Reality vs Expectations (warning: spoilers within)

ShenSun said:
Glad others enjoyed it. I thought i was the only one who liked the ending lol

Very good work @danielmann861 . I assumed thats what it meant but its good to know for sure. I hope they can patch that but i dunno how since the voicework is already done.
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I’m going through that scene now with the Japanese subs on...so I’ll let you all know what I find when it’s all said and done.
 
Okay most of what is being said in that final scene is close to what is said in Japanese.

but the one line in question is actually this with the Japanese subs turned on.

C404B1AA-C7B4-44B5-8FED-4B47FFD2615C.jpeg

巻物にあった寺か

makimono ni atta tera ka

I misheard it slightly...but the meaning is still the same.

”the temple that was on the scroll”

How in the fuck do you fuck that up?

How do you get the translation they gave it from THAT line?

Most of everything else in that scene is fairly accurate. But to screw that up? How?

sorry, it really annoys me! I know I’m harping on this, but that’s a bad translation of a VERY simple line in Japanese.
 
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spud1897 said:
I'd like to have found out more about Iwao and the training he undertook in Bailu. Theres more to that I'm sure. Then again I've not finished the game yet so I'll reserve judgement.
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This is where Grandmaster Feng should have had moe presence, you can actually go back and train at his house, but I didn't find any hidden scenes or anything.
 
danielmann861 said:
Sure thing. So this is the line that stuck out to me like a sore thumb.

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That’s the line that threw me for a loop when I first read it. That line, in regards to the temple, makes it read and sound like they found the scroll at said temple. Which we all know didn’t happen. They found the scroll at Bailu.

But the above is NOT what Ryo said in Japanese. I went back and relistened to it without reading the subs (because its hard to process both at the same time)

This is what he said in Japanese

“Maki o mi ni atta tera ga...”


Japanese is backwards so let’s break it down and in the case of grammar it sounds more like this.

Tera = Temple
mi ni atta = seen on
Maki = scroll

Put it all together and the translation should read more like this

“That’s the Temple we saw on the scroll.”

Which makes complete and utter sense given that they did see the treasure on said scroll.

Now how the fuck do they get:

”That’s where we found the scroll” from what he actually said in the dialog?

I’m an amateur at this language and even I picked it out after listening to it.

Makes me wonder how many more translations like this went through? I noticed little liberties here and there, like they took liberties with the repeated use of “Sou Ka” (I see), but this was the first big one I noticed that actually sat wrong with me.

Sorry, that annoyed me.
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Thanks for clearing that up mate. It really fucked me off too and I even started to blame myself thinking I'd missed something. I did guess that would be the actual line though.

Another thing. Why wouldn't Corey Marshall pick up on this? I'd imagine voice actors would at least have the full script to see what they are replying to from the opposite character? I guess he only read and recorded his own lines as tone of voice could have been improved on also. Some of the replies sounded so off. That could have been fixed by the actors studying others lines apart from their own. Guessing thats a budget compromise.

All in all I enjoyed the game and the first 2 thirds really did exceed my expectations for sure. It was only the last 5 hours or so of gameplay that ground me down. To a point where I'm not sure I could play it in full again. Time will tell. I'm sure if they announced a definitive edition for the Xbox I'd be all over playing it on my X.
 
ShenSun said:
Glad others enjoyed it. I thought i was the only one who liked the ending lol
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Definetly not. Apart from the translation error I enjoyed the ending also. It was just the 5 or so hours leading up to it I found frustrating as hell.
 
I didn’t entirely hate the ending. I think the setup for the power struggle between Lan Di and and Niao Sun is interesting. I actually really liked the final showdown between Ryo and Lan Di. I knew Ryo didn’t stand a chance but I loved it and thought “okay, you’ve faced him once...you now know something about his style. Game on!”

And I liked the very ending.

I just really wish the game stopped treating known information like its some big revelation and I wish the game had maybe answered a few more questions instead of feeling like recap with only a little new content added to the story.

There’s interesting things in the story but they never went as far as I would like with it.

so it’s a bit of a mixed bag for me.

but overall, I did enjoy the game and I’m happy to have it. I’d rather have it than not have it.
 
I only give my expectations with no regard to the game because I still haven't finished it yet.

It was very low with the kickstarter trailer and Yu not having make game since years, this has always been a red flag to me and only the latest trailers gave me some hope. I didn't wait 18 years because I gave up for a sequel when no shenmue 3 was in the horizon after shenmue 2x.

My only expectation came from the story following shenmue 1 and 2, some answers about the life of Hiwao in china and the prophecy with the father of shenhua.


Lol @danielmann861 even google translate is more accurate in its translation. 😆
 
As a Bruce Lee fan, maybe I shouldn't admit it but I loved his long haired pretender at the end. For me that was a nice touch. Just wish he didn't fuck about so much and go down with one kick.
 
DarksideHazuki said:
I had fairly middling expectations, and for me, it completely blew them out of the water. I thought the game was absolutely brilliant, and almost everything I had been dreaming of since 2001. The whole Niaowu chapter just felt so "Shenmue" to me, I loved it, and the final battle(s) was almost shot-for-shot what I'd been dreaming of for decades. The Lan Di showdown was just utter perfection. Personally, I'd have it at around a 9/10, and it's definitely up there with Shenmue and Shenmue II for me.

Sure, there's a few things I didn't like, or that I think could have been done better, but I expected that on such a measly budget. I'm genuinely quite shocked at the negative reaction toward the game, on here especially. I can't really fathom people that have actually been waiting 18 years like I have playing through Shenmue III and coming away from it disappointed.

As soon as I finished the game I came on here pretty excited to see what everyone thought, and was honestly gutted at some of the reactions.
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What did you like about the story? What did you learn? The gameplay was good for the most part but what about the thrilling set pieces from shenmue 2? Walking planks, escaping Beverly hills wharf? Fighting yellow head thugs around wan chai, mysterious xuiying, izumi, Eileen, joy wong, then kowloon, building the relationship with ren, going on buddy cop adventures with ren who is the most charismatic character in the franchise so far. Fighting 3 of the toughest warriors in epic locations in kowloon for money and testing ryos skills, master baihu, yellow head building. And the long cool down journey with Shenhua. Where was all of that in shenmue 3? The biggest story beats was getting good at Kung fu and overcoming random thugs we had no connection to and couldn't hold a candle to dou niu or master baihu or eve. Chunyun tbh we had no story with niao sun at all, ren is cool but we barely do anything with him (could've been a few missions we could've done with him) and we had no cool interesting interactions with characters apart from learning moves and sparring and a couple static conversations. I think I had more of a connection with the master at the dojo next to the arcade than I did with master Bei

How could you not see why people would be dissapointed when you are coming from Shenmue 2 to this. And don't give me the excuse of budget, once you have the assets and mechanics down you tell whatever story you want, eveb if you have to limit the cutscenes to gameplay, how about a chase gameplay scene that leads to a fight if you can't afford another qte chase segment? How about some fun missions where you have to go to all the hangouts of the red snakes, beat them up and make them talk? Not just the 1. How about some Shenhua, Ryo and Ren Co op missions? Not just the last one. How about Ryo and Shenhua hang out at the arcade, maybe you could teach her to play games? Teach her the modem life. I just feel these things can be done without needing to break the budget if you are clever. No need for fancy cutscenes, just dialogue.

Also bring back the soda machine drinking animation and fix Lan Di's English voice.
 
Quiksylver said:
Definetly not. Apart from the translation error I enjoyed the ending also. It was just the 5 or so hours leading up to it I found frustrating as hell.
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I keep telling everyone to take their time in Niaowu. I was playing on nightmare, so my grind was extra long, but i didnt mind. There's so much unique interactions with npcs in Niaowu that isn't obvious and can easily be missed.

Did anyone know that

The guy training in Bailu village on top of those logs is a legendary fighter who challenges you in the rose garden if you get high enough? Same with the girl who trains with you at the wooden tea cafe

There's more interactions with the shrine maiden, master bei, the big guy, if you speak to them every day. There's even Shrine maiden quest. There's a hidden quest for Ren. A quest that involves the girls in the golden goose vip lounge. You see Niaosun around alot more and can speak to her sometimes. There's people in the niaowu hotel who you can speak to and engage with if you find them in the city.

The telephone calls to the shenmue 1 cast change depending on your choices.

You can develop relations with the harbor guys as they are apart of the rose garden.

Since i was on nightmare, i had to train like crazy. I spent alot of time with master bei and even the shrine maiden and the big guy, so when they all came to help me at the end, it wasn't a wtf moment for me. Chobu chan quest was fun but not really inticing for me.

Collect herbs
Catch ducks
learn new moves etc

I think that entire section is suppose to be a training section. I even bought the 130,000 martial arts outfit. I had 250k tokens i was playing so much lol.

Either way, take your time in Niaowu and do everything is my advice. I've missed alot of things out, but those were my intial thoughts. I loved the journey. I think once shenmue 4 is released, people will appreciate the build up in Shenmue 3.
 
The main complain for me is the story.. I expected a lot since everybody wanted Shenmue 3 mainly for its story, the expectation on the gameplay was a bit low because of the budget.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't deliver much in terms of story. There was a HUGE focus on getting side things done in a repetitive manner than answering some questions.

The game goes like this:

Bad guys in town > search for them > fight > lose > learn a technique > find boss > win

There were some holes in the story like: Chai presence was not that important, the guy with Mr.Yuan is useless, Yuan himself could have answered more questions like what is the prophecy? , Nia Sun could have had more scenes and could have been more ruthless, Shenhua herself was useless as well.. her presence did not push the story much.

I know that a lot of fans would disagree with me, but to me that's the harsh reality. I had to take off my "Shenmue Fan Jacket" and say what needed to be said, it hurts me that Shenmue 3, after years of waiting, fails in its most important aspect: Story.
 
I defeated all the Rose Garden guys in one go since I had maxed out my Attack by that stage. Shinbone Smash is seriously OP, can use it to knock down enemies while standing, then kick them (repeatedly) while they're down.
 
ShenSun said:
I keep telling everyone to take their time in Niaowu. I was playing on nightmare, so my grind was extra long, but i didnt mind. There's so much unique interactions with npcs in Niaowu that isn't obvious and can easily be missed.

Did anyone know that

The guy training in Bailu village on top of those logs is a legendary fighter who challenges you in the rose garden if you get high enough? Same with the girl who trains with you at the wooden tea cafe

There's more interactions with the shrine maiden, master bei, the big guy, if you speak to them every day. There's even Shrine maiden quest. There's a hidden quest for Ren. A quest that involves the girls in the golden goose vip lounge. You see Niaosun around alot more and can speak to her sometimes. There's people in the niaowu hotel who you can speak to and engage with if you find them in the city.

The telephone calls to the shenmue 1 cast change depending on your choices.

You can develop relations with the harbor guys as they are apart of the rose garden.

Since i was on nightmare, i had to train like crazy. I spent alot of time with master bei and even the shrine maiden and the big guy, so when they all came to help me at the end, it wasn't a wtf moment for me. Chobu chan quest was fun but not really inticing for me.

Collect herbs
Catch ducks
learn new moves etc

I think that entire section is suppose to be a training section. I even bought the 130,000 martial arts outfit. I had 250k tokens i was playing so much lol.

Either way, take your time in Niaowu and do everything is my advice. I've missed alot of things out, but those were my intial thoughts. I loved the journey. I think once shenmue 4 is released, people will appreciate the build up in Shenmue 3.
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I ended up 60k tokens and 5000 yuan by the end of Bailu. Also completed all toy capsule sets there apart from the shoes.
When I got to Niaowu I was so geared up for carrying on playing the way I was - collecting toys, training, exploring, herbs etc. But after seeing the special parts (guestbook, tomato store, save shenmue) I found myself burnt out by it to a point I couldn't do that anymore. I found the days went too quickly so in my head there was too much backwards and forwards. It ended up breaking my routine quite a lot. I think it should have been an 11pm curfew not 9pm. Especially when you haven't been progressing through the story Shenhua doesn't have much else to say than what she's already said before so I felt I was wasting too much time.

I think money could have been a lot easier to come by if I'm honest. Those frog races literally killed my right arm.
 
ShenSun said:
I keep telling everyone to take their time in Niaowu. I was playing on nightmare, so my grind was extra long, but i didnt mind. There's so much unique interactions with npcs in Niaowu that isn't obvious and can easily be missed.

Did anyone know that

The guy training in Bailu village on top of those logs is a legendary fighter who challenges you in the rose garden if you get high enough? Same with the girl who trains with you at the wooden tea cafe

There's more interactions with the shrine maiden, master bei, the big guy, if you speak to them every day. There's even Shrine maiden quest. There's a hidden quest for Ren. A quest that involves the girls in the golden goose vip lounge. You see Niaosun around alot more and can speak to her sometimes. There's people in the niaowu hotel who you can speak to and engage with if you find them in the city.

The telephone calls to the shenmue 1 cast change depending on your choices.

You can develop relations with the harbor guys as they are apart of the rose garden.

Since i was on nightmare, i had to train like crazy. I spent alot of time with master bei and even the shrine maiden and the big guy, so when they all came to help me at the end, it wasn't a wtf moment for me. Chobu chan quest was fun but not really inticing for me.

Collect herbs
Catch ducks
learn new moves etc

I think that entire section is suppose to be a training section. I even bought the 130,000 martial arts outfit. I had 250k tokens i was playing so much lol.

Either way, take your time in Niaowu and do everything is my advice. I've missed alot of things out, but those were my intial thoughts. I loved the journey. I think once shenmue 4 is released, people will appreciate the build up in Shenmue 3.
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100% agreed. From a lot of the reactions on here, I feel like 99% of people just bolted through the game at lightning speed, barely saw anything and didn't really experience the game properly. I honestly didn't expect that from Shenmue fans, I thought it'd be the complete opposite. I felt like I was going too fast, and it took me a good 35-40 hours on my first go through.
 
DarksideHazuki said:
100% agreed. From a lot of the reactions on here, I feel like 99% of people just bolted through the game at lightning speed, barely saw anything and didn't really experience the game properly. I honestly didn't expect that from Shenmue fans, I thought it'd be the complete opposite. I felt like I was going too fast, and it took me a good 35-40 hours on my first go through.
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I think it took me about 40 hours. I did most of everything in Bailu but will admit I sped through Chobu towards the end, just because I was interested in the story, so I missed a lot of side quests in Chobu
 
danielmann861 said:
I think it took me about 40 hours. I did most of everything in Bailu but will admit I sped through Chobu towards the end, just because I was interested in the story, so I missed a lot of side quests in Chobu
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Think I was about 40 hours as well, will check on my Epic client when I get home. And yeah, with Choubu I didn't do as many sidequests as Bailu because I wanted to see the end.

I think I would've been happier with a 20 hour game that skipped Niaowu and split its time between Bailu and Baisha.
 
DoubleO_Ren said:
What did you like about the story? What did you learn?
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I loved getting to know Shenhua, the conversations with her every night, and the daily interactions were fantastic. I loved getting to know the people of Bailu village, from the jealous dweeb who's in love with Shenhua, to the annoying little kids, the young martial artist who's fawning over Ryo, etc.

I loved finally meeting the "old lady" who uses the herbs gathered by the villagers to make medicines for the village folk, as mentioned by Shenhua on the walk to Bailu at the end of Shenmue II. I loved hearing about Iwao and Zhao Sunming training together and developing their martial arts. I loved finding out there's a god damn second Shenmue tree that Iwao Hazuki trained under every day.

I loved Ryo being Ryo and begging Grandmaster Feng to teach him generations' worth of martial arts in 5 minutes so he can crack on with getting himself killed facing Lan Di, and Grandmaster Feng telling him to fuck off. I loved seeing Ryo seek out an old drunken martial arts master who has him do seemingly ridiculous tasks in exchange for training him, only for it to be revealed that the silly tasks were actually a part of the training itself, I thought that was an awesome little kung fu movie trope done really well.

I loved learning about the origins of the mirrors, their connection to and representation of the Emperor and the Empress. I loved seeing Shenhua's mystical/magical abilities teased even more when she extracted info from the thug at Hermit's Nest.

I loved travelling to Niaowu with Shenhua, and seeing her trepidation over leave her home village for the very first time. I loved how Madam at Hotel Niaowu felt like such a classically charming "Shenmue" character, as did the rich couple in room 207. I loved the mysteriously alluring woman Ryo and Shenhua are both drawn to on the boat, and later in Niaowu itself, who turns out to be fucking Niao Sun, and we finally see her after all this time!

I loved tracking down the Red Snakes, beating up their crew and then getting bodied by Ge. Having Shenhua tend to Ryo's wounds, getting rinsed by Ren for being battered by them, taking Ren back the next day and having both of us get our arses kicked. Then having to seek out an ancient Bajiquan move scroll in order to take him on.

And most of all I loved the final encounter with Lan Di. That fight was absolute perfection, and exactly what I have built it up to be in my mind for going on 20 years now. Lan Di just effortlessly parrying absolutely everything Ryo throws at him, and beating him down and nearly killing him without breaking a sweat. Completely cold and ruthless. It was fucking amazing.

I just feel a complete disconnect from the people who are disappointed and say nothing happened in Shenmue III, and that we learned nothing. That is not how I felt about it at all. I feel like we learned plenty, loads of really interesting events took place, and lots of great new characters were introduced. I'm not sure if I just took it slower than most of you guys or what, but I found it absolutely wonderful from start to finish, and it is easily up there with Shenmue and Shenmue II for me.
 
It's interesting to read these comments about Baisha in hindsight:


EDIT: This interview from August 2017 is telling as well, showing how Choubu/Niaowu came to take precedence over Baisha:

Q: Next, I'd like to ask about the systems [games, jobs etc] in Shenmue III. You have previously talked about Bailu Village, Choubu and Baisha, and stated that there will be different ways to have fun at each. Could you give a little more detail about what those would consist of?

YS: I can't comment in depth yet, since there may be changes as we tune the game, but at the moment, for example, we're putting a lot of effort creating them in Choubu. They also include some "Shenmue-esque" elements. Such things as tortoises, ducks and frogs will be making an appearance! [laughs]
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www.phantomriverstone.com

Famitsu Interview with Yu Suzuki | Full Translation | 22 Aug, 2017

A blog on the Shenmue series of games from Yu Suzuki with a mission to translate articles, videos and updates for English-speaking fans.
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