Random Shenmue III Thoughts

If we're doing a trip down memory lane...

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Still a more beautiful game than it's given credit for.
Absolutely gorgeous. I’ve played a lot of Sony 1st party software this generation but I am still very impressed what they were able to pull off, particularly the environments which is the visual star of the game.

That pulled back camera, also let’s you appreciate it a lot more than the in game FOV.
 
So I'm currently in the middle of a 'chilled' 3rd playthrough of S3 (started a new game from my completed Platinum file, with kung-fu at max level and all move scrolls etc), and just finished Bailu - I deliberately made a point of talking to every NPC possible every time Ryo's question changed, to see if there were any notable extra conversations. And there is a surprising amount! Specifically, if you talk to Yang Lihong at certain points in the game, he sometimes asks Ryo questions where you can choose from multiple answers (usually unrelated to whatever Ryo is currently doing in the quest, so was a bit thrown but pleasantly surprised!)

As a reminder, Lihong is the kid in the blue/white striped shirt, generally found in the Sunflower Grove (he's the kid you find in Xu's house when playing hide and seek)
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Try talking to him at these points in the game:
-When Ryo is looking for Panda Market (for a conversation about where babies come from!)
-When Ryo is on his way to meet Shenhua at the Ternary Spring (he will tell you what various women in the village have said about Ryo)

These are the conversations where Ryo can choose multiple responses (and you can keep talking to him again to try all the different responses), but you get some amusing conversations from him at other points in the game as well (for example when you ask him about the Verdant Bridge, he talks about his peeing technique from over the bridge...)

I also found a few other interesting/amusing tidbits from talking to other characters - for example there is an ongoing 'plot' of sorts with Kong Mei where she moans to Ryo about how badly her steamed buns are selling, before she'll answer any of his questions. Eventually, she tells you that they are now selling great after she lied to people that Mao Meimei from the Prize Exchange made them! Also, the abandoned temple where Sun resides was once called 'Bailu Temple', and is in its current state due to the resident monk passing away, and no one taking over.

It's also well worth talking to everyone after you've defeated Yanlang, apparently the news spreads through the village fast! Even Meiyang, who is generally unfriendly to Ryo throughout the game, shows appreciation.

I may attempt to make a YouTube video of the multiple choice Lihong conversations - unless @BlueMue beats me to it, of course :p

I'm not expecting anything too exciting from talking to the Niaowu shopkeepers but will report back anything interesting!
So just to add to this, I'm now interrogating all the Niaowu shopkeepers every time Ryo's question changes, and made an extremely random discovery about a character's age!

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When Ryo is searching for the Red Snakes (after losing sight of them following the QTE chase through the Promenade, and before encountering Ren in Vendor Avenue), I asked Li Chuxuan, the elderly shopkeeper of the 'Soul of Buddha' shop in Blossom Road, if she had seen them. Appearing to misunderstand what Ryo is asking, she replies 'I've never seen a bloody viper in my 82 years on this earth!'.

This is notable, as due to there being no official source of character profiles and details about their ages, blood type etc (unlike the first two games), she is one of the very few S3 characters we know the age of through an in-game conversation! (except of course characters from previous games like Ryo, Ren, Shenhua, Lan Di etc, whose ages were already known).

May need to make a tiny update to my character database :tearsofjoy:
 
I've been playing this recently released Chinese Rpg called Sword and Fairy 7 and so far I'm loving it, specially because there are a lot of details that remind me of the Shenmue games, specially 2 & 3, mainly because of the scenery and the music.
The story has also a lot of details in common with mythological elements of the Shenmue games wich is one of the aspects why love the series so much.
I'm going to leave some pictures of the game for you guys to appreciate. If it sparkles your interest, you can play the demo that is available on steam. The game has also an amazing sale price of just 24.99 Euros, wich in my opinion is a steal considering the overhaul quality of the game.

Cave painting representing CHIYOU and his minions.
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Guilin Landscape.
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Shenmue Tree.
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Palace of Shenhua's Parents !?
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Guilin.
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Shenmue 3 Moonlight in Guilin.
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Shopping for Herbs.
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Four Heavenly Beasts.
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Shenmue 3 Temple.
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Fireflies.
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Dragon Carving.
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Shenhua and the Flying Dandelions.
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Dragon Mirror.
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Bailu Village.
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Overlooking Bailu Village.
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I've been playing this recently released Chinese Rpg called Sword and Fairy 7 and so far I'm loving it, specially because there are a lot of details that remind me of the Shenmue games, specially 2 & 3, mainly because of the scenery and the music.
The story has also a lot of details in common with mythological elements of the Shenmue games wich is one of the aspects why love the series so much.
I'm going to leave some pictures of the game for you guys to appreciate. If it sparkles your interest, you can play the demo that is available on steam. The game has also an amazing sale price of just 24.99 Euros, wich in my opinion is a steal considering the overhaul quality of the game.

I saw that the other games of the series are only available in chinese on Steam, i don't understand chinese language. This game series is the type of series like Final Fantasy where every entry is a separate story or it is a continuation of the previous games?

I prefer to play in order so i think i will try to find the others in english but if i can't find i will start with the 7 then, this game looks really interesting, thanks for sharing.
 
I saw that the other games of the series are only available in chinese on Steam, i don't understand chinese language. This game series is the type of series like Final Fantasy where every entry is a separate story or it is a continuation of the previous games?

I prefer to play in order so i think i will try to find the others in english but if i can't find i will start with the 7 then, this game looks really interesting, thanks for sharing.
I don't known if the story in this game is a continuation of the series or not, but you can definitely play it as its own story.
So far its seems like the typical good vs evil kind of story but from my playthrough it seems it will have some interesting plot twists along the way.
What really draws me in into this game is the environments, the music and the characters and its relaxing vibe.
 
So just to add to this, I'm now interrogating all the Niaowu shopkeepers every time Ryo's question changes, and made an extremely random discovery about a character's age!

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When Ryo is searching for the Red Snakes (after losing sight of them following the QTE chase through the Promenade, and before encountering Ren in Vendor Avenue), I asked Li Chuxuan, the elderly shopkeeper of the 'Soul of Buddha' shop in Blossom Road, if she had seen them. Appearing to misunderstand what Ryo is asking, she replies 'I've never seen a bloody viper in my 82 years on this earth!'.

This is notable, as due to there being no official source of character profiles and details about their ages, blood type etc (unlike the first two games), she is one of the very few S3 characters we know the age of through an in-game conversation! (except of course characters from previous games like Ryo, Ren, Shenhua, Lan Di etc, whose ages were already known).

May need to make a tiny update to my character database :tearsofjoy:
Yet another conversational nugget - while Ryo is looking for Liu He Hall, talk to Shiling at Liu Jiao Shrine. There's a humourous little conversation where she mentions seeing someone that matches Ren's description, and thinks it was one of the Red Snakes.
 
So i've started doing the Niaowu DLC for the first time (as it was pretty crappily implemented, I decided to wait until a 2nd playthrough) and i'm quite enjoying it, but having a trophy based on pure luck is really crap. I'm referring to getting the costumes on the ship. I didn't realise I could save scum, so ended up using a lot of golden tickets, but I can't see myself getting it. Is it me, or does the strength not really matter a jolt? I've ended up having to mute the game when I do this as the music is seared into my memory...it haunts me!

Also, i'm sure this is mentioned somewhere else, but does Shenhua get any extra costumes? I haven't begun the story based DLC yet, but nothing i've done so far has suggested that such a thing exists. I've done almost all of the Battle Rally (it's just the last course i'm struggling on).
 
From the april 2019 Famitsu interview with Yu Suzuki about Shenmue III (translated by Switch):
Q: There's also an element of having been able to realize in Shenmue III ideas that you've had from back then but weren't able to implement, isn't there.

YS:
Yes - although part of me wonders how much of what I originally wanted to do I've actually been able to realize. It's always been this way; I always want to take things further.
To give an example from the Shenmue I and II days: when you order ramen noodles, they give off steam; when going to eat them, people hold chopsticks properly, pick up some noodles and the bowl's content decreases by the amount they've eaten; and when the noodles grow cold, the steam disappears.
Back then, I called it "4D," as opposed to 3D. 3D represents a solid object composed of three dimensions: x-axis, y-axis, z-axis, right? The concept of the previous games was "4D": let's add another dimension so it's not 3D, but with the addition of "t"...

Q: That's "time," isn't it.

YS:
We add a time axis. For example, a cup of coffee that is left here [points at a coffee that sits in front of him in the conference room], will be gone tomorrow.

Q: The liquid would evaporate, or someone might clear it away.

YS:
That's the case for the coffee; for the ramen I mentioned earlier it will disappear if someone eats it, and so on. So having the world change with time is something I wanted to do in Shenmue. But when you're trying to do things like that... well, there's no end to it really! [laughs]

Q: That's true.

YS:
To take an example to extremes: a tree is planted at the time of Shenmue I, and 18 years pass by in real time; now with Shenmue III, it has grown taller. Or, in the garden pond there were 6 koi fish, but one month later they had bred and increased in number, and so on. I think it would be fun to be able to portray those kinds of changes.
Expressing changes from the passing of time is one of the things I want to do in Shenmue. The extent to which I've been able to do that in Shenmue III... personally, I feel it's only a fraction. While I've been able to do things that I hadn't been able to do in Shenmue I and II, whether it goes as far as what I really want to do is a trickier question.
Suzuki-san speaks about doing things about time changing the environment and similar things that he couldn't do in Shenmue I and II but the says he did in Shenmue III. What are those things? I can't remember such things in the final game...

He also says "To give an example from the Shenmue I and II days: when you order ramen noodles, they give off steam; when going to eat them, people hold chopsticks properly, pick up some noodles and the bowl's content decreases by the amount they've eaten; and when the noodles grow cold, the steam disappears." But that didn't happen in Shenmue I or II, am I correct?
 
So i've started doing the Niaowu DLC for the first time (as it was pretty crappily implemented, I decided to wait until a 2nd playthrough) and i'm quite enjoying it, but having a trophy based on pure luck is really crap. I'm referring to getting the costumes on the ship. I didn't realise I could save scum, so ended up using a lot of golden tickets, but I can't see myself getting it. Is it me, or does the strength not really matter a jolt? I've ended up having to mute the game when I do this as the music is seared into my memory...it haunts me!

Also, i'm sure this is mentioned somewhere else, but does Shenhua get any extra costumes? I haven't begun the story based DLC yet, but nothing i've done so far has suggested that such a thing exists. I've done almost all of the Battle Rally (it's just the last course i'm struggling on).
Yeah. Getting all of the costumes on the boat was a real chore. On my first playthrough, I was able to find a fairly consistent method for getting the main prize after a fair amount of trial and error. On my second, I just gave myself infinite big wheel tokens and cranked up the speed to 500% and got them all in about a minute 😂

As for Shenhua’s alternate outfit, it’s unlocked towards the very end of the story quest DLC.
 
Yeah. Getting all of the costumes on the boat was a real chore. On my first playthrough, I was able to find a fairly consistent method for getting the main prize after a fair amount of trial and error. On my second, I just gave myself infinite big wheel tokens and cranked up the speed to 500% and got them all in about a minute 😂

As for Shenhua’s alternate outfit, it’s unlocked towards the very end of the story quest DLC.
I don't understand mods at all, so i'll just have to plod on and do it the old fashioned way. At least if I mute it, I can get through my 1500 hour music backlog (although I hope I get all the costumes by then!)

Ah - thanks for clarifying re: Shenhua!
 
I don't understand mods at all, so i'll just have to plod on and do it the old fashioned way. At least if I mute it, I can get through my 1500 hour music backlog (although I hope I get all the costumes by then!)
Ah - thanks for clarifying re: Shenhua!
For what it’s worth, I didn’t actually use mods. I used cheat engine and then just searched for the relevant values. It’s remarkably easy. I recommend trying it out if the grind starts to become too much!
 
For what it’s worth, I didn’t actually use mods. I used cheat engine and then just searched for the relevant values. It’s remarkably easy. I recommend trying it out if the grind starts to become too much!
Wich someone could create a mod that would balance out Shenmue 3's economic system; I think it would make the game much more enjoyable overhaul.
I believe that by balancing everything out it would turn the grinding and collecting aspects of the game much better turning it from a tedious and boring task into a much more enjoyable experience in wich the player would feel motivated and would appreciate much more the content that Shenmue 3 has to offer.
 
Is Cheat Engine a PC thing? I'm afraid i'm playing on PS4!

For what it's worth, i'm loving the game much more 2nd time round not having to worry about eating all the time. I guess the only other thing i'm struggling with is the rather crappy inventory system. Is there a rhyme and reason to why things are the way they are? They don't appear to be in alphabetical or date order.

I'm having so much find trying to find all the Chobu-chan's in the shops, but it's annoying having to check if I have the card or not. Something like a tick list (like you do when you trade a skill book) would be so helpful. Same for the skill books. I'm pretty sure one Chobu-chan wasn't counted because I saw it bang on 7pm which automatically cuts to the night time scene. That's a bit irritating.

I've now started the story based DLC for the first time. It's a massive thrill to experience something "new" in Shenmue for me!

Despite my grumbles, the sheer scale of Shenmue III continues to amaze me. Even just looking out at night in the hotel is beautiful (especially now there's the giant boat with all the neon signage!)
 
Wich someone could create a mod that would balance out Shenmue 3's economic system; I think it would make the game much more enjoyable overhaul.
I believe that by balancing everything out it would turn the grinding and collecting aspects of the game much better turning it from a tedious and boring task into a much more enjoyable experience in wich the player would feel motivated and would appreciate much more the content that Shenmue 3 has to offer.
It's all relative...for example, I greatly enjoyed her hunting, and never had to grind for money after selling them. I also enjoyed the forklift job, and made it part of my daily routine, along with training and hunting a new section of land for herbs, which made it much easier, and cared my gameplay a lot.
 
No, the ramen thing was never implemented, I think it is something he wanted to incorporate back then but couldn't for whatever reason. I think in another interview he mentioned that.
 
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