I still disagree; I'm not watching a review to get an impartial summary of the game, especially not a 40+ minute review that spoils the whole game. Most of these are "reviews" in name only anyway; the Plinkett reviews and Lindsay Ellis' review of Game of Thrones Season 8 are damn near documentaries.
Well I suppose we are very different in this regard then, but I would argue that anybody who is happy for a critic to say whatever they like about a game or movie (regardless of whether or not it is true) simply wants to validate their own preconceptions about the media rather than be given the tools needed to make their own judgement. In that sense, I think you're right that it is no longer being consumed as a review and is instead serving as either a puff or take-down piece (depending on which way the author is leaning).
I guess that's fair, I didn't really view it as him misrepresenting the game since everything he talks about is in the game, just to varying degrees of severity.
To that end, could I not say that 90% of Shenmue 1 was spent asking about sailors and driving around in a forklift and still have it be considered a good take on the game? Could I show clips from the fly episode of Breaking Bad and portray it as an eight season series about two men trying to catch a fly? Those things are present in their respective works, but to overstate their prevalence in such a way wouldn't give my audience an accurate representation.
Well that's just it isn't it? The game "encourages" interaction with Shenhua by forcing the player to return home early. In S1, it's a choice whether you return home early and the game reacts accordingly. I love things that exist in Shenmue for their own sake, like thanking the four wude masters in S2, I think it adds a lot but it's also a choice. S3 doesn't offer much in the way of meaningful choices.
I believe that Shenmue 3 is still a game laden with choices, but where those choices perhaps fall short is that most of them lack any real meaning. That said, I think it could quite easily be argued that many of the choices found in the original game are guilty of the same crime as ultimately the player ends up at the same conclusion regardless of the choices they make during their playthrough.
He did? That's surprising. I must've missed that. If that's the case then he should have at least mentioned that the dialogue skip was patched in.
You actually had me doubting myself for a second there to the point where I had to go back and check, but yes; he completed the game twice. He mentions it at 1:52 in the video (thank the lord for the 'transcript' function on YouTube, as I don't think I could have brought myself to sit through the video a second time and would probably have just agreed with you to save myself the hassle).
They help keep the player oriented but that's only needed because, as SEPW points out, the scenario is so absurd. Most games don't write themselves into corners where the only option is to set up invisible walls that leave the player scratching their head. Ryo needs to find Shenhua's missing father; there is urgency to that scenario that is completely at odds with Ryo casually strolling around a small part of the town refusing to go past a certain point until he talks to random locals.
As you point out, Mr Yuan is
missing and Ryo is in a town that he has never visited before (and thus, doesn't know his way around). Where exactly should Ryo be going if not the town's busiest area? It is the place where most of the town congregate and thus the place where he is most likely to find the answers that he needs. Surely wandering off into the pumpkin patch rather than asking people in the town square would be far more at odds with that sense of urgency?
Again though, this is something we see in not only the original Shenmue games, but pretty much all open world games -whether modern or old. Ryo doesn't leave the village square until he has the answers that he needs in much the same way that he stays in the Aberdeen area until he has recovered his bag.
Yu and the team
could have allowed the player to ask around in other areas of Bailu, but it would have served as a massive waste of the player's time (something that the game has been heavily criticized for in other areas).
The things that break up the flow are definitely, as you say, training and eating but also the fact that such a simple objective (go beat up some thugs in a small village) gets stretched out with a bunch of busywork. So it doesn't feel like progress, it feels like you're being held back. In S2, all the things that serve to stretch out the story are interesting, we learn about the four wude, the Chawan sign, the Wulinshu, and meet the Ren, Joy and Wong all while the objective is "Find Lishao Tao".
... just as we find out about the history of the mirrors, Lan Di's background and Iwao's travels through China all while the objective is "Find Yuan" (technically). Shenmue 3's story beats are punctuated with just as many informative data drops as the previous entries and I think on face value they are every bit as interesting and meaningful to the story. Where they arguably fal short is in their depth and the manner in which this information is given to the player, but I don't think that I ever felt like it was busy work nor did I ever feel as though the story wasn't progressing (to be clear here, I mean the 'story' of Shenmue 3 rather than the series' overarching plot)
That's true but I don't see him saying whatever he wants about the game. He doesn't outright make shit up. He exaggerates a little and maybe makes a few things seem worse than they are to make a point. But then again maybe he really hated that shoe cutscene, who knows?
Again said:
yeah this happens
11:36
every single morning you cannot skip it
11:40
and it does not change
Let's break down those three lines...
"This happens every single morning" - this is false. There are at least three days that I can recall where Shenhua does not say anything to Ryo as he leaves the house (either because she is leaving with him or has already left). I haven't played Shenmue 3 in 6 months+ so there may very well be more.
"You cannot skip it" - this is false. The ability to skip dialogue and cutscenes has been in the game since January.
"It does not change" - this is false. There are different variations of this scene and, unlike the 'wake-up' scene, they are not dependent on conversing with Shenhua.
These are not
exaggerations.
But let's say, for the sake of argument, that I really like Phantom Menace and I say "well, I timed the fight in Episode 1 and Empire Strikes Back and Episode 1 is maybe 2 minutes longer therefore Plinkett is lying about Episode 1". It's like, no, he's not lying, he's taking that instance and combining it with all the other problems (following too many characters, jarring tonal shifts, weird logic leaps) to come to the conclusion that the ending doesn't work, not just that the fight is too long. Plus there's the fact that Empire has the "I am your father" line and is an amazing movie leading up to that point..
As I said in my last post, it's impossible for a subjective opinion to be called out as a lie because there is no
right answer. Plinkett and I may have different ideas as to what constitutes
'too long' and I might disagree with his definition, but his opinion can't be wrong if he truly believes it. If Plinkett tries to argue that the fight scene is 45 minutes long on the other hand, I can time it and tell him with some surety that he is wrong in much the same way that I can post
this link and say that SEPW is wrong when he states that the cutscene does not change.
I don't think that's a fair assessment. It's true that he advises his viewers not to play the game, but he never claims "just watch this video instead of playing the game, it's the same difference really". To me, it's no different than the take downs of Batman v Superman, Game of Thrones Season 8, or the Star Wars Prequels (and sequels); he's not obligated to be fair and balanced (and, in fact, SEPW is far more respectful than those other reviews, compare the way he treats Suzuki to the way Plinkett treats Lucas, or most people treat the writers of Game of Thrones).
I don't like S3, this review echoes my feelings pretty closely, but I'm willing to grant Suzuki the benefit of the doubt that these are growing pains; but he's not entitled to that benefit of the doubt.
It all comes back to that reasonable expectation that the things being said in a review are true. SEPW doesn't implicitly tell his viewers that everything they're seeing and being told is an accurate representation of the game because the assumption is that that is the case by virtue of it being a review.
I think the biggest problem here is the medium that he chooses to share his thoughts on the game and the impact that that medium has on his narrative. This may be a bit of a generalization (and there are obviously exceptions), but I think that we have been conditioned to associate reading with being informed and watching with being entertained. The primary purpose of a review is to inform and so by making a video he is expected to both inform and entertain - but these two things are often at odds with one another.
"Most mornings, you'll need to watch or skip a cutscene with Shenhua saying goodbye to Ryo and there is very little variation in these scenes." is a lot less entertaining than "This happens every single morning. You cannot skip it and it doesn't change (I swear these are different recordings)" and so the reviewer is faced with the choice of either compromising the accuracy or the entertainment factor of his review. Analytics show that his negative Shenmue video is overwhelmingly more successful than his impartial one, so he likely knows that the more negative he is, the more viewers he stands to gain and this in turn effectively makes that earlier choice for him. His audience, who seemingly care more about being entertained than they do about being informed, make it for him.
I understand that he doesn't like the game, why he doesn't like the game and why he put this video together in the way that he did, but I also think that by misrepresenting the game and misleading his audience (both through implication and in some cases, lies), he has failed to make a good review. I also think that at some point he made a conscious choice to aim to make a good
video rather than a good review. In that sense, I think most would agree that he succeeded (although as funny as it was in places, there is something about the way that this guy emotes that I really can't stand).