Bailu discussion.

[Lan Di-sama]

I liked Bailu but I agree with the sentiment that it feels a bit narratively disconnected from expectations. Meaning, it didn't feel like an ancient secluded village built upon martial arts training and philosophy, and felt a bit too modern. And of course, there were a ton of story elements that we wanted but never got.

I would have loved to see the original Bailu village if Shenmue 3 continued as initially planned. I do wonder if some of the "modernization" of Bailu was due to the 18 year layoff between releases. Perhaps Yu Suzuki felt that he wanted to add more of the minigames and arcades as a bit of fan service while appealing to newcomers? Maybe he felt that the original Bailu would be a hard sell to newcomers?

I think it has less to do with Yu's wishes and more to do with the fact they must have had an extremely talented team 20 years ago vs today. Yu was handed 7mil from Kickstarter and had to build from the ground up basically. Some of what was accomplished with Shenmue 3 is quite impressive considering. Still, I wish more of the original team had a bigger role in the game. I think Yu could have used the support especially in the writing department.

 

[CrazyBob589]

So I was browsing information about Shenmue Online the other day, and I found some screenshots depicting a seemingly ancient Chinese villiage that looks very much in line with Shenhua's description of Bailu Village in S2.

Considering that other places like Hong Kong captured in the screenshots look pretty much the same as the original game, I assume that's the original Bailu Village that was half done for S2 or S3 but eventually cut at the eleventh hour, or at least it somewhat represents Yu's original vision for the village.

Here's a video about Guilin & Hong Kong in Shenmue Online:

 

[Thomasina]

That's interesting but it definitely has the look of a mmo.