Is Yu Suzuki out of touch with gaming standards?

currypowder84 said:
I guess you can say he's "out of touch" he doesn't play games and therefore probably doesn't keep up with current industry trends and design philosophies. This is why you get something like the terrible stamina and combat systems. Anyone who plays or has played a 3D fighting game knows that the combat system in Shenmue 3 is horrendous, its the most unintuitive combat system I have ever seen in a modern game.

There's also so many oversights and lack of quality of life things like not being able to skip dialogue (which they fixed), not being able to select to amount of items you want to buy/sell, there isn't even a slider for camera sensitivity, which is unheard of really.
So besides the story complaints, I think the design decisions are an even bigger problem, I just hope things are improved in Shenmue 4.
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Not agree
I like the fighting system of Shenmue 3
And I really don't like the fighting system of Yakuza or Batman Akham for example
i kind of like the stamina system too

" Anyone who plays or has played a 3D fighting game knows that the combat system in Shenmue 3 is horrendous"
If only a guy who worked on a 3d fighting was involve in the develpement of Shenmue 3 ...

"There's also so many oversights and lack of quality of life things like not being able to skip dialogue (which they fixed), not being able to select to amount of items you want to buy/sell, there isn't even a slider for camera sensitivity"
none of this is a problem for me.
Not able to skip the dialogue is in my opinion a good thing (maybe they change that i am not aware of this) it keep the player immerse in the world

Just my opion of course :)
 
And i can understand where the critics about the Stamina System comes from. I am not a fan of it my self to be honest but it makes sense from the Shenmue perspective.

Ryo is not a meta human that never needs to eat and rest and is always the strongest. he is a normal guy with weaknesses. The eating system incorporates this weakness quite well. I

Shenmue is Shenmue because it is different. Adjusting the game to modern day standards would eliminate the Shenmue Feeling. Shenmue is just to unique and special. And it is also fragil. It won't survive a modernization process I am afraid.
 
I think the English VO is a non-issue from here on forward. If S4 happens in game-form, I don't see a Shenmue game having the funding for two voice tracks ever again. It was a thing done to attract some international KS backers who are Corey Marshall fans.

At this point, we can't be certain to get a fully voiced S4 at all. It may well be text boxes with voice acting for cutscenes only like Yakuza games up to Yakuza 0.

And frankly, I don't see the need for two voice tracks. A lot of small Japanese IPs release with Japanese dub and English subs in the West. A lot of JRPGs do it like that and all visual novels get released like that too.

Sorry for digresssing. I agree with Ghost Trick that most of S3's shortcomings weren't due to Yu being out of touch but due to piss-poor writing and clumsy execution like the stamina system.
 
9dragons said:
Yes he is and I am glad that he does things his way. I hate 99 percent of modern games, with their blinking Icons, skills trees, side maps, big but empty meaning less Worlds and so forth. Not to Mention how terrible modern games are with their Story telling Methods. You have to listen to the Story and Play at the same time. I am too old for that. I want have Gameplay Elements and Story Elements separated. Not eveything at once.

There is not a single element in modern gaming that I would prefer over the 1990s philsophy.

But feel free to ignore me. I am just one of the old dudes that say everything was better in the past.

That Statement cannot applied to every aspect in life. In many ways things are better than they were in the past.

But not gaming. Gaming aged bad thanks to the social media. Today People want to so many things that the same time. Games are build that way with their overblown interfaces and so forth.
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Weird because the story and gameplay element you're talking about were actually in Shenmue I and II and made them amazing (especially II).

That's because Shenmue II integrated gameplay into cinematics in a nice way that the narration felt that good.

That Xiuying cutscene with fights in between ? Pure genius.

That campfire discussion with Shenhua ? Marvelous.

The entire CD4 walk ? Unforgettable.

That Shenhua cutscene sitting on a tree and singing ? A masterpiece.

It's because Shenmue II understood how to deliver a superb cutscene direction while remembering it's a game and integrating game design element to serve the narration.

Something that Shenmue III lost along the way.

Yu Suzuki isn't out of touch. And Shenmue II isn't outdated (save for its tank controls that are due to hardware limitations of the dreamcast gamepad).

I maintain my stance: Shenmue III isn't outdated. It's just not good. It's a step backward in many areas compared to Shenmue II.

If anything, Shenmue III is trying to be too much modern. It tries, like new open worlds, to throw you a lot of boring activities but it forget to build a good world around it. It's a big open world that feels lifeless at moments. Even the combat system takes a lot of cues from a lot of modern AAA games, for worse.
 
You are not getting my point. Modern games press every story aspect in t he game play segment. You have to walk, fight and listen to lots story information. It is a burden to listen/read at the same time. in Story telling elements modern gaming sucks.

And you are not a fan of S3 Ghost Trick. I get it. I have no real complaints about it. S3 is one of my games of the year. Tastes are different.
 
9dragons said:
You are not getting my point. Modern games press every story aspect in t he game play segment. You have to walk, fight and listen to lots story information. It is a burden to listen/read at the same time. in Story telling elements modern gaming sucks.

And you are not a fan of S3 Ghost Trick. I get it. I have no real complaints about it. S3 is one of my games of the year. Tastes are different.
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I am getting your point. You said you want gameplay and story to be separated.

And I'm telling you Shenmue II manages to mix both, hence why it was that good.

It's really not about being modern or not. In fact, I think the distinction as "modern" and "old" doesn't make sense.

Not every modern games adopt the same narrative structure. Not even among AAA games. And not every old games adopt the same narrative structure either.

And if anything, Shenmue III adopt a lot of issues from those "modern AAA games" as you say. Especially in its world building. Sure, there isn't any "walking segment while characters are talking" nor "fighting while there's story elements".

But... Shenmue II did those things. And it actually did it pretty well. Heck, CD4 is mostly about what a lot of people complain about those "walking cutscenes" segment. It just did it well. 20 years early.

As for matter of tastes, it's true, we all have different tastes. It doesn't mean we cant express them with arguments and not make fair points about that. And I think, so far, my criticism of 3 has been fairly on point, with a lot of demonstrations about the points I was making.
 
In S2 only small story segments were put into the fight scenes. Not a big load of Story segments.

This is different



than that



In Shenmue 2 you can focus on that what Xioying says. The gameplay is not bothering at all

Unlike your average modern day game like Days gone.

You are riding your bike, and the whole words have no impact because you have to focus more an the riding than the dialogue.

And I have nothing against Days Gone.

In fact its one my Games of the year next To S3 and Re 2. the only open world game i could finish without getting board.

But I still do not like the talking segments during some gameplay seasons. it is just too distracting.
 
I'm playing Fist of the North Star : Lost Paradise at the moment and the opening 4 hours were more boring than anything in Shenmue III. Endless cutscenes, interruptions from non-speaking NPCs, walk forward 4 steps and another cut scene starts, why even hand over control if you're going to take it right off me again??? this is way more annoying than the Shenmue III fade to blacks. Everywhere's gated off as the minimap has giant red X's all over it. the fighting is repetitive and one note, making Yakuza look like Street Fighter by comparison. The game world makes no sense 'here murder carries the highest punishment and must face due process' (I just made 10 people explode outside with my fists) etc etc

Now i'm on Chapter 5 and it's opened up and I feel like I can finally start enjoying myself without being funneled down incredibly restrictive game design...why's it taken the best part of 5 hours to get to the good stuff? Madness.

Everything in Shenmue III is delivered better no joke. Everyone is voiced, the gradual introduction of things to do is handled better, the fighting is way more satisfying and tactical. I mean I can see FOTNS is going to be a decent game but coming off the back of Shenmue III it's hard going.

So yeah I'm glad Yu is happy doing his thing because I would hate to see Shenmue take the modern gaming template. It sucks.
 
Down by Law said:
I'm playing Fist of the North Star : Lost Paradise at the moment and the opening 4 hours were more boring than anything in Shenmue III. Endless cutscenes, interruptions from non-speaking NPCs, walk forward 4 steps and another cut scene starts, why even hand over control if you're going to take it right off me again??? this is way more annoying than the Shenmue III fade to blacks. Everywhere's gated off as the minimap has giant red X's all over it. the fighting is repetitive and one note, making Yakuza look like Street Fighter by comparison. The game world makes no sense 'here murder carries the highest punishment and must face due process' (I just made 10 people explode outside with my fists) etc etc

Now i'm on Chapter 5 and it's opened up and I feel like I can finally start enjoying myself without being funneled down incredibly restrictive game design...why's it taken the best part of 5 hours to get to the good stuff? Madness.

Everything in Shenmue III is delivered better no joke. Everyone is voiced, the gradual introduction of things to do is handled better, the fighting is way more satisfying and tactical. I mean I can see FOTNS is going to be a decent game but coming off the back of Shenmue III it's hard going.

So yeah I'm glad Yu is happy doing his thing because I would hate to see Shenmue take the modern gaming template. It sucks.
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Played Lost Paradise after getting SM3 Platinum. Upon completing it I only remember kids/men/woman/elderly animations looking like they got a totem pole deep down youknowwhere.

Story is written by a blind dog, Kenshiro's OP hokuto shinken struggles to kill stupid punks because every single one has towering HP or defence.

SM3 is a masterpiece in comparison. Shame on you SEGA.
 
I don't think Yu Suzuki is out of touch.
If we analize it, Shenmue 3 is more advanced and modern than many current games, Yakuza included (that still rely on many old customs, like unvoiced NPC, no real time weather and day-night cycle etc.).

I'm glad Shenmue 3 wasn't built around the modern gaming standards (that are really bad in all honestly especially for open world genre), it would have resulted in a poor-man Yakuza or GTA.

I hope they will not change their stance for Shenmue 4, and it will remain a pure Shenmue experience.
 
One thing is for sure,
Shenmue 3 is not pushing the edge of gaming like the first two games were. (Specially the first one)
If we look at most of Yu Suzuki’s works, they were cutting edge technology displays most of the time.
Those times are indeed gone.
With Shenmue 3, that’s in part as a consequence of the limited budget they had.
Although, Yu Suzuki being «away» from the industry migth also be a factor.
 
I think Yu Suzuki was out of touch with what we really wanted from Shenmue, which is more lore and plot development. I am not sure anyone here would've been upset had they slashed the amount of mini games and devoted more resources to better dialogue, plot progression or just richer cinematics with the main cast of characters. I wonder how the original outline for these chapters looks compared to what we got. The 'stamina system' is likely something he wanted to implement from the beginning and couldn't figure out back in the day.
 
Sonoshee said:
Would you find a non-Shenmue fan on a Shenmue forum? :unsure: :p
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Nah I was asking the Shenmue community to view Shenmue 3 with a different lens.

I can respect that Yu is doing his own thing. He did give us the Shenmue 1&2 which are my favorite games. I trust his vision. Even though the Shenmue 1&2 were commercial failures they still influenced the gaming industry.

The issue is if your not knowledgeable about what the industry is doing how will you convert new fans into the franchise? Unless Yu Suzuki is only concerned with his diehard fanbase?
 
mjqjazzbar said:
I think Yu Suzuki was out of touch with what we really wanted from Shenmue, which is more lore and plot development. I am not sure anyone here would've been upset had they slashed the amount of mini games and devoted more resources to better dialogue, plot progression or just richer cinematics with the main cast of characters. I wonder how the original outline for these chapters looks compared to what we got. The 'stamina system' is likely something he wanted to implement from the beginning and couldn't figure out back in the day.
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I agree with this sentiment to an extent, but I think the problems with the writing are simply down to Yu hiring bad writers and have nothing to do with the number of mini games.

It is the programmers and level designers who will have put their time into developing mini games and so, aside from having to write such wonderful lines as ‘This is cool.’, ‘This is interesting.’, ‘I did it!’, etc, the writers will have been free to work on the main storyline and character development unimpeded by however many mini games the team decided to add.

I agree that we didn’t need half as many mini games as we got, but I don’t think having fewer of them would have necessarily lead to a better story or better dialogue.
 
I suppose it depends on the distinctions we make.

As some note, YS doesn't play games. Perhaps this prevents creative stagnation, but it also leads to some common modern staples being noticeably missing or oddly implemented (again, the menu being R1, general menu interface, perhaps even the lackluster menu screen come to mind). One wonders why someone on the team who is more well-versed didn't recommend these changes to him.

More important, to my mind, is the budget. We can tell that there were more mini games planned but not included (their music is in the game), and we know of the shortcomings in plot (I mean what seems to have been intended but eventually cut, not the expectations of some who are particularly critical of what's there).

To that end, this game wasn't supposed to be a revolutionary project for his company's console in 1999; rather, it was to offer what he's wanted to continue all along, now by modest means. As such, I can see him foregoing what he would've wanted to add-- perhaps revolutionary, perhaps 'modern'-- just so a Shenmue game got out there.

(Edit: I suspect one of the key sources of our general disagreement on S3 stems from this: criticizing what is/isn't there, vs. what would've/could've been there, and that also influences topics such as this. We really don't know the full extent of what he had planned. It's difficult to judge by potentialities vs. actualities.)
 
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The screenplay and cinematography for S1&2 was better than S3's. This is because Yu's team for S1&2 was exceptionally talented and Yu's team for S3 was inexperienced, to put it mildly.

S3 could have been amazing. But only if a better, more experienced team had worked on the game.

Yu is only as good as the team that's working under him.
 
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