You can clearly see here that that's not the case. There are no awkward fades to black and the animation for taking off the shoes is much faster.
It’s a black screen that says loading on it. The first two games were full of these. I agree that the animation is a little more drawn out than it needed to be though.
The fades to black certainly permeate the entirety of the game and make those interactions feel a lot slower, it was an annoyance that I noticed though, admittedly, SEPW specifies that they take place during the conversations, which they don't. The translation and nonsensical interactions are a far bigger deal in a game about talking to people and, to be fair, he never claims that it makes the story hard to understand. He describes it as surreal feeling and I totally agree, nearly everyone has made jokes about the stilted dialogue and Ryo's robotic "I see" response to everyone 20 years ago. The fact that S3 is arguably a step backwards in this regard is a totally valid complaint.
Granted, it’s been about six months since I last played Shenmue 3, but other than that opening section, I really don’t recall any other instances in the game where dips to black where used to transition between two different cutscenes - although I guess I’ll take you at your word that there are others scattered around. I certainly noticed the bizarre camera cuts that took place during some of the conversations, but I don’t think these were anywhere near as jarring as the dips to black.
You’re absolutely right about the importance of conversation in the Shenmue series as it serves as the primary mechanic for driving the story forward (and it’s for this reason that I take issue with him, at least imo, misrepresenting it). He doesn’t implicitly say that the dialogue is difficult to understand, but the clips he shows could certainly give that impression.
I don’t think I’d agree that the dialogue is a step backwards. I think that it is just a case of ‘more of the same’ (with the exception of some lows like the delivery in the first few scenes and the instances where the poor translation leads to nonsense exchanges and the one or two highs like Corey’s delivery when he bursts in to confront Lan Di).
It's not presented as a chance encounter (you're told where they are) and when you lose to the thugs you have to spend a week learning a move and return to them in the exact same place, heavily implying that they've been casually hanging out there for a week or, at the very least, doing nothing to downplay that feeling.
I thought we were discussing the opening encounter with the thugs at the rainbow basin. It sounds like you’re talking about the encounter at the hermits nest where you first encounter MM mk.i, in which case I’m 99% certain that it’s possible to explore that area before the thugs arrive.
The decision to have them hang around for a week rather than taking the stone-Mason straight back to whoever it is they are working for is a strange one and one that’s definitely worthy of criticism as I don’t feel they even tried to explain it.
I suppose I could try and point to the Yellow Heads holding Zhu in Kowloon for a week or so before arranging for Lan Di to pick him up - thus giving Ryo the chance to come up with a plan, find the scout, win enough battles to impress the scout, raise the money to enter the first fight, beat the three elite fighters, infiltrate the yellow head building, make his way through 40 odd floors, beat Baihu and then happen to arrive on the roof at more or less the exact moment that Lan Di’s helicopter flew in... but damn. Just typing that out reminded me how great that game is and how much better is than Shenmue 3.
Hard disagree. S2 has to introduce us to the main cast of characters, a new setting, and expands the scope of the story/world. S3 fails on all these points and it wouldn't be totally out of line to summarize it thusly: the mirrors were created 70 years ago at the behest of the emperor and they were stored at the Cliff Temple, Ryo gives the Phoenix Mirror to Niao Sun (who is never named) in exchange for Shenhua, Ryo loses a fight to Lan Di, Niao Sun attempts to kill Lan Di. Ryo, Ren and Shenhua head for the Cliff Temple, where the CYM are. So if S3 isn't building on anything or introducing anything new and not a ton actually happens during its 20+ hour play time...
Hard disagree. Shenmue 3 introduces plenty of new characters (it just does a poor job introducing them). If you’re going to be that reductive with the plot (you fail to mention key elements like Ryo learning that his father had travelled around China, Chai returning, Ryo training under two different masters, Shenhua getting kidnapped, etc) then it wouldn't be totally out of line to summarize Shenmue 1 as “Lan Di kills Ryo’s father to take possession of the Phoenix mirror. Ryo receives a letter from Zhu that leads to him learning that the mirror is one of a pair and he finds the other hidden under the family dojo. Ryo heads to Hong Kong in pursuit of Lan Di.” and Shenmue 2 as “Ryo seeks out Lishao Tao in the hope that she can help him find Zhu. Lishao Tao suggests that Ryo asks a gang leader called Ren for help. Ryo and Ren go to Kowloon and find Zhu, but he’s kidnapped by a gang working for Lan Di. Ryo rescues Zhu who tells him that the mirrors are a treasure map. Ryo heads to the place where the mirrors were made and rescues a young magic woman who leads him through the mountains to a magic cave and they stay in the cave together for nearly twenty years.”. Joking aside - we clearly have very different views on Shenmue 3’s story.
I mean, the review makes it very clear that these interruptions continue to occur in Niaowu once we're introduced to the hotel manager.
But we’re not talking about ‘interruptions’ here. We’re talking about that same cutscene that never changes, remember?
I just mean any overly positive or overly negative review is, by its nature, not going to leave you with an impartial view of the game so that you can judge it yourself. A negative review will say things like "the combat feels floaty and lacks impact, and you can win by simply grinding levels and spamming moves" whereas a positive review will say things like "the combat is simplified but functional and more conducive to Shenmue 3's laid back vibe, it's not as deep as previous games but for a budget title it's still very fun". And those will thus leave the viewer with two completely different impressions.
It’s possible to be critical of something whilst also acknowledging the positives just as it’s possible to praise something whilst accepting that it’s imperfect.
I think that both examples you give are fair in that they are each presented as subjective opinions and as such can coexist without being at odds with one another.
Likewise, I could say the following...
“It feels like a game that’s been designed to slow the player down at every turn, with pointless cutscenes and conversations destroying any sense of rhythm the game’s story might otherwise have had. Even something as simple as waking up and leaving the house felt like a chore; with the game bombarding the player with a short conversation and two different cutscenes before Ryo has even reached the path from Shenhua’s house to Bailu village on most days. Worse still, there’s very little variety to these interactions, meaning that what little they added to the overall experience quickly begins to feel stale. It’s a bit like waking up on Groundhog Day, only the acting is poor and most of the time the script reads like something that’s been pasted straight from google translate.”... and still have it meet those conditions. I think it’s absolutely possible to trash a game or movie without having to resort to misrepresenting it by misleading the audience.
But you also have to grind for money to be able to afford the food! In FFVIIR (and most games), money is essentially earned passively from beating enemies and doing side quests (S1 is similarly passive); you don't have to constantly stop everything you're doing to run to a different part of the map to play a minigame. Again, in my experience with S3, by the time I was backtracking through Niaowu for the umpteenth time, I was definitely getting annoying with how pointlessly huge the map was, how much of my time was spent grinding for money, and how devoid of substance what I was doing was. You frequently need to run very far to be told to run very far again with very little of substance happening in between; this is not true of S1 and 2.
You seem to have had a much bigger issue with money management in Shenmue 3 than I or many of the other people on these forums did. You might not earn money passively in Shenmue 3, but you do come across herbs constantly as you walk around the map and these alone should provide more than enough to keep Ryo fed and watered. Like the food vendors, I also think they did a fairly decent job in spreading the side activities around the map meaning you’re never too far away from a money-making method. It might not be your method of choice, but that might encourage you to spend five minutes fishing rather than save scumming at the golden goose?
I agree that the map was perhaps a little larger than it needed to be (I’m really hoping that future locations in the series will be a bit more compact), but there are plenty of open world games with significantly larger maps (even with a car, I feel like map traversal was a lite more tiresome in something like FFXV).
Grinding for money definitely soured my view of the game and, if I'm being honest, is the main thing I remember apart from the ending sequence.
You should try playing through again and using a money trainer to eliminate the grinding. I know that doesn’t fix the issue, but it might help you to see the game in a slightly different light. I definitely enjoyed my second play through a lot more than my first.
I'm way too close to be able to separate my expectations from the actual product, which I admit is part of the problem and I suspect is the main reason SEPW framed his review as being specifically from a longtime fan's POV. If this was a new IP instead of a sequel to my favorite game, there's no way I could see myself finishing it.
That’s fair. Looking back, once that initial ‘Holy shit, I’m finally playing Shenmue 3!’ feeling had worn off, it wasn’t until I’d let go of my expectations that I was really able to enjoy Shenmue 3 for what it was.
I think I would have probably still enjoyed it if it had been a new IP, but then again, had it been a brand new IP I think there are a lot of things that they would have done differently when it comes to some of the stranger design choices we saw throughout the game. It really does feel like a lot of compromises were made to help maintain that ‘Shenmue’ feeling.