clips of different morning routines with Shenhua), "the combat system has more moves than ever before" (show huge selection of move scrolls), etc, etc.
This would be incredibly disingenuous and I'm sure that you and others would, rightly so, tear the video apart. When things go the other way though, it seems that it's all 'honest' criticism.
