Steam page is live!

Do people really put combat system above things like full dubbing, NPC interactivity or NPC's "humanity"? I don't think so and we've seen almost nothing so far. If one of these criteria is not fully well conveyed, many voices of disappointment might come out whilst the combat system is the hardest challenge for YSnet. Whatever we see, it's very difficult to imagine something as satisfying as the old combat system for plenty of reasons.
 
Last edited:
It's not that people put the combat on top of worldbuilding, but we are talking about a trailer.
You can't get a trailer to tell you how much NPCs behaviors there are, how many lines they have, how many of them are interactive. In a couple of minutes you can have NPCs walking on a navmesh, or put a couple of animations in place, it can look like the real thing, but it doesn't show anything besides that. A combat system that works shows an advanced state of development, as easy as that.
Hell it'll be difficult to know if it's fully voiced or only cutscene voiced/important characters, since they'll probably just show cutscenes (if you look at most yakuza/jrpgs trailers you would guess they're fully voiced).
 
Many players can forgive a bit stilted dialogue and animations as well as minor plot holes. What more directly impacts their enjoyment of a game is how it feels to play it. I'd say how it looks and feels to play the combat is mighty important in a game that is about a teen martial martial artist, who is on a mission to beat the crap out the martial artist that killed his father, who was also a martial artist.

For a recent example of players being willing to forgive NPC interaction, animation, dialogue and minor story points see the game Vampyr by Don't Nod. The most cited problem with the game? The combat. Which shows by example that when everything else isn't exactly perfect, people are willing to ignore small grievances but actual game play will take precedence for many.

Ergo, how fighting looks and feels is damn important and definitely affects the opinions of newcomers and whether or not they will want to purchase the game.
 
We forgave Shenmue I and II for having absolutely atrocious English voice acting, so yeah, I think gameplay is a bit important. What else is there?
 
From what I observed since all these years, many fans never really appreciated the Shenmue combat system. It was an "ok" thing, somehow like the gunfights were in GTA III. But while Rockstar made a very clunky combat system, Sega AM2's one was rather esoteric. Very stiff feeling, an insane load of technical moves, a hidden skill three for a very few combats. It goes without saying that a lot of people actually struggled to master this part, and naturally never really enjoyed it while they were very fond of the rest of the game.

It's pretty much the core nature of Virtua Fighter that cannot be appreciated if you don't master your character. While they were including the VF2 system into Shenmue, Sega AM2 were aware of this and allowed button smashing to further help average players. This decision has brought some drawbacks like making the mastering pretty useless but the sake of the aesthetic. So even for the more experienced players, enjoy this part was not a given.

I definitely think we overrate the importance people attach to it, because if it was the case, the Shenmue fanbase wouldn't be as large as it is today.
 
Last edited:
I don't know what to say other than, that hasn't been my experience at all. Most people I know personally seemed to really enjoy Shenmue's combat, especially if they already had a lot of love for fighting games. And most hardcore Shenmue fans that also like fighting games also appreciate the depth that Shenmue's combat system had to offer, which is essentially a pseudo Virtua-Fighter clone.

Those that didn't appreciate Shenmue's fighting system before never really explored the depths of it on their own so they were unaware,, which brings me to my point again that it's all the more important to show off the combat more than anything. Most people that haven't played Shenmue already have an idea of Shenmue's interactivity, and open world design but combat really needs to be done well and shown well.

Anyway, your opinions not any less valid but I genuinely think it's more important to show off the action game-play elements more so than anything else right now, if because nothing else, it's the thing we know the least and have seen the least about.
 
Yokosuka said:
Do people really put combat system above things like full dubbing, NPC interactivity or NPC's "humanity"? I don't think so and we've seen almost nothing so far. If one of these criteria is not fully well conveyed, many voices of disappointment might come out whilst the combat system is the hardest challenge for YSnet. Whatever we see, it's very difficult to imagine something as satisfying as the old combat system for plenty of reasons.
Click to expand...

I'm playing a video game. If I don't want gameplay I'll watch a movie.
 
Oh NPCs are part of the gameplay in my vision. Showing further gameplay is definitely important, I do agree.
 
TwiceFriedRice said:
I'm playing a video game. If I don't want gameplay I'll watch a movie.
Click to expand...
You spend more time in Shenmue exploring and interacting with NPCs than you do fighting, so I would say it definitely qualifies as "gameplay".

We've been over the whole "how important is combat?" thing before, and while it obviously differs from person to person, I stick by my opinion that the combat in Shenmue I is incidental to the whole thing because A) leveling isn't required/it's extremely easy, B) there's little to no rewards for investing time into it and C) there simply isn't enough of it. Ten or so fights in the entire game.

Combat in Shenmue II is way more important because it's more challenging, it's more connected to the story, and there's a lot lot more of it.

How important the combat is in Shenmue III will depend on how core it is to the story, and how often you do it.
 
Leveling is more important in Shenmue than in Shenmue 2 for me, because you can beat Chai in Arcade and first/second time at harbour, plus first/second try for 70 man battle final boss, plus sets you up really nicely for Hong Kong to only really need to spam train the newer moves with jianmin, rather than everything.
 
I totally get that the combat is its own reward for some people; the satisfaction of beating Chai etc.
 
A tournament or kumite minigame would make training a lot less monotonous; something like the colosseum from Yakuza 0.
 
Amir said:
A tournament or kumite minigame would make training a lot less monotonous; something like the colosseum from Yakuza 0.
Click to expand...
Yes, please. Or an evolution of the Kwoloomn street fights
 
Amir said:
A tournament or kumite minigame would make training a lot less monotonous; something like the colosseum from Yakuza 0.
Click to expand...
Infinite waves of Chai. They could call it 'The Bed of Pryx'.
 
ShenGCH said:
Nice catch! Different facial features and her fringe has been modified, too. Looks a lot better.

Edit: Swapped out the images for larger versions

capsule_616x353.jpg


capsule_616x353.jpg
Click to expand...
Just for fun, I upscaled the bottom image and tried the best I could, to fix something that bothered me in Ryo's left eye pupil position.

0SEFiFG.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top