Is Yu Suzuki out of touch with gaming standards?

[iknifaugood]

I’m sure that we would have all loved to think that we were donating to prolong the future of the series indirectly, but it couldn’t have been clearer that Yu’s intention was to use the money to produce the best Shenmue 3 he could.

I actually don't have a huge problem with how the KS was run or even the fact that an area had to be cut (though they should have done a better job of damage control). What I have a problem with is the lack of transparency when it comes to the story (does the chapter structure even still matter? how many chapters are there, how many are left, how many chapters are projected to be in each game etc.) because the fact that story is such a low priority for S3 is definitely the highest cause for concern, at least for me. If Suzuki is only 40% done, what percentage of that is S3? How much more will he realistically be able to fit in sequels (he's claimed he only wants to do 1 or 2 more Shenmue games)? Some clarification would be nice particularly since this story has supposedly been planned out for 20+ years.

I’d imagine his intention was to produce a commercially successful game in order to secure the fourth and fifth entries in the series

I simply don't believe that S3 was produced with any aims at being commercially successful beyond the fanbase and if it was, then the answer to the title of this thread is obvious.

rather than produce 3 half-arsed games that failed to live up to his own expectations as well as those of the fans. If he’d releases such a game in place of Shenmue 3, enthusiasm for the series would have died along with the prospect of any future games.

I'm fairly concerned that this is exactly what happened (obviously not the producing 3 half assed games part).

He might have had money to continue, but would anybody want him to? The backlash he’d have faced for holding back funds to create future games would have also been incredibly damaging to the series as a whole.

Not necessarily holding back money, but: 1. advancing the plot to a more substantial degree, at LEAST getting us to >50% and 2. providing a clear path for the future (ie: those extra funds secured by DS, Sony etc. could have been for future games, not used on S3 (it's possible this is what happened but that isn't the picture that has been painted thus far)).

This should go without saying. Calling Yu unprofessional because he didn’t produce the game that you wanted him to seems a little unfair. He did exactly what he said he was going to do. Could it have been better? Of course it could have, but that doesn’t change the fact that his mandate was to use the money at his disposal to try to make the best game possible.

I didn't call him unprofessional, I said he made a bad game. I totally get chasing the dragon of Shenmue's highly detailed environments and fully voice NPCs and abundant minigames etc. I'm sure it was all done in the interest of making the best game possible for the fans. But what was sacrificed to get there was story, writing, character depth, pacing, combat, and a sense of progression, which resulted in a bad game.

Money could have been saved by stripping away things that are a central part of the Shenmue games and perhaps you might have been happy with this (although something tells me you’d be even more critical of such a game than you have been of the S3 we were given), but the vast majority of fans probably wouldn’t have been.

Considering that the single biggest criticism of S3 is with regards to its story and considering that continuing the story was THE reason to revive the Shenmue series, I don't think that making it the primary focus would have resulted in a worse game. I can't imagine a world where we got to play a Shenmue 3 with characters we care about and interesting villains and a deep story and criticizing it because we didn't get to drive a forklift.

Again, should Yu have scaled back his plans to please a minority of one?

I'm hardly alone in disliking this game. Shenmue 2 is my favorite game ever, no one wanted to forgive S3's flaws more than me (I felt like Homer Simpson chasing his pig saying "it's still good, it's still good" right up until the credits) so if S3 is losing longtime fans of the series I would definitely consider that a problem that needs to be addressed.

How do you know that Yu himself didn’t want these things incorporated in the game? Where is your evidence to suggest that he did so to please someone else.

Forklifts... if I don't include them, everyone will be upset with me. [laughs] Forklifts are being readied. This is from 2017, it doesn't really sound like they were something he always wanted to keep. He's said elsewhere that he was baffled by fans' obsession with them.

I think I recall him saying that Chai was one of his favorite characters and so I wouldn’t be surprised if it had always been Yu’s intention to include him in subsequent games.

Not sure about Chai but his inclusion/implementation was bizarre. I wasn't sure if Ryo even recognized him.

As you seem to be having trouble searching on YouTube

No trouble, I'm just getting very different results than you. What are the international numbers for Bloodstained in that case?

 

[iknifaugood]

Ok, so what is the issue with Forklifts and Chai? 2 things present in the series since the beginning.

1. They weren't in S2, so they're not exactly "core" parts of the series. 2. They likely ate up development resources that were better spent elsewhere (imo). The forklift is a brand new gameplay mechanic and Chai is a custom character model with VO who's present in some of the only action QTEs in the game. In a game this starved for meaningful content, that seems like a waste to me.

 

[LemonHaze]

1. They weren't in S2, so they're not exactly "core" parts of the series. 2. They likely ate up development resources that were better spent elsewhere (imo). The forklift is a brand new gameplay mechanic and Chai is a custom character model with VO who's present in some of the only action QTEs in the game. In a game this starved for meaningful content, that seems like a waste to me.

Not being actually in S2 is kinda irrelevant tbh, since Chai was part of the comics included both in Shenmue I & II since original conception.

 

[The Wolf King]

Permission to shoot this guy?

I get a warning but this doesn't?

And not reading 15+ pages doesn't make it 'drive by posting'

 

[The Wolf King]

No one is saying people who don't like the game is trolling.

Much like when someone tries to pass something off as fact without evidence. Eg you saying the game bombed due to that financial projection which was quickly debunked.

It clearly bombed. Didn't chart in the US, sold less than the HD games in Japan and fell out the UK chart after a week and only just scraped into the top 20 in the first place.
They screwed up. Should have been multiplatform and on steam from day 1.

 

[iknifaugood]

The public does not understand the difficulty of S3, also won't because sympathetic to pay for it. If these shortcomings are not corrected, the series will undoubtedly die.I'm not just complaining, but I want Shenmue to survive.

I think this might be getting lost in what I'm saying. I want Shenmue to be better and to thrive. I think the series has a unique draw with its story, setting, and focus on martial arts (something not many non-fighting games are about) and it pains me to see so many videos of people making fun of things like the stilted dialogue, bad voice acting, and tedious progression and then have all those things reappear in S3!

 

[Truck_1_0_1_]

It clearly bombed. Didn't chart in the US, sold less than the HD games in Japan and fell out the UK chart after a week and only just scraped into the top 20 in the first place.
They screwed up. Should have been multiplatform and on steam from day 1.

Clearly didn't bomb, as what the numerous bits of evidence point to AND what the goddamn auditor's report came back as.

Nice try.

 

[WuyingRen]

I actually don't have a huge problem with how the KS was run or even the fact that an area had to be cut (though they should have done a better job of damage control). What I have a problem with is the lack of transparency when it comes to the story (does the chapter structure even still matter? how many chapters are there, how many are left, how many chapters are projected to be in each game etc.) because the fact that story is such a low priority for S3 is definitely the highest cause for concern, at least for me. If Suzuki is only 40% done, what percentage of that is S3? How much more will he realistically be able to fit in sequels (he's claimed he only wants to do 1 or 2 more Shenmue games)? Some clarification would be nice particularly since this story has supposedly been planned out for 20+ years.

In recent interviews he’s suggested that S3 takes us to around 40% and that he would like to make two or three more games to complete the story (although could do so in one if he needed to).

This would suggest that he has an idea of where the story is going and how he might go about completing it in a variety of different scenarios. While I share your concerns regarding the story to some extent, I think we have to remember that this is Yu’s story to tell as he wants. He’s been fairly transparent up to this point, but I think at this point the story isn’t set in stone and is likely to change depending on whether Yu thinks he will be able to tell it the way that he wants or needs to cut things out to bring it to a conclusion in the next game.

I simply don't believe that S3 was produced with any aims at being commercially successful beyond the fanbase and if it was, then the answer to the title of this thread is obvious.

We’ll have to disagree on this point. Assuming DS and YSNet split everything 50/50, DS breaking even would suggest that YSnet made at least $5m back of the $7m raised through crowdfunding (which considering a good chunk of this was set aside for reward fulfillment isn’t far off from breaking even). Perhaps ‘commercially successful’ wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I think Yu probably planned to use the money generated from S3 sales and exclusivity deals to fund S4 and to this end, producing a better game was likely to increase the chances of this plan succeeding.

I'm fairly concerned that this is exactly what happened (obviously not the producing 3 half assed games part).

You’re concerned that YSNet held onto some of the Kickstarter money to fund the production of S4?

Not necessarily holding back money, but: 1. advancing the plot to a more substantial degree, at LEAST getting us to >50% and 2. providing a clear path for the future (ie: those extra funds secured by DS, Sony etc. could have been for future games, not used on S3 (it's possible this is what happened but that isn't the picture that has been painted thus far)).

As you say, it’s still very early days at the moment (they haven’t even released all of the DLC). I’m not sure which picture you’re looking at, but we know that content that was being worked on was cut and we know that the lights are still on at YSNet as we’re still getting patches and DLC (despite the DLC having been in the advanced stages of production a year or so ago). We’ve seen a support studio accidentally post that they’re looking forward to working on S4 and photos of Yu taking photos in China. The picture I’m looking at suggests that they’re already working on S4. I could of course be wrong.

I didn't call him unprofessional, I said he made a bad game. I totally get chasing the dragon of Shenmue's highly detailed environments and fully voice NPCs and abundant minigames etc. I'm sure it was all done in the interest of making the best game possible for the fans. But what was sacrificed to get there was story, writing, character depth, pacing, combat, and a sense of progression, which resulted in a bad game.

My mistake. You called him incompetent. You’re once again assuming that the story we got in S3 wasn’t the story Yu wanted to tell. I happen to agree with a lot of your criticism in this regard, but the way you put across your opinions is unnecessarily abrasive. Take this gem, for example...

Suzuki once again overspent and undersold with no concrete plan for the future, putting the series' life in jeopardy yet again (fact)

Or this one...

I was pointing out how (Jim Sterling)’s videos tearing S3 apart have more views than S3's marketing materials combined.

It’s either opinion masquerading as fact or straight up lies presented as truths. I’m all for discussing Shenmue 3’s failings, but these kind of posts come across as being a little toxic and I can certainly see why some here have taken issue with your posts.

Considering that the single biggest criticism of S3 is with regards to its story and considering that continuing the story was THE reason to revive the Shenmue series, I don't think that making it the primary focus would have resulted in a worse game. I can't imagine a world where we got to play a Shenmue 3 with characters we care about and interesting villains and a deep story and criticizing it because we didn't get to drive a forklift.

I wasn’t a fan of some of the inclusions in S3, but if Yu wanted to include them, that’s his business. Wanting to please the fans who fought for years to revive his series and gave him millions of dollars to do so is understandable, I think. Having a forklift and having a substandard story are two separate matters though.

I'm hardly alone in disliking this game. Shenmue 2 is my favorite game ever, no one wanted to forgive S3's flaws more than me (I felt like Homer Simpson chasing his pig saying "it's still good, it's still good" right up until the credits) so if S3 is losing longtime fans of the series I would definitely consider that a problem that needs to be addressed.

And I’m sure Yu will try to address it if given the chance.

Forklifts... if I don't include them, everyone will be upset with me. [laughs] Forklifts are being readied. This is from 2017, it doesn't really sound like they were something he always wanted to keep. He's said elsewhere that he was baffled by fans' obsession with them.

Not sure about Chai but his inclusion/implementation was bizarre. I wasn't sure if Ryo even recognized him.

As per my last response, Yu clearly felt that fans would’ve been unhappy if forklifts haven’t been included. Perhaps he could’ve saved a bit of time and cut them and nobody would’ve cared, but would the programmers having a bit more time on their hands improve the quality of writing?

I always saw Chai as a Gollum type character and figured he’d always be trailing Ryo ready for a late plot twist. I agree that Ryo’s reaction to seeing him and the lack of Chai’s signature theme were a little baffling, but I could see Yu having wanted to include him.

No trouble, I'm just getting very different results than you. What are the international numbers for Bloodstained in that case?

Try searching for ‘Shenmue 3’ and then filtering by view count. You can also look through Deep Silver’s videos to see the multiple language versions and their view counts. As far as I can see, Bloodstained’s marketing all went through Sony and only an English Language version of the trailer was made (638k).

 

[spud1897]

I get a warning but this doesn't?

And not reading 15+ pages doesn't make it 'drive by posting'

And that's a 24 hour ban. Your posts are A passing off opinion as fact and B deliberately provocative.

 

[spud1897]

Permission to shoot this guy?

Tounge in cheek I'm sure but not helpful.

 

[iknifaugood]

He’s been fairly transparent up to this point, but I think at this point the story isn’t set in stone and is likely to change depending on whether Yu thinks he will be able to tell it the way that he wants or needs to cut things out to bring it to a conclusion in the next game.

I don't think it's unfair to ask what comprises that 40%. If I had to guess I'd say that S1 and 3 are around 5% each and S2 is around 30%, leaving the remaining 60% of the story as two S2-sized games. But as you point out, this is all very nebulous.

Perhaps ‘commercially successful’ wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I think Yu probably planned to use the money generated from S3 sales and exclusivity deals to fund S4 and to this end, producing a better game was likely to increase the chances of this plan succeeding.

My issue is that if S3 was courting wider appeal by increasing the budget, that necessarily puts S4 in a pickle because it had little chance of getting a similar sized budget if S3 didn't earn enough. It's a huge gamble on the future of the series which is why I would have preferred it be played a little more conservatively. I certainly understand the disagreement though.

You’re concerned that YSNet held onto some of the Kickstarter money to fund the production of S4?

No, I'm concerned that damage has been done to enthusiasm for the series and its future prospects.

As you say, it’s still very early days at the moment (they haven’t even released all of the DLC). I’m not sure which picture you’re looking at, but we know that content that was being worked on was cut and we know that the lights are still on at YSNet as we’re still getting patches and DLC (despite the DLC having been in the advanced stages of production a year or so ago). We’ve seen a support studio accidentally post that they’re looking forward to working on S4 and photos of Yu taking photos in China. The picture I’m looking at suggests that they’re already working on S4. I could of course be wrong.

Fingers crossed.

My mistake. You called him incompetent.

I would absolutely consider combining stamina and health into one resource in a game about running around environments incompetent, yes. Is he incompetent in general? No.

You’re once again assuming that the story we got in S3 wasn’t the story Yu wanted to tell.

I'm definitely aware of the fact that the story of Shenmue might not have been as interesting as I thought it was. If that's the case then I would consider it a waste of potential.

Take this gem, for example...
Or this one...
It’s either opinion masquerading as fact or straight up lies presented as truths. I’m all for discussing Shenmue 3’s failings, but these kind of posts come across as being a little toxic and I can certainly see why some here have taken issue with your posts.

In my defense that was a response to someone calling opinions "arrogant to the point of laughable" and "not based in facts". As I said, I have no desire to go through stats on S3's potential failings because I find them depressing. I don't see the outlook as positive; I'm not saying anyone is wrong for being positive. I think Donald Trump is virtually guaranteed to get another term, doesn't mean people shouldn't be hopeful.

I wasn’t a fan of some of the inclusions in S3, but if Yu wanted to include them, that’s his business. Wanting to please the fans who fought for years to revive his series and gave him millions of dollars to do so is understandable, I think.

Again, I totally understand why he did it, I just disagree. I'm of he mind that fans don't know what they want, it's your job as a creator to show them.

Having a forklift and having a substandard story are two separate matters though.

It's a pretty difficult thing to implement requiring new gameplay mechanics, controls, level design, quest structure etc. But it's true that the two are not really related, it's just indicative of what I perceived to be a trend in S3 of prioritizing fan service.

And I’m sure Yu will try to address it if given the chance.

Fingers crossed.

Perhaps he could’ve saved a bit of time and cut them and nobody would’ve cared, but would the programmers having a bit more time on their hands improve the quality of writing?

No, but maybe they could've tightened up the combat a bit more? Again, my point was more that the forklifts are emblematic of a trend.

I always saw Chai as a Gollum type character and figured he’d always be trailing Ryo ready for a late plot twist. I agree that Ryo’s reaction to seeing him and the lack of Chai’s signature theme were a little baffling, but I could see Yu having wanted to include him.

I don't necessarily mind him being in the story, but the implementation left a lot to be desired. Ditto Niao Sun. I think that strong implementation for story and characters should have taken precedence over mini games and big maps.

Try searching for ‘Shenmue 3’ and then filtering by view count. You can also look through Deep Silver’s videos to see the multiple language versions and their view counts. As far as I can see, Bloodstained’s marketing all went through Sony and only an English Language version of the trailer was made (638k).

Right, I guess when I searched it was only showing North American views. Fair enough. I wasn't trying to be misleading, that's just the info I had when I did a quick search. Still worth pointing out that dunkey's review is the highest viewed video apart from the EGS trailer and while it's more fair minded than Yahtzee or Jim Sterling, it's still largely making fun of the (first) game. I firmly believe it's possible to appeal to someone like this with a future Shenmue game and is what I wish S3 was more concerned with rather than pleasing existing fans, given the inflated budget.

 

[Sonoshee]

Tounge in cheek I'm sure but not helpful.

A lot of posts in here aren't exactly helpful lol

Everyone needs to relax

 

[WuyingRen]

I don't think it's unfair to ask what comprises that 40%. If I had to guess I'd say that S1 and 3 are around 5% each and S2 is around 30%, leaving the remaining 60% of the story as two S2-sized games. But as you point out, this is all very nebulous.

I could be mistaken, but I think he may have gone into detail regarding how far the story had progressed at some point between Shenmue 2 and Shenmue 3. I can’t for the life of me remember what he said (assuming that is, that he actually said it), but whether it’s still the case remains to be seen.

My issue is that if S3 was courting wider appeal by increasing the budget, that necessarily puts S4 in a pickle because it had little chance of getting a similar sized budget if S3 didn't earn enough. It's a huge gamble on the future of the series which is why I would have preferred it be played a little more conservatively. I certainly understand the disagreement though.

I think S4 was always likely to be in jeopardy if S3 failed to perform regardless of how much was spent on it. Taking the extra money from DE doesn’t change the fact that any potential investor would see funding S4 as being a risk. I suppose he could have pocketed some of the DS money (assuming they would have allowed this, which I doubt) or set aside a chunk of the Kickstarter budget (which given how many of the backers reacted to the announcement of the season pass would have likely resulted in World War 3), but that would have resulted in a lower quality S3 and would still have left S4 with a relatively low budget. Again, for all we know, this is what YSNet did.

No, I'm concerned that damage has been done to enthusiasm for the series and its future prospects.

And how do you think enthusiasm would be looking if they’d only spent $6m producing Shenmue 3 instead of $12m? I know spending twice the money doesn’t result in a game being twice as good, but I’m fairly certain that the extra budget made a noticeable difference to the final game.

I would absolutely consider combining stamina and health into one resource in a game about running around environments incompetent, yes. Is he incompetent in general? No.

I don’t think that having a bad idea makes somebody incompetent. As somebody who doesn’t play games himself, I’d argue that the incompetence (for lack of a better word) lies with his team for not pointing out the flaws in his idea (assuming it was even his idea to begin with).

I'm definitely aware of the fact that the story of Shenmue might not have been as interesting as I thought it was. If that's the case then I would consider it a waste of potential.

Or perhaps this game was more about exploring and developing the relationship between Ryo and Shenhua rather than progressing the story? I’m not sure they did the best job of that either, but it’s Yu’s call. You can’t criticize him for including things like forklifts due to fan demands and not including the story beats and progression that you wanted.

In my defense that was a response to someone calling opinions "arrogant to the point of laughable" and "not based in facts". As I said, I have no desire to go through stats on S3's potential failings because I find them depressing. I don't see the outlook as positive; I'm not saying anyone is wrong for being positive. I think Donald Trump is virtually guaranteed to get another term, doesn't mean people shouldn't be hopeful.

If you want to be negative, you do you. It sucks that you didn’t like Shenmue 3 and I can understand your negativity as I can imagine how disappointed I’d feel if after waiting all this time I’d hated it. Being asked for facts and then trying to pass off conjecture as fact doesn’t lead to healthy debate though.

It's a pretty difficult thing to implement requiring new gameplay mechanics, controls, level design, quest structure etc. But it's true that the two are not really related, it's just indicative of what I perceived to be a trend in S3 of prioritizing fan service.

Personally I don’t think Yu quite understood what exactly the fans wanted and to some extent, perhaps we as a fan base didn’t either. This obviously isn’t helped by us all liking Shenmue for different reasons. I can’t fault him for wanting and trying to please the fan base given all they did for him in terms of making S3 a reality. Unfortunately, the forklift and searching for sailors became somewhat emblematic of the series as a whole and I don’t think it’s any surprise that the forklift returned along with lookalikes of Tony and Smith in the Rose Garden.

I don't necessarily mind him being in the story, but the implementation left a lot to be desired. Ditto Niao Sun. I think that strong implementation for story and characters should have taken precedence over mini games and big maps.

I completely agree, but again we’re coming back to poor writing rather than a poor choice on Yu’s part.

Right, I guess when I searched it was only showing North American views. Fair enough. I wasn't trying to be misleading, that's just the info I had when I did a quick search. Still worth pointing out that dunkey's review is the highest viewed video apart from the EGS trailer and while it's more fair minded than Yahtzee or Jim Sterling, it's still largely making fun of the (first) game. I firmly believe it's possible to appeal to someone like this with a future Shenmue game and is what I wish S3 was more concerned with rather than pleasing existing fans, given the inflated budget.

Surely this is indicative that the series was already a niche series with limited appeal prior to DS coming on board and that their marketing effort (good or bad) can’t be held accountable for the game not setting the charts alight? Personally, I don’t think people like Dunkey, Sterling or Yahtzee will ever change their tune regardless of what Yu does with the future of the series and I’m not sure it would make a huge difference even if they did.

Surprisingly, while skimming through S3 videos, I did come across quite a few people who had streamed the game with 100k-500k views. From what I gather, these were all sponsored streams funded by Epic and whilst I’m a little baffled by their choice of streamers and the number of people who watched what I’d considered to be quite a boring spectator game, it doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect on sales.

 

[Dietsoap]

Some helpful phrases so people don't think you're claiming something to be a fact:

• "I think"
• "I feel"
• "I suspect"
• "I believe"

:)

 

[mjqjazzbar]

How likely do you think it is that this was still an issue while developing Shenmue 3?

From Shenmue to Yakuza, Toshihiro Nagoshi looks back on an illustrious career of Japanese game development

Sega’s creative chief reminisces on his portfolio of stone-cold classics

www.gamesradar.com

He’s the kind of person that, if he wants to do more, cannot stop himself, so someone must be there to do it for him. Our CEO knew that I was the only person he would listen to. Hard as it was to be asked to do it, I knew why it had to be me [laughs]. There’s only one reason for why the project turned into such a panic. Suzuki had been creating arcade games for so long, and didn’t write planning documents. But for console games, you have to have a blueprint, and it was such a big project.

He had a policy that we should not decide how a game should be on paper before we started making it. But we have to have guidelines, otherwise there’s a risk that we overrun and fail as a company. Even if it was someone else’s game, I learned the importance of that balance once again.

 

[iknifaugood]

I could be mistaken, but I think he may have gone into detail regarding how far the story had progressed at some point between Shenmue 2 and Shenmue 3. I can’t for the life of me remember what he said (assuming that is, that he actually said it), but whether it’s still the case remains to be seen.

I haven't seen anything clarifying the chapter structure in some time. To my knowledge S1 = Chapter 1, S2 = 2-4, S3 = 5 or something to that effect depending on what constitutes a chapter.

I think S4 was always likely to be in jeopardy if S3 failed to perform regardless of how much was spent on it. Taking the extra money from DE doesn’t change the fact that any potential investor would see funding S4 as being a risk. I suppose he could have pocketed some of the DS money (assuming they would have allowed this, which I doubt) or set aside a chunk of the Kickstarter budget (which given how many of the backers reacted to the announcement of the season pass would have likely resulted in World War 3), but that would have resulted in a lower quality S3 and would still have left S4 with a relatively low budget. Again, for all we know, this is what YSNet did.

I can respect that.

And how do you think enthusiasm would be looking if they’d only spent $6m producing Shenmue 3 instead of $12m? I know spending twice the money doesn’t result in a game being twice as good, but I’m fairly certain that the extra budget made a noticeable difference to the final game.

I would change so many variables beyond just reducing the budget (I don't think the game needed to shoot for the level of graphical fidelity that it aimed for, nor did it need full VO etc.). My main concern for keeping the costs low is that Shenmue clearly has a small audience so expecting them to be able to cover huge costs beyond the KS and therefore holding the future of the series hostage seems unfair.

(EDIT) Not to say that this is being done intentionally, just that it's a byproduct of the situation.

As somebody who doesn’t play games himself, I’d argue that the incompetence (for lack of a better word) lies with his team for not pointing out the flaws in his idea (assuming it was even his idea to begin with).

I would be shocked if no one raised concerns.

Or perhaps this game was more about exploring and developing the relationship between Ryo and Shenhua rather than progressing the story? I’m not sure they did the best job of that either, but it’s Yu’s call. You can’t criticize him for including things like forklifts due to fan demands and not including the story beats and progression that you wanted.

I definitely think that if this was the story he wanted to tell then it's not as good as I thought it would be. There were a lot of things in Bailu Village (phantom river stone, the poem, the Shenmue tree, Iwao's time there etc.) that were not explored and I found that to be a bummer. The age of the mirrors was also really weird, but that might be incomplete info. But if that's the way it was always meant to be then so be it. I agree that you can't criticize the game he didn't make but it's totally fair to criticize the beats that were there but done poorly (Niao Sun, the villains, the new allies, my boy Ren etc.)

If you want to be negative, you do you. It sucks that you didn’t like Shenmue 3 and I can understand your negativity as I can imagine how disappointed I’d feel if after waiting all this time I’d hated it. Being asked for facts and then trying to pass off conjecture as fact doesn’t lead to healthy debate though.

I don't want to pass anything of as indisputable fact (to the extent that you even can in this kind of instance), it's just that the suggestion that my negativity is somehow divorced from reality is insulting and not helpful. I mostly want to make sure that if S4 gets made, the criticisms are heard loudly.

Personally I don’t think Yu quite understood what exactly the fans wanted and to some extent, perhaps we as a fan base didn’t either. This obviously isn’t helped by us all liking Shenmue for different reasons. I can’t fault him for wanting and trying to please the fan base given all they did for him in terms of making S3 a reality. Unfortunately, the forklift and searching for sailors became somewhat emblematic of the series as a whole and I don’t think it’s any surprise that the forklift returned along with lookalikes of Tony and Smith in the Rose Garden.

Agreed. Shenmue has become a meme and it's hard to change that.

Surely this is indicative that the series was already a niche series with limited appeal prior to DS coming on board and that their marketing effort (good or bad) can’t be held accountable for the game not setting the charts alight?

I'll say this: I don't envy the position that the marketing team were in. I had a terrible feeling towards the back half of the game that all the interesting bits in the trailer were from the ending and I was very sad to be proven right. Not sure who this falls on but, again, the most successful video game KS ever lost a ton of momentum by release.

Personally, I don’t think people like Dunkey, Sterling or Yahtzee will ever change their tune regardless of what Yu does with the future of the series and I’m not sure it would make a huge difference even if they did.

While they produce content primarily for comedy, I think dunkey is exactly the kind of person that Shenmue could win over with a really tight, well designed game that leans into the series' strengths and abandons its more meme-able qualities. To dismiss his legitimate criticisms out of hand as "someone who will never like the game" is to leave an awful lot of money on the table.

 

[code l name]

Ahhhh good times.

I won’t tell you how much shitty YouTube content I clicked on, hoping to see the embedded ad, only to learn later it was being rolled out initially if I recall like in Europe or Asia. That and finding the ‘Cebman’ footage was legitimate, definitely bring back fond memories.

In retrospect if I knew the launch trailer would show major moments from ending, I would have preferred not to have seen it at all.

 

[高野和泉]

Suzuki is creatively untouchable. But he needs a team who is talented enuf to realize his visions. I'm sure S3 was in part used as a UE4 test run to gain expierence and train up the fresh recruits. There was just too many short-comings hindering S3 from its fully realized potential. One day, a remake/remastered can be an opportunity to amend it.

 

[GhostTrick]

Suzuki is creatively untouchable. But he needs a team who is talented enuf to realize his visions. I'm sure S3 was in part used as a UE4 test run to gain expierence and train up the fresh recruits. There was just too many short-comings hindering S3 from its fully realized potential. One day, a remake/remastered can be an opportunity to amend it.

That's arguable. I don't see anything in Shenmue III that support this. I also think it's really weird that "Suzuki is doing no wrong, it's the team's fault". When everything goes well "Suzuki is the best !" when something goes wrong "The team is responsible !"
And while I agree that it's obvious that some shortcomings are due to the fact that it was a new engine for them and such... There are other shortcomings that falls on the director.

We can't, on one hand, claim that "the man is a perfectionnist, the good things comes from him" and then wave criticism by going all "but this specific thing... not his fault ! they failed his vision !"

At some point, the man is a director on his game. I blame him for giving the "OK" on the narrative structure, the story shortcomings, the design (not character design) decisions, the character developpement and such.

So while I don't think that we're talking about someone "out of touch"... let's not pretend that Shenmue III is the work of a genius that is "creatively untouchable".

 

[Reprise]

What's with the pissing contest? ALL games are subject to things that can break. I seem to remember an anecdote about the original Shenmue where the dev team noticed the streets were empty and were wondering where the NPC's were. They found the bulk of them hauled up in the Tomato store thanks to a bug. Am I nuts? Does anyone else remember reading this or can someone point me to it? I feel like it was in an interview with Yu or maybe a roundtable.

Yup. That's from the Dreamcast Collected Works book released late last year :)