Why the story in Shenmue 3 is good/Why the story in Shenmue 3 is bad

[mjqjazzbar]

(Or why the story in Shenmue 3 is adequate)

I think this would be an interesting debate for us to have. I've seen many rail on the story, including myself, and a few defend it. One prominent Shenmue fan on Twitter claims the story is good; it just wasn't spoon fed to us. I strongly disagree with that take, but I'd love to hear more on this theory.

I would love to see your thoughts on the Shenmue 3 story and how it is told. Even more interesting, how much work will Ys net have to do if they want to get the story up to par with the first two games next time around? Is it a matter of better plotting, better cutscene direction, or something else entirely?

 

[Truck_1_0_1_]

Personally, as written numerous times earlier, I just feel (from what I've read so far) that people expected to get their questions answered, as we have built up a MASSIVE amount of theories and bits of plot that require the lore to answer them/provide resolution.

Obviously, that didn't happen and people are railing on the story as a result; even if it was written horribly (which it wasn't) and there are literally 100+ plotholes (of which there aren't), but Ziming would've appeared, the other 4 leaders would be revealed, things weren't cut, etc., etc., then I think the story wouldn't have been railed on nearly as badly.

Thus, I feel that if there is a con, it is that there wasn't enough lore/backstory content and that's what makes the story, "bad."

However, I feel that what we are given is rock-solid and while it does not answer a ton of the questions we had as fans, it opens up a lot about the characters and fills in the blanks a few past things, here and there.

Thus, I feel that is there are any pros, it is that the characters are fleshed out a bit more and the relationship between Shenhua and Ryo I strengthened a ton and that's what makes the story, "good."

Again, I think the story is just fine and full of a ton of content for us to sink our teeth into and expand a few things; it is why I thing IV will be absolute balls to the wall awesome.

 

[mjqjazzbar]

I think one of the major issues that stands out to the detractors is the parallel between the story beats in Bailu and Niaowau. You pretty much do the same thing in both towns and it's not that action packed compared to its predecessor. There are no major set pieces.

 

[code l name]

People expected to get their questions answered, as we have built up a MASSIVE amount of theories and bits of plot that require the lore to answer them/provide resolution.

While I agree fans had 18 years of theorizing and discussing what we may or may not see, living up to and satisfying those expectations was always going to be an incredibly difficult task.

Yet those expectations didn’t just materialize from anywhere but we’re setup directly from Suzuki himself. Others have compiled a laundry list of story events, characters and elements Suzuki discussed during Shenmue 3 development that never materialized. I just want to highlight two-

The meaning behind the "He shall appear from a far eastern land across the sea..." prologue poem, as well as Ryo and Shenhua's roles in the prophecy, will finally be revealed

There will be "four main bosses," according to Yu Suzuki. Lan Di and Niao Sun are the only named bosses at present, the latter of whom has been described as "extremely beautiful and sexy, but cruel." The only information pertaining to the two remaining main bosses is that one of them is "[a] strategist using more cunning than head-on fighting"

Now I appreciate those interviews were many years prior to the actual release and things change during development. Still my point stands that’s it’s clear many elements in of the game didn’t make it to release and narratively the game suffers for it.

 

[Reprise]

I think one of the major issues that stands out to the detractors is the parallel between the story beats in Bailu and Niaowau. You pretty much do the same thing in both towns and it's not that action packed compared to its predecessor. There are no major set pieces.

It's this plus the fact the new characters that are introduced don't seem to have the same levels of development or backstory in order to allow the player to empathise or build bonds/relationships with them that previous games have. I still refer to those who help Ryo in the climatic final act in the castle fortress as "fat man" and "broom girl". I have no idea who they are, why I should give a shit about them or why they're even helping me. The freaking kitten in Shenmue 1 had more character development. Same goes for the various Grandmasters who are frankly utter pricks. "No, I won't help you unless you go on endless fetch quests". I appreciated Xiuying far more and found airing books out to be a lot more rewarding.

With Shenmue 3, it feels like Yu Suzuki only really had one story to tell "investigate the disappearance of Yuan, tackle the Red Snakes, get beaten by main boss, learn new move via a grandmaster (why is everyone a grandmaster in this game? I swear that phrase wasn't used in shenmue 1 or 2) in order to take down said thug", but for some reason opted to tell that story twice in order to insert Hong Kong #2 in the form of Niaowu.

 

[Yokosuka]

Don't want to be rude but reading the plot involving Lei Fei and Lau Chan in the manual of Virtua Fighter 5 this morning was more interesting than following the story of Shenmue 3.

 

[Bule]

I think it was brave to make the story of Shenmue 3 as slow and ponderous as it was. The crux of the whole thing is rescuing Shenhua's father. Ryo had to put his revenge lust to one side and focus on helping someone else for the majority of the time.

Nothing was ever going to match Shenmue 2's breadth and depth of story. To this day I still sincerely believe that there are flamboyant martial artists somewhere out there in the world, in basements, fighting foolish chancers to the death for mild entertainment. Some impressions stay with you long after you finish a game.

Expectations were always going to be high. I was slightly disappointed with Shenmue 3's story on the first playthrough, but appreciated it more second time around, in part I think due to playing in Japanese with subs the second time, and partly because my expectations had subsided and I could enjoy the story more for what it was and not what I wanted it to be.

 

[iknifaugood]

One prominent Shenmue fan on Twitter claims the story is good; it just wasn't spoon fed to us.

For this argument to hold any water you would have to ignore the MULTIPLE times the story is spoon-fed to us.

It's bad by both the standards of the series it purports to be the saving grace of as well as basic storytelling in general.

 

[swimingdeer]

I will make a wild bet that Sh3 has similar story relevance to the saga,
as Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets has to its saga.

By that, I mean that both has a mostly filler story,
but, I think that, they introduce quite a bunch of elements to the worldbuilding,
without.them being that much obvious at first glance.

In summary :
Sh3 is a world-(re)building entry in the saga.



It is a strange way to put it, but I get that the game is trying to make us imagine more theories.
(Maybe a last hurrah for creating wild theories before truths are revealed ?)

I mean, now, I even have a credible theory for shehua's thug-handling behaviour.
(Just going to say, it's magical and similar to the premise of some manga.)



Basically, I think that the plot is weak, but :
The game is definitely oriented toward building up the Shenmue lore details.
Personally, I'm fine with this.
And, even more when I think back on how I imagined Bailu and the story forward,
before Shenmue 3 proved me how much imaginative I have been, thanks to the first two entries.

 

[iknifaugood]

I think it was brave to make the story of Shenmue 3 as slow and ponderous as it was.

This is a very interesting phrase you're using because (not to be pedantic) 'ponderous' specifically refers to being slow because of weight, so in terms of storytelling it would be the weight of the narrative (say, a tragic narrative about loss). The reason many of us didn't like the story is precisely because it lacked weight: characters are unmemorable, events happen arbitrarily, the history of the first 2 games is basically forgotten, Ryo's development as a martial artist is almost completely reset etc. Remember that this story needs to not only hold up on its own but also as part of the broader story being told; by Suzuki's own admission we're nearly halfway through this thing and we have no idea who the bad guys are or what they want. Hard for a story to have much weight absent that.

It is a strange way to put it, but I get that the game is trying to make us imagine more theories.

How? Nothing new is revealed in this game hence the dearth of theory threads on this very forum.

The game is definitely oriented toward building up the Shenmue lore details.

Again, how? The only thing that gets elaborated on is the history of the mirrors (which, imo, deflates a lot of their mystique as I have relatives older than them).

 

[gladias9]

Why must you tempt me so?

 

[orient]

I'm with @Truck_1_0_1_ -- I think 18 years of theories and speculation have shaped fan expectations of what "should" be in III -- lots of reveals, plot, answers -- and it was never supposed to be the game to deliver those things. It will "look inwards, not outward" -- we've known this for years. III is a more personal story of Ryo becoming a better martial artist, and getting to know the person he was destined to meet, Shenhua.

I enjoyed the story in III -- the only letdown for me was not being able to build more of a relationship with some of the characters along the way. It would've made for a more impactful finale. But on a limited budget there's only so much dialogue you can record, animations you can make, cutscenes you can capture etc. These are the most expensive and time-consuming aspects of making a game, so to say budget had nothing to do with it is just not true.

I know there are plenty of backseat Game Directors out there saying things like "just cut half the arcades and mini-games", yeah...it isn't as simple as that. They chose to flesh out the world and systems -- the actual game parts -- over character moments, maybe because we get some of that through the increased focus on Shenhua. You may not agree with that decision, but to say things like the story points to "gross mismanagement" and a "complete waste of resources", like I've read on here, is an absolute joke and is up there with "Yu's an alcoholic and is cashing in". I can't even imagine how hard completing this game would've been, with the pressure from fans, the media, and most importantly, the budget, which chopped and changed throughout. That would've made planning an absolute nightmare, so to assume you would've done better in Yu's position is some next-level egotism.

There will be "four main bosses," according to Yu Suzuki. Lan Di and Niao Sun are the only named bosses at present, the latter of whom has been described as "extremely beautiful and sexy, but cruel." The only information pertaining to the two remaining main bosses is that one of them is "[a] strategist using more cunning than head-on fighting"

I don't think many people thought we'd go up against all 4 bosses in III, FWIW.

 

[code l name]

I don't think many people thought we'd go up against all 4 bosses in III, FWIW.

Why wouldn’t we, this came right from Suzuki’s own mouth? The qualifier was many of us thought we would get these encounters but unlikely win all those fights (particularly against Lan Di) but the fact we didn’t even get to fight or have much exposure to Niao Sun again I believe is a product of Baisha being scraped.

 

[orient]

Why wouldn’t we, this came right from Suzuki’s own mouth? The qualifier was many of us thought we would get these encounters but unlikely win all those fights (particularly against Lan Di) but the fact we didn’t even get to fight or have really most exposure or to Niao Sun again I believe is a product of Baisha being scraped.

Maybe I didn't read that interview at the time or just forgot about it, but I always assumed we'd get two: Lan Di and Niao Sun, because they were hinted at throughout development. I didn't go in expecting all four and I don't remember that being a big expectation among fans, but maybe I'm wrong.

It seems to me now that the "warring factions" gameplay originally invisioned for Baisha could've been Lan Di vs. Niao Sun. Who knows if that would've been fun gameplay-wise, but there was clearly a lot of ideas that didn't make the cut, that were specifically meant for the end of this game.

I'm not convinced there would've been many more story reveals within that section, to be honest, but it would've at least spread out the conflict that we only got a glimpse of at the very end of III.

 

[code l name]

It seems to me now that the "warring factions" gameplay originally invisioned for Baisha could've been Lan Di vs. Niao Sun. Who knows if that would've been fun gameplay-wise, but there was clearly a lot of ideas that didn't make the cut, that were specifically meant for the end of this game.

I'm not convinced there would've been many more story reveals within that section, to be honest, but it would've at least spread out the conflict that we only got a glimpse of at the very end of III.

That’s a great point, I don’t think anyone else has connected the ‘warring factions’ with the internal fight over control of the Chiyoumen between Lan Di and Niao Sun. Those elements sound a lot more interesting and potentially dynamic than the repetition of the same story beats that played out in Bailu and Niaowu.

 

[Lan Di-sama]

Broom girl was listed as one of 5 main characters on the Japanese website, her description was translated to something along the lines of how she worked at the shrine with or at her parents' behest, they wanted her to marry and stay put or something, but she dreamed of moving on from Niaowu. None of this was explored whatsoever. The only thing that happened with her was she mistook Ryo for a red snake (why? There was literally nothing about him or anything he did to indicate he might be in the gang) and that was resolved within the same scene. The rest of the game she merely parroted the same lines over and over, "Ryo how can I help? Ryo are you going to get the Red Snakes?" And then she showed up with her trusty broom at the end of the game - barf! Fat man also had no development whatsoever, he was basically just a copy of the fat man from Bailu who at least had a bit of a personality. Why couldn't Niaowu have had more scenarios with these characters to flesh them out? Fangmei had 10x more development than broom girl and she was an extremely minor character overall

It was also frustrating how Ryo seemingly magically knew things that were never told to him as evidenced by what he wrote about in his notebook afterwards - such as Feng's name or the fact the tree at Ternary Spring was a Shenmue tree. Yet didn't acknowledge Chai.

I could go on and on about how piss poor the storytelling was. The jump cuts and fades to black certainly didn't help - I really don't understand why those existed, but at least you could get used to them and decent dialogue and plot points could have negated them. But the game had extremely few story scenarios, just a lot of padding, and those arguing the first two games are like that too are kidding themselves.

 

[iknifaugood]

I'm with @Truck_1_0_1_ -- I think 18 years of theories and speculation have shaped fan expectations of what "should" be in III -- lots of reveals, plot, answers -- and it was never supposed to be the game to deliver those things. It will "look inwards, not outward" -- we've known this for years. III is a more personal story of Ryo becoming a better martial artist, and getting to know the person he was destined to meet, Shenhua.

I enjoyed the story in III -- the only letdown for me was not being able to build more of a relationship with some of the characters along the way. It would've made for a more impactful finale. But on a limited budget there's only so much dialogue you can record, animations you can make, cutscenes you can capture etc. These are the most expensive and time-consuming aspects of making a game, so to say budget had nothing to do with it is just not true.

I know there are plenty of backseat Game Directors out there saying things like "just cut half the arcades and mini-games", yeah...it isn't as simple as that. They chose to flesh out the world and systems -- the actual game parts -- over character moments, maybe because we get some of that through the increased focus on Shenhua. You may not agree with that decision, but to say things like the story points to "gross mismanagement" and a "complete waste of resources", like I've read on here, is an absolute joke and is up there with "Yu's an alcoholic and is cashing in". I can't even imagine how hard completing this game would've been, with the pressure from fans, the media, and most importantly, the budget, which chopped and changed throughout. That would've made planning an absolute nightmare, so to assume you would've done better in Yu's position is some next-level egotism.


I don't think many people thought we'd go up against all 4 bosses in III, FWIW.

I’m not disagreeing with anything you’re saying (although there was definitely room to improve the story in Niaowu regardless of budget) but how is the story in S3 good or even well told? A lot of people defend why the story has the problems it has but why does that make it good? (Just to stay on the topic of the thread as these things tend to revolve into people talking about budget etc.)

 

[hyo_razuki]

Don't want to be rude but as has been said before, S3's storytelling and plot development is so amateurish, it isn't even worth discussing any further.

The "as a $2000 Backer, I feel Disappointed" thread, the "Budget is not an Excuse" thread, the "Missed Opportunities" thread on this very forum - everything which can be said about S3's story and storytelling has been said in there.

We can try to find excuses and reasons why the storytelling is bad and how it is because of budget and time and yes, fewer arcade games don't translate into better storytelling automatically and so on and so forth but frankly, that's not very interesting and excuses don't change the reality.

The fact is that S3's storytelling is bad and the why and how has been discussed here in great depth. If you want to read about it, re-read the threads I mentioned above.

Still, S3 somehow managed to be a great game, despite all the mistakes made. I'm probably going to replay S3 one day when S4 is out and I hope S4 will at least partially be able to redeem the franchise story-wise.

Until then, I'll keep supporting Shenmue and Yu in any way I can.

 

[Reprise]

I think it was brave to make the story of Shenmue 3 as slow and ponderous as it was. The crux of the whole thing is rescuing Shenhua's father. Ryo had to put his revenge lust to one side and focus on helping someone else for the majority of the time.

I think this aspect is good, despite the flawed execution, because we're ultimately starting to see that Ryo's lust and obsession for revenge is gradually subsiding, which Suzuki has always maintained will happen.

 

[Bule]

This is a very interesting phrase you're using because (not to be pedantic) 'ponderous' specifically refers to being slow because of weight, so in terms of storytelling it would be the weight of the narrative (say, a tragic narrative about loss). The reason many of us didn't like the story is precisely because it lacked weight: characters are unmemorable, events happen arbitrarily, the history of the first 2 games is basically forgotten, Ryo's development as a martial artist is almost completely reset etc. Remember that this story needs to not only hold up on its own but also as part of the broader story being told; by Suzuki's own admission we're nearly halfway through this thing and we have no idea who the bad guys are or what they want. Hard for a story to have much weight absent that.

I meant ponderous in the sense of being laboured and somewhat repetitious, rather than spontaneous - the writing lacked a fluidity and it definitely felt like a story that someone has been waiting many years to tell. Maybe you know that feeling of a story sat on for too long that doesn't come out quite how you wanted it. I hope Suzuki truly finds his writing mojo in Shenmue 4.

That said, I have to imagine that there was a reason for the slow pacing of the story - and the line of reasoning for me is that Suzuki wants you, the player, to slow down also. He did say that he hopes people play the game slowly. In that sense, it is a continuation of the pacing of the final disc of Shenmue 2, only with all the added expectation that was generated by the ending of that game (which I think Suzuki took some liberties with and jazzed up at the time because he believed 2 would be the last Shenmue game made - he wanted to leave things enigmatic).