Is Yu Suzuki out of touch with gaming standards?

And when exactly does the narrative loop in Wan Chai happens again in Kowloon ?

It's also pretty telling that you litterally had to trim half of the stuff happening in Wan Chai to reach a similar number of points.

It's also weird how you seem to miss the point, nearly on purpose for when it comes to the narrative structure of Shenmue III.

I didn't point it out as "Search informations" "beat thugs" "find a master" "beat the boss".
No, I pointed out how EXACTLY it is similar. Which is that you encounter TWO thugs, fight them, get defeated by their MUSCLED boss, to then find a master to learn a technique, with a paywall to learn the technique from the master, to then fight again the MUSCLED boss.

It's like those scenarios can be interchanged. The fact is you cant do that in Shenmue I and II. And it's pretty telling that you had to cut out Kowloon (heck, I'm.kind enough to not include Guilin).
Because we both know that you wont be able to repeat that narrative structure twice, which isn't the case for Shenmue II as opposed to III. Hence why you're being disingenuous here.
It’s certainly not my intention to come across as disingenuous and I apologize if I came across as so. I understand exactly where you’re coming from and was trying to point out that if you strip away all of the elements that tie the key plot points together, you could very easily make the argument that the plots of each area are the same.

Shenmue 2 Wan Chai. Arrive. Encounter gang. Train. Infiltrate hideout. Grind for money. Catch Ren. Progress.
Shenmue 2 Kowloon. Arrive. Encounter gang. Fight. Grind for money. Fight. Infiltrate hideout. Defeat Dou Niu. Progress.

This is of course a ridiculously obtuse way of looking at the game. It misses out key elements that help to tie these plot points together. It oversimplifies the key points and sums them up with only a few words when there is much more to be said in the finer details.

In the same way that you see this kind of reductionism as being disingenuous, I see your summary of S3 as being disingenuous and your criticism of others for doing the same thing with S1 and S2 earlier in this thread as being a little hypocritical given that the only reason they made these comparisons was to highlight the above point.
 
Y'know... in Shenmue 3 we encounter and FIGHT Lan Di.. that's a pretty big deal.

In Shenmue 2.. we sorta just looked at Lan Di for a little bit LOL

That said, aside from the Lan Di encounter nothing too great story-wise happened in Shenmue 3.

I don't know why you all are obsessing about the food system which was actually cool... very Shenmue like.

I can live with the retconned banana suit.. at least Shenhua was a lot prettier in SIII.....but the real problem was the lack of story due the affinity system being COMPLETELY scrapped as well as.. you know.... the entire 3rd act of the game (Baisha).

It was woefully apparent that Yu Suzuki made SIII with the assumption he would get to make parts 4, 5, and 6.

That was a dangerous gamble I'm afraid... here's hoping for a quality Shenmue 4.
 
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It’s certainly not my intention to come across as disingenuous and I apologize if I came across as so. I understand exactly where you’re coming from and was trying to point out that if you strip away all of the elements that tie the key plot points together, you could very easily make the argument that the plots of each area are the same.

Shenmue 2 Wan Chai. Arrive. Encounter gang. Train. Infiltrate hideout. Grind for money. Catch Ren. Progress.
Shenmue 2 Kowloon. Arrive. Encounter gang. Fight. Grind for money. Fight. Infiltrate hideout. Defeat Dou Niu. Progress.

This is of course a ridiculously obtuse way of looking at the game. It misses out key elements that help to tie these plot points together. It oversimplifies the key points and sums them up with only a few words when there is much more to be said in the finer details.

In the same way that you see this kind of reductionism as being disingenuous, I see your summary of S3 as being disingenuous and your criticism of others for doing the same thing with S1 and S2 earlier in this thread as being a little hypocritical given that the only reason they made these comparisons was to highlight the above point.



It's also wrong. You dont train in order to defeat the gang. And you dont do those things in the same order either.

Heck, there's not even an infiltration phase in Wan Chai as when you head for Ren's hideout, you're meant to fight in your way.

Not only you had to cut out a lot of elements to fit your point, but you also had to modify key elements to make it sound like the same. And I'm not talking about how you had to grossly avoid any specifics in term of narrative structure to reach that. And even then, you end up with two different structures in term of order.

I see the point you're trying to make, but then again, it's about the narrative structure. Of course I wont include all the plot points. But it's all about the progression pattern and how oddly very similar and repeated it is in III and only in III.
 
It's also wrong. You dont train in order to defeat the gang. And you dont do those things in the same order either.

Heck, there's not even an infiltration phase in Wan Chai as when you head for Ren's hideout, you're meant to fight in your way.

Not only you had to cut out a lot of elements to fit your point, but you also had to modify key elements to make it sound like the same. And I'm not talking about how you had to grossly avoid any specifics in term of narrative structure to reach that. And even then, you end up with two different structures in term of order.

I see the point you're trying to make, but then again, it's about the narrative structure. Of course I wont include all the plot points. But it's all about the progression pattern and how oddly very similar and repeated it is in III and only in III.
You get hold of the lighter to infiltrate the heavens hideout and then have to fight/sneak your way through. You fight at the street fights to infiltrate the Yellow Head building and then have to fight/sneak your way through. Yes the method of gaining access is different, but if you boil it down to the end result as you chose to do with Shenmue 3’s plot, you end up with the same outcome.

Personally I don’t think either plot should be reduced down to this level, but if you’re going to do that with the plot of S3, don’t call foul if somebody else does it with the plots of S1 or S2.
 
I agree with GhostTrick on this point the story was lacking in Shenmue 3, there's no bones about it, no sugar coating that. I am confused why you're fighting so hard against tomboz here, what is saying is true, if you break down the games into a very rough plot structure they all basically follow the same flow, give or take some things. The thing that makes Shenmue 1 and 2 much better than 3 in the story department are the things in between those plot points, better, more fleshed out characters, more dialog ect. I think it s very positive that structurally Shenmue 3 is similar, it gives a lot to the fact that they still know how to structure it at least in the thousand foot view. Many say the writers are bad, I can't say for sure, but I don't necessarily think so, I think the fact comes down to more or less as I have said before there were only 3 writers on this game, Shenmue games even 3 in terms of plot are much longer than a feature film and tasking 3 people to manage that much it's no surprise things ended up how they did. The ultimate thing with 3 is, they have successfully built the foundation of a Shenmue game using a new engine and different technology, they have only limited refinements to perform on the gameplay, Story and characters can really get focused on. Shenmue 4 will be much better and I think that's what we should look towards, 3 has happened it's over let's do our best to get the word out to Yu and hs team exactly what we want to see improved.
 
Personally I don’t think either plot should be reduced down to this level, but if you’re going to do that with the plot of S3, don’t call foul if somebody else does it with the plots of S1 or S2.
But the thing is that you know that there is a lot more in S2, but is there really more to S3's plot ? No kidding, there's a reason why people feel the game used a carbon copy in both sections.
You spend around 2 hours in game to get to the conclusion the player has arrived 10 minutes into the game "the thugs are targeting stonemasons".
Then (kinda yanked in because Shenhua told you to go) you meet Iwao's master (that doesn't tell us anything really new), learn that the bridge was constructed to give the emperors the mirrors.
Then we get the money and fight gatekeep because we lost the fight, and we get the scroll that tells us to go to Niaowu.

And in Niaowu I really don't know, it's "get the photo from harbor" > "gang been making trouble there" > go there > "they are making trouble over there" > go there > "they are at the casino" > get VIP pass > "we are actually there" > get beaten > we kidnapped Shenhua, so better go there > fight gatekeep > money gatekeep.
It's straight forward as it comes, they are using the same carrot on a stick the whole game.

Look at the amount of times the word thug is written in the notebook, and most of the time is "talk to X about thugs" "thugs went Y".

In S2 the flow is Go to Yan Tin to meet Tao > Get robbed > get bag > Find that Tao isn't there anymore > Find the temple > learn 4 Wude > Learn about wulinshu > get it > learn and do chawan signs > the contact gets kidnapped > meet rival gang > money gatekeep > Travel to kowloon > get kidnapped and escape > get cassette tapes > Find and follow Yuan > find zang > find Zhu and he gets kidnapped > find a way to enter yellow building > fight the guys > enter yellow building > rescue Zhu.

They are at least changing the carrot of the stick, you have a variety of motivations for plot progression, in S3 is always "find these thugs" (except the sequence of finding old people to learn about the bridge while the thugs are chilling or something).

You could say that meeting Ren is a money gatekeep and entering the yellowhead is a fight gatekeep, they are not the same, in S3 is exactly the same "want to learn this move ? defeat these guys and give me an expensive item" before losing to a guy that the game doesn't let you beat both times. That's as rehashed as it comes, to the point of "yeah this is the move that will work", the main difference is that in one you have to find liquor (that gameplay sequence is also used in a couple of places else) and in one you have to get the movescroll through a quite tedious minigame that if you don't get it right there's a ton of backtracking.
 
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But the thing is that you know that there is a lot more in S2, but is there really more to S3's plot ? No kidding, there's a reason why people feel the game used a carbon copy in both sections.
You spend around 2 hours in game to get to the conclusion the player has arrived 10 minutes into the game "the thugs are targeting stonemasons".
Then (kinda yanked in because Shenhua told you to go) you meet Iwao's master (that doesn't tell us anything really new), learn that the bridge was constructed to give the emperors the mirrors.
Then we get the money and fight gatekeep because we lost the fight, and we get the scroll that tells us to go to Niaowu.

And in Niaowu I really don't know, it's "get the photo from harbor" > "gang been making trouble there" > go there > "they are making trouble over there" > go there > "they are at the casino" > get VIP pass > "we are actually there" > get beaten > we kidnapped Shenhua, so better go there > fight gatekeep > money gatekeep.
It's straight forward as it comes, they are using the same carrot on a stick the whole game.

Look at the amount of times the word thug is written in the notebook, and most of the time is "talk to X about thugs" "thugs went Y".

In S2 the flow is Go to Yan Tin to meet Tao > Get robbed > get bag > Find that Tao isn't there anymore > Find the temple > learn 4 Wude > Learn about wulinshu > get it > learn and do chawan signs > the contact gets kidnapped > meet rival gang > money gatekeep > Travel to kowloon > get kidnapped and escape > get cassette tapes > Find and follow Yuan > find zang > find Zhu and he gets kidnapped > find a way to enter yellow building > fight the guys > enter yellow building > rescue Zhu.

They are at least changing the carrot of the stick, you have a variety of motivations for plot progression, in S3 is always "find these thugs" (except the sequence of finding old people to learn about the bridge while the thugs are chilling or something).

You could say that meeting Ren is a money gatekeep and entering the yellowhead is a fight gatekeep, they are not the same, in S3 is exactly the same "want to learn this move ? defeat these guys and give me an expensive item" before losing to a guy that the game doesn't let you beat both times. That's as rehashed as it comes, to the point of "yeah this is the move that will work", the main difference is that in one you have to find liquor (that gameplay sequence is also used in a couple of places else) and in one you have to get the movescroll through a quite tedious minigame that if you don't get it right there's a ton of backtracking.
I think there is just as much to S3 as there is to either of the other games, it’s just poorly executed.

In Bailu we play hide and seek to gain information, we prove ourself against the bookie, we meet master Feng and learn about Iwao visiting the village, we go to the temple and find out about the imperial envoy visiting, we speak to the village elders, we seek guidance from Feng only to be told that we are not ready, we learn from the drunk master, we find the tokens and solve the bell tower puzzle to get the scroll and we defeat Chai (there’s probably a few other things that I’m missing).

A lot happens in Bailu village, but it plays out in such a way that it does a poor job of really tiring the narrative together. A lot of the encounters are underdeveloped and the writing does little to make the characters that we meet endearing. In spite of its poor execution though, to simply dismiss it as being irrelevant seems a little callous.

There is an equally long list of secondary and tertiary plot points for Niawou, the vast majority of which differ from those found in Bailu. They’re again poorly executed, but suggesting that they’re the same is a lazy criticism.
 
- we play hide and seek to gain information
The information we gain is "they are targeting stonemasons" which is something we kinda already knew from the first 10 minutes (and what we have been doing to that point), from that we get that there's another stonemason in another place (and then another in another place, then that he's actually hiding in another place).
- we prove ourself against the bookie
To again being told that the thugs were harassing another person, that in turn says that the thugs went to another place.
- we meet master Feng and learn about Iwao visiting the village
Which we already knew.
- we go to the temple and find out about the imperial envoy visiting, we speak to the village elders
That they tell us they came for the mirrors that were made by Shenhua's family (that we knew).
- Feng only to be told that we are not ready
In a 1 minute conversation
- we learn from the drunk master
It was a cool idea, but it's padded A LOT (first catch chikens, then horse stance and chikens, then rooster and chicken), it's even worse in retrospective when we have to do the same technique for the fish guy.
What we end up learning about the thugs is that they kidnapped Yuan (which we kinda knew from the beginning, and he is in another place), it's pretty much the same all over, but now we have a scroll that tells us that the place they took him is Niaowu (which in turn we go to do another wild goose chase of thugs so they say they are in the castle, also hitting the same marks of "be defeated twice, train, defeat these guys, buy something expensive, get move").

Honestly, you really think that's "a lot" ?. You can say that catching chickens really helped ryo, but we never saw it in reality we are just told. 80% of the game is searching for the gang that is in X place then is in Y and so on. In my opinion just learning about the 4 Wude is far more than Bailu and Niaowu (except the exposition dump at the end), if you say it like that to only get the 4 wude you have to "meet master that can't teach us" "help student to regain his way" "get a haircut" "face calmly your fears" "learn about martial artists near" "understand the power of taichi" "learn to train everyday" "cover the ground with leaves" "help an old woman from loan sharks" "learn to do the right thing, and that usury is not good" "sneak into the temple" " learn that important things may be covered in dust and that having a closed place full of lit candles might not be such a good idea".

Narrative is about make believe, and at every second I felt that the game was just putting artificial barriers and leading me from place to place with little to no exposition, games are full of barriers, but in S2 and S1 the barriers felt somewhat natural.

Look how S1 handled "looking for a black car", how much stuff it throws at us and how it evolves, first we meet megumi and the cat (more solid characters that pretty much the whole S3 new cast), if we get it right we get pointed to Shamagishi if not we need to talk to the gossip folks, he says that it went towards doubuita, if we get the exit next to him we will stumble with Tom who is scared to talk, then we need to talk to nozomi to talk again to Tom and it switches to "find chinese people", which turns to find the 3 blades, which turns to find sailors, which turns to find charly (or Nagai to find charly), which turns to find a tattoo parlor, where we meet charlie, get ambushed the next day and leave the charlie lead to follow the letter lead (and in between they throw a shamagishi san move and background with father, a lost old lady, an encounter with enoki, some pool guys, some cutscenes with Nozomi getting attacked and being worried about us).

Now look how S3 handles it, look for thugs, ask girl about thugs, ask parent about thugs (tells us that they were looking for stonemasons, which is basically the "revelation" one hour later), come back with Shenhua to ask about thugs, say that they went to some woman house, ask that woman about thugs (she tells us they were looking for a stonemason but her husband scared them away), ask husband about thugs (again about stonemasons and talk to bookie), meet bookie and ask about thugs but first fight him (it feels artificial AF), tell us to see a gambling which tells us the thugs went to another place, in that place play with kids to ask them about thugs, search a house and find that PLOT TWIST they were looking for stonemasons. I'm getting bored of just writing it, and I'm being as specific as possible because just finding out about the three blades in S1 is more compelling than "looking for thugs" in S3.
it's just as a wild goose chase as searching for Charlie in S1, but stuff happened in S1, S3 Really feels artificially padded and redundant in most of the story development, EX: after eventually defeating the "thugs" (which is basically the only characterization they get) we learn that indeed they were looking for stonemasons and that they indeed kidnapped him, something we kinda understand from the first 10 minutes of the game (and Niaowu is the same, only that they eventually kidnap Shenhua and tell Ryo where to go, because Niao Sun got tired of Ryo's talking about thugs).
 
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- we play hide and seek to gain information
The information we gain is "they are targeting stonemasons" which is something we kinda already knew from the first 10 minutes (and what we have been doing to that point), from that we get that there's another stonemason in another place (and then another in another place, then that he's actually hiding in another place).
- we prove ourself against the bookie
To again being told that the thugs were harassing another person, that in turn says that the thugs went to another place.
- we meet master Feng and learn about Iwao visiting the village
Which we already knew.
- we go to the temple and find out about the imperial envoy visiting, we speak to the village elders
That they tell us they came for the mirrors that were made by Shenhua's family (that we knew).
- Feng only to be told that we are not ready
In a 1 minute conversation
- we learn from the drunk master
It was a cool idea, but it's padded A LOT (first catch chikens, then horse stance and chikens, then rooster and chicken), it's even worse in retrospective when we have to do the same technique for the fish guy.
What we end up learning about the thugs is that they kidnapped Yuan (which we kinda knew from the beginning, and he is in another place), it's pretty much the same all over, but now we have a scroll that tells us that the place they took him is Niaowu (which in turn we go to do another wild goose chase of thugs so they say they are in the castle, also hitting the same marks of "be defeated twice, train, defeat these guys, buy something expensive, get move").

Honestly, you really think that's "a lot" ?. You can say that catching chickens really helped ryo, but we never saw it in reality we are just told. 80% of the game is searching for the gang that is in X place then is in Y and so on. In my opinion just learning about the 4 Wude is far more than Bailu and Niaowu (except the exposition dump at the end), if you say it like that to only get the 4 wude you have to "meet master that can't teach us" "help student to regain his way" "get a haircut" "face calmly your fears" "learn about martial artists near" "understand the power of taichi" "learn to train everyday" "cover the ground with leaves" "help an old woman from loan sharks" "learn to do the right thing, and that usury is not good" "sneak into the temple" " learn that important things may be covered in dust and that having a closed place full of lit candles might not be such a good idea".

Narrative is about make believe, and at every second I felt that the game was just putting artificial barriers and leading me from place to place with little to no exposition, games are full of barriers, but in S2 and S1 the barriers felt somewhat natural.
Nobody’s arguing that the narrative in S3 is good (throughout this discussion I’ve repeatedly stated that I don’t think it is), but brushing aside plot points to suit your argument that both areas in S3 are identical when it comes to the overall narrative doesn’t make it true.

The chicken catching, horse stance and rooster step may not have worked for you, but it still happened and was different from our interactions with master Wei. The clock tower puzzle might not have been that challenging, but it was unique to Bailu and was very different to helping the rich couple to get a referral to the VIP area. Gathering information about the verdant bridge and the imperial envoy didn’t advance the plot too much, but again, it was not the same as trying to guess the animal stances based on ‘those moves’.

Are the key plot points in Bailu and Niaowu similar if you ignore or dismiss all of the secondary plot points in each area? Absolutely; but the same could be said of the first two areas of both S1 and S2 if you boil them down to only the key points. The only difference is that the secondary plot points that help to link together the main story beats are considerably stronger in the first two games and the antagonists are far better defined and differentiated.
 
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but brushing aside plot points to suit your argument that both areas in S3 are identical when it comes to the overall narrative doesn’t make it true.
I don't know which plotpoints I brushed off, I said that most of the time in S3 you are looking for "some thugs" and honestly I don't know how else to call it (even if we know what the thugs were doing from pretty much from the second interaction in the game). Bailu does have the sidequest of looking for old people, it's not as compelling, but it's something (again padded to the max, talk to ye, talk to iwao's teacher, talk to other old guy, talk to Sun).
I think you are really grasping at straws
Are the key plot points in Bailu and Niaowu similar if you ignore or dismiss all of the secondary plot points in each area? Absolutely; but the same could be said of the first two areas of both S1 and S2 if you boil them down to only the key points.
I don't think you can say the same, I don't see how finding the heavens in a mazelike area is the same as rescuing Zhu from the yellowhead building, neither in gameplay, neither in narrative motivation, neither in plot, neither in setpieces.
I can say that for having to defeat a guy that beat you twice, you need to learn a move, and to learn that move you need to rise the ranks in a dojo and buy something expensive is pretty much the same with a facelift (and no having to do a training 3 times or having to do a weird fetching quest doesn't make it different enough, specially because it gets old even before finishing it and feels like artificial padding). The gameplay is 80% the same (grind for money and rise ranks), the narrative motivation is the same (teach me the move to beat the thug), the plot is the same (beat the thugs that kidnapped Yuan), the setpieces are almost the same.

Again, what plots am I missing ? Meeting broom girl to be told that the thugs went to another place ? Or meeting the temple guy to be told that the thugs were at another place ? Is having to chase ducks to find who might have a VIP card a plotpoint or is just padding ? Is fighting them at the VIP and telling you where they actually are ? You really count as a plotpoint Iwao's teacher saying that he can't teach us as a plotpoint ? I put examples of how basically 80% of the first GD of S1 is a redherring, but they managed to keep it fresh, they didn't do that in S3 IMO.
 
I don't know which plotpoints I brushed off, I said that most of the time in S3 you are looking for "some thugs" and honestly I don't know how else to call it (even if we know what the thugs were doing from pretty much from the second interaction in the game). Bailu does have the sidequest of looking for old people, it's not as compelling, but it's something (again padded to the max, talk to ye, talk to iwao's teacher, talk to other old guy, talk to Sun).
I think you are really grasping at straws

I don't think you can say the same, I don't see how finding the heavens in a mazelike area is the same as rescuing Zhu from the yellowhead building, neither in gameplay, neither in narrative motivation, neither in plot, neither in setpieces.
I can say that for having to defeat a guy that beat you twice, you need to learn a move, and to learn that move you need to rise the ranks in a dojo and buy something expensive is pretty much the same with a facelift (and no having to do a training 3 times or having to do a weird fetching quest doesn't make it different enough, specially because it gets old even before finishing it and feels like artificial padding). The gameplay is 80% the same (grind for money and rise ranks), the narrative motivation is the same (teach me the move to beat the thug), the plot is the same (beat the thugs that kidnapped Yuan), the setpieces are almost the same.

Again, what plots am I missing ? Meeting broom girl to be told that the thugs went to another place ? Or meeting the temple guy to be told that the thugs were at another place ? Is having to chase ducks to find who might have a VIP card a plotpoint or is just padding ? Is fighting them at the VIP and telling you where they actually are ? You really count as a plotpoint Iwao's teacher saying that he can't teach us as a plotpoint ? I put examples of how basically 80% of the first GD of S1 is a redherring, but they managed to keep it fresh, they didn't do that in S3 IMO.
You’re right, but I’m arguing that it’s all down to the quality of writing and, to some extent, the lack of budget to expand the storyline in any meaningful way. Take away the good writing from the first two games or improve the quality of writing in S3 and I don’t see much difference in the games.

Let’s imagine for a second that instead of dealing with the Blue Spiders and Mr. Muscles Mk1 in Bailu and the Red Snakes and Mr. Muscles Mk2 in Niawou, we’d instead come up against the Chi You Men and Niao Sun in Niaowu and instead of the Red Snakes hideout being a simple warehouse, we infiltrated a huge building and had to sneak our way through to reach Niao Sun. Do you think you’d be arguing that Niaowu was a clone of Bailu?

How about if the scene with Feng had delved a little deeper into Iwao’s visit to Bailu (perhaps we get a flashback or two) and he taught us a move that he’d also taught to Iwao while he was there?

Conversely, had Ryo learned about the four wude by finding them on the walls of the man mo temple rather than learning them from the masters, the heavens been called ‘the blue skulls’ and the yellow head building just been a single room where we beat a nameless boss (after getting beaten by him the first time), would you be willing to concede that there were strong similarities between the first and second arcs of the game?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, then I think we’re on the same page for the most part. I just think that the plot points being ill-conceived and poorly written doesn’t negate their existence. Reducing them down to ‘looking for some thugs’ is fair, but are the sailors and mad angels not ‘thugs’? Are the heavens and the yellow heads not ‘thugs’? I’d certainly argue that they are; they just happen to benefit from better writing and, as a result, clearer definition.
 
I’m sorry but I’m going to have to defend myself on that count. I stopped replying to Lemon when it became clear that he was only interested in dragging the conversation into some semantic debate about Mario vs. Shenmue while grossly misusing technical terms.

No, YOU did that. Read the original posts. Your trolling is of poor quality. Please stop.
 
You’re right, but I’m arguing that it’s all down to the quality of writing and, to some extent, the lack of budget to expand the storyline in any meaningful way. Take away the good writing from the first two games or improve the quality of writing in S3 and I don’t see much difference in the games.
I pretty much agree with this sentiment and your broader points about structure but everyone keeps comparing S3 to S1 and 2 and I think that's a mistake. If the chapter structure is to be believed, S1 and 2 represent the beginning of the story (basically similar to the first installment of a trilogy) so we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that S3 is supposed to be at the very least the beginning of the second act. We should not be judging it as if it's still the beginning of the story; things have to ramp up, stakes need to be raised, tension needs to build; the main character should not still be casually encountering random thugs for the duration of the 3rd installment of a series with 4 or 5 installments-- especially when those fourth and fifth installments rely on the success of the third.
 
Shenmue is a storydriven game, so saying that if Shenmue had better story it would be better is kinda redundant.

Let’s imagine for a second that instead of dealing with the Blue Spiders and Mr. Muscles Mk1 in Bailu and the Red Snakes and Mr. Muscles Mk2 in Niawou, we’d instead come up against the Chi You Men and Niao Sun in Niaowu and instead of the Red Snakes hideout being a simple warehouse, we infiltrated a huge building and had to sneak our way through to reach Niao Sun. Do you think you’d be arguing that Niaowu was a clone of Bailu?
I say it's a clone because in Bailu you start with Ryo asking about thugs (and that's like 75% of the gameplay) to then be beaten by said thugs and having the money and fight gatekeep to learn a move to defeat them.
And in Niaowu you start with Ryo asking about Yuan, to then keep asking about thugs for 85% of the game to then be beaten by said thugs and having the money and fight gatekeep to learn a move to defeat them.

How about if the scene with Feng had delved a little deeper into Iwao’s visit to Bailu (perhaps we get a flashback or two) and he taught us a move that he’d also taught to Iwao while he was there?
That would have made a better game, but if still the main objective was to keep asking about thugs... wouldn't make THAT much of a difference.

would you be willing to concede that there were strong similarities between the first and second arcs of the game?
Getting a gang boss to help you find the guys that kidnapped the contact you had with Zhu, is different enough to rescue said Zhu from the gang (because you found him for them), it's plot development. In S3 you start looking for the guys that kidnapped Yuan, and end up finding the guys that kidnapped him.
A more comparable example would be if Ren kidnapped Zhu, defeated you, had to train with X (fight gatekeep and money gatekeep) to defeat him, to tell you he sent Zhu to kowloon with Dou Niu, which defeats you, had to train with Y (fight gatekeep and money gatekeep) to defeat him and rescue Zhu, but that's not what happens.
I understand your point, but there's a lot inbetween both, which leads me to this:
I just think that the plot points being ill-conceived and poorly written doesn’t negate their existence. Reducing them down to ‘looking for some thugs’ is fair, but are the sailors and mad angels not ‘thugs’? Are the heavens and the yellow heads not ‘thugs’? I’d certainly argue that they are; they just happen to benefit from better writing and, as a result, clearer definition.
For the problem is that 90% of S3 is about that whole plotpoint (asking about thugs), and 2 mostly reused "training setpieces", I put the examples on how S1 starts with a black car and ends up in a tattoo parlor. They mix it up and feels natural (even if it's all a wild goose chase). You could say that GD 3 in both games is about finding the mad angels and the yellowheads (which isn't really, is about finding zang and then Zhu), still it has a ton more variety on plotpoints than S3. In S1 you need to find a job, keep getting encounters with them, find about the trade deal, rescue nozomi, fight guizang. In S2 you get kidnapped with Ren, you have to escape, you have to learn from the blind man, you have to listen to cassette tapes, you have to follow Yuan, you have to rescue Zhu, you have to get noticed by the talent guy, etc. In S3 you mostly talk to people about thugs and they tell you they went somewhere else.

Shenmue is mostly about finding places, stuff and people, but in this game most of the time Ryo is just asking about thugs. You can say that finding Man Mo temple is the same that finding the altar shop (and you'd be kinda right), but in one is to find xiuying and the other one is to find thugs, you can say that is the same to find wong than to find the bookie, but in one is to get your bag back and the other is to ask them about thugs, you can say that finding the right chawan sign place is the same as finding the right martial arts store, but in one is to contact an associate of zhu and the other is to defeat a thug (and I can go OOOOON and OOOOON, the word thugs is sketched permanently in my mind).
 
Y'know... in Shenmue 3 we encounter and FIGHT Lan Di.. that's a pretty big deal.

In Shenmue 2.. we sorta just looked at Lan Di for a little bit LOL

That said, aside from the Lan Di encounter nothing too great story-wise happened in Shenmue 3.

I don't know why you all are obsessing about the food system which was actually cool... very Shenmue like.

I can live with the retconned banana suit.. at least Shenhua was a lot prettier in SIII.....but the real problem was the lack of story due the affinity system being COMPLETELY scrapped as well as.. you know.... the entire 3rd act of the game (Baisha).

It was woefully apparent that Yu Suzuki made SIII with the assumption he would get to make parts 4, 5, and 6.

That was a dangerous gamble I'm afraid... here's hoping for a quality Shenmue 4.
I'd say Ryo giving up on the phoenix mirror to one of the bad guys was kind of a big deal.
 
I agree with GhostTrick on this point the story was lacking in Shenmue 3, there's no bones about it, no sugar coating that. I am confused why you're fighting so hard against tomboz here, what is saying is true, if you break down the games into a very rough plot structure they all basically follow the same flow, give or take some things. The thing that makes Shenmue 1 and 2 much better than 3 in the story department are the things in between those plot points, better, more fleshed out characters, more dialog ect. I think it s very positive that structurally Shenmue 3 is similar, it gives a lot to the fact that they still know how to structure it at least in the thousand foot view. Many say the writers are bad, I can't say for sure, but I don't necessarily think so, I think the fact comes down to more or less as I have said before there were only 3 writers on this game, Shenmue games even 3 in terms of plot are much longer than a feature film and tasking 3 people to manage that much it's no surprise things ended up how they did. The ultimate thing with 3 is, they have successfully built the foundation of a Shenmue game using a new engine and different technology, they have only limited refinements to perform on the gameplay, Story and characters can really get focused on. Shenmue 4 will be much better and I think that's what we should look towards, 3 has happened it's over let's do our best to get the word out to Yu and hs team exactly what we want to see improved.

That's my main complain about how Yu handled the development. It's like he decided to design the game as he worked with 80 people or was expecting a third money/time extension which would have been a miracle.

I'm convinced that if Yu knew in advance about the final result, it would have changed his blueprint. A less scalable design and rather focused on fixes.

The way the music has been roughly implemented is very illustrative about what happened behind closed doors. Shenmue 3 was a race to implement concepts that Yu viewed as mandatory to respect the "Shenmue formula". The more, the better.

The quality of implementation was secondary because he thought whether Shenmue 3 could not be a good game without them or it would utterly disappoint fans.

Sadly, these elements are so rough that there are always something disturbing in the way they click together. It's possible that the obsession of replicate the Shenmue formula was so strong that it prevailed over the goal of making a good and balanced game.

Not that Shenmue 3 is a bad game, but it commits what I fear the most in gaming and entertainment in general: the nature of not being interesting. A game can be good or not, if it's not interesting, there's hardly a point I continue unless it has very great gameplay. Shenmue 3 has neither great gameplay nor naturally attracting content:

Barely interesting characters, background-less Niaowu, lackluster development for Chinese culture and martial arts, limited feel of immersion, the list goes on.

If you interested in role-playing a martial artist and becoming stronger and stronger in beautiful and exotic landscapes like a hero in a revenge movie, if you appreciate simple games built around the challenge of mastering an economy, so there is a good chance you will love the game.

But if you're not receptive 100% and lacking of imagination to fill your days, the game becomes too easily annoying because it fails to suggest something interesting may happen.

It's important your game feels "Shenmue" but this feel doesn't have to be so formalist imo. I think this is where Yu was wrong.

One of the strongest points of Shenmue I & II was that the character in front of you feels like a real person, not a scripted puppet like in many modern games. Shenhua and the rapport system was a fantastic opportunity to deepen one of the essences of Shenmue in a very interesting way.

Bailu seemed full of potential mysteries as well. You could also imagine more developed relationship with the local masters, that way it enforces your motivation of being stronger so does the gameplay satisfaction.

Nonetheless, I agree that the game was constrained by a ridiculous amount of factors: logistic, artistic, technique, economic etc. I would even say it's likely that YSnet encountered some critical problems over the production and lead the main programmers to crop their planning.

Again, the music roughness is not normal, we know how much critical it can be for Shenmue to emotionally succeed. In Shenmue 3, music turns out to be annoying for the nerves. Kind of a sacrilege considering the OST has been purposely composed not to be repetitive!

Shenmue 3 could really have been a great game if his plan proceeded as planned. Eventually, it did not as Yu played for (too) high stakes. Maybe we are going to get a far better experience with Shenmue 4 but Yu should definitely have brainstormed Shenmue 3 differently imo, especially since he stated that he never thought about Shenmue 4 while producing 3.
 
Shenmue is a storydriven game, so saying that if Shenmue had better story it would be better is kinda redundant.
I’m not saying that Shenmue 3 would have been better if it had had a better story (although obviously this would be true), but that had the writing been better (specifically, had the gangs of thugs in Niaowu and Bailu been better differentiated and the secondary plot points been more fleshed out) the similarities between each segment of the game would have been less pronounced.

I say it's a clone because in Bailu you start with Ryo asking about thugs (and that's like 75% of the gameplay) to then be beaten by said thugs and having the money and fight gatekeep to learn a move to defeat them.
And in Niaowu you start with Ryo asking about Yuan, to then keep asking about thugs for 85% of the game to then be beaten by said thugs and having the money and fight gatekeep to learn a move to defeat them.
I think you’re oversimplifying here and definitely overestimating the percentage of time dedicated solely to asking about thugs. Yes, finding Mr Yuan is Ryo’s primary motivation for much of the game and, as Yuan was taken by thugs, they end up being his main focus, but there are subplots woven into the story too. Short of finding Mr Yuan in Bailu village (which would have made no sense whatsoever from a narrative point of view) I fail to see how this couldn’t have been the case.

Ryo’s primary focus throughout the first two areas of S2 is to find Zu. He starts off the first area trying to find someone who can help him to find Zu and the first thing he does when he arrives in Kowloon is to find someone who can help him find Zu. I’d wager he spends as much time asking about the heavens and the yellow heads as he does about ‘thugs’ in 3.

That would have made a better game, but if still the main objective was to keep asking about thugs... wouldn't make THAT much of a difference.
But by that logic aren’t the 4 wude and book carrying sections in S2 equally irrelevant as the main objective continues to be asking about Zu? I have to disagree on this one.

Getting a gang boss to help you find the guys that kidnapped the contact you had with Zhu, is different enough to rescue said Zhu from the gang (because you found him for them), it's plot development. In S3 you start looking for the guys that kidnapped Yuan, and end up finding the guys that kidnapped him.
Having to grind to gain access to a gang leader in order to get information regarding the whereabouts of the person we spend the vast majority of the game looking for seems similar enough to having to grind in order to receive training that allows us to defeat and then get information regarding the whereabouts of the person we spend the vast majority of the game looking for to me.

I understand your point, but there's a lot inbetween both, which leads me to this:

For the problem is that 90% of S3 is about that whole plotpoint (asking about thugs), and 2 mostly reused "training setpieces", I put the examples on how S1 starts with a black car and ends up in a tattoo parlor. They mix it up and feels natural (even if it's all a wild goose chase). You could say that GD 3 in both games is about finding the mad angels and the yellowheads (which isn't really, is about finding zang and then Zhu), still it has a ton more variety on plotpoints than S3. In S1 you need to find a job, keep getting encounters with them, find about the trade deal, rescue nozomi, fight guizang. In S2 you get kidnapped with Ren, you have to escape, you have to learn from the blind man, you have to listen to cassette tapes, you have to follow Yuan, you have to rescue Zhu, you have to get noticed by the talent guy, etc. In S3 you mostly talk to people about thugs and they tell you they went somewhere else.
Likewise, I understand where you’re coming from, but disagree on your simplistic summary of S3.

Sure, our primary goal throughout the game is to rescue Mr Yuan; but there’s more to it than just ‘do you know where I can find some thugs?’, ‘I got beat by the gang leader, so please teach me a super powerful move.’.

In this game we learn that Iwao visited Bailu, we learn when the mirrors were made and who they were made for, we solve puzzles to uncover an old scroll that’s been hidden away for decades, we interact with people that knew Iwao, we see Ryo and Shenhua’s relationship develop, we search for clues around the harbor and find a solid lead as to who took Mr Yuan, we help a rich couple, we make new friends, we reunite with Ren, we fail to keep those we love close leading to one of them being kidnapped, we lose the Phoenix mirror to a CYM leader and we finally face off with Lan Di. The game is a lot more than just a copy paste, even if the writing and character development leaves a lot to be desired.

Im very conscious that we’re perhaps taking this thread a little off topic and so am going to stop posting here, but I’m happy to continue the conversation via PM if you really like. It seems however that neither of us are likely to change our stance and so perhaps it’s better to agree to disagree.
 
The music integration as it relates to looping & randomly cutting out is really puzzling. Like I pointed out in that other thread, the people in charge of sound design are very capable and experienced. They were hardly neophytes. I'd love to get the story on what happened there (I know we won't). I think that they definitely started to run out of time and were probably pressured by Deep Silver to release the game. Yes, that seems ridiculous considering we waited four years, but consider the difficulty of setting up a brand new studio with new employees and the scope of a typical Shenmue game.

 
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