110 Industries & Yu Suzuki

Valascaziel said:
Ehh, leave it be. We're good and have spoken.


My stress level has been high of late(we have our third child due in May) so it's not been easy street for me, of course, as the clock ticks and things to do continue to mount.
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Congratulations mate, i bet you're very good father. Soon you will get your revenge on the now baby, with horror movies to scare the hell of. No, joking.
 
ShenSun said:
IGN review system

Generic open world game - 9/10
Call of Duty 9.5/10
Linear story game where an adult has a child with him (9/10)
Everything else - 4-6/10

🤡GN
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As far as I can tell, and this has been the case ever since I was a kid, """professional""" review scores largely (but not entirely) correlate with production values/budget (not the same thing but often directly linked) and marketing quality. The parts of a game that enthusiasts largely care about like level design/pacing/balance/novelty/charm/etc, which tend to be far more subjective, don't factor in as much. These are things often referenced a lot in review text, but not proportionately reflected in the review scores imo.

To some extent I get it: they're aiming to be objective when assigning a number, and thus the number is left to largely exclude most of the subjective criteria or even how much the reviewer personally enjoyed or disliked the game. Aside from certain objective criteria like "Does it run at a good framerate? Does it frequently crash or have common game impeding bugs?", I really feel like trying to objectively measure games is a fool's errand and largely misses the point. and then of course sometimes they'll still rubber stamp stuff like the latest pokemon games

A simple thumbs up, thumbs down, or "Ehhh" with some personal thoughts and impressions from a regular player is best in my book. Skim a few of those, watch some gameplay footage, and I'm good to go.
 
I've beat the game on normal difficulty today. Solid 7.5/10 from me.

Somehow the game feels rushed in some aspects. The hack and slash gameplay is good and it feels right, but outside this, there's no very much content. Few mini games in the police station, 5 stages with fighting, 5 bosses... And like it or not, thats all. :) I think you can beat the game in 5-10 hours, but the first time it might be 20+ , because of the replay of the checkpoints until you get better.

The plot is not very deep, although there is an interesting twist at the end. At least characters and the dialog is funny and memorable.

Overall I think the game is good and a nice first game of 110 industries. It does a lot of things right, but has exactly the same problem as Shenmue 3. It feels like a lot of the content has been cut in the end... Or at least they didn't manage to create everything they wanted.
 
Tosh said:
All of this is true yes, and all of it could have been handled better.
But none of this had anything to do with the actual development of the game.
All of this would have been wiped into the shadows if Shenmue 3 would have received
surprisingly good reviews. All of this typical internet drama is out of date
after just a couple of days and then people are moving on.
So its like a unfortunate mix that we got with the PR + game reviews
but we cant blame Deep Silver for being involved in Shenmue 3s production.
Deep Silver didnt make the games features or anything like that.
They inserted more ressources than Yu Suzuki was anticipating in the beginning of the project
and they gave the development of the game more time again and again instead of insisting to release it.
Sure, they could have delayed it even more but a publisher cant keep paying the devs forever and ever,
eventually the project has to be released.
We can blame parts of the bad mouthing on Deep Silver but not the quality of the game.
Yeah i know, we could get a way better project with more budget ... but there simply wasnt a higher bidder
so it doesnt make much sense to think about that scenario.

If we take all of the Deep Silver PR drama out of this scenario but keep the Shenmue 3 game quality
exactly the same, i doubt that the reviews or sales numbers would significantly change.
I'm pretty sure the core audience of interested people would stay the same.
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Tosh said:
We can all agree that Deep Silver didnt have the best marketing campaign ever
and that it was shady to make it Epic exclusive and all that stuff. Yeah, that wasnt perfect at all.

Can we blame Deep Silver for magazines and websites using old assets, screenshots etc
for their posts, news and articles?
Not fully, no. All of this stuff was probably available and stored for the press on some PR website.
If these magazines and websites would have researched for 30 seconds,
they would have seen that those screenshots and videos are old.
Simply by looking at what was shown in the last couple of weeks / months. You just need two working eyes to see that.
So we can blame Deep Silver for whenever they used outdated footage, sure, but not for all the other websites
and magazines on this planet doing the same thing. All of us were easily able to tell what kind of content
wasnt up to date anymore, so why werent the journalists able to see that?

Even if somehow for some unknown reason the updated material wasnt available to them,
they could have easily made screenshots from the latest trailer instead of using material from 2019.
Deep Silver is not gonna verify the content of every news article, that makes no sense.
Also i think that we fans make a way bigger deal out of this than it actually was.
All the haters and people who never were interested in Shenmue just got more content to hate on
but they never were interested in buying the game in the first place ... so ...
Were really all of these Epic PC haters gonna buy the game if it would have been available on Steam day one?
Like all of the hundreds of thousands comments on the internet? So judging by that,
Shenmue 3 would have been one of the biggest releases ever on Steam, right? Come on ...

Did Deep Silver force Ys Net to implement a stamina feature, how the game should end,
how the characters should look like, what kind of engine they should use or any of this stuff? No.
Why would they? Did anyone ever hear anything about Deep Silver dictating Warhorse Studios
how to make Kingdom Come Deliverance, or dictating 4A Games how to make Metro,
or dictating Nine Dots how to make Outward ... no?
As far as i can see, there never was any big controversy at all with Deep Silver
when it comes to publishing games in terms of developers being angry because they ruined their project.
Sure, they canceled Dead Island 2 a couple of times
but Dead Island is a Deep Silver IP, thats not comparable with a third party publishing deal like Shenmue.

Who paid for the Gamescom booths, the live stream events, the interview videos in Japan,
who invited the journalists to play it and stuff like that? It was Koch Media (parent company of Deep Silver)
Deep Silver allowed Ys Net to delay the release multiple times.

And as i said, there are literally Yu Suzuki interviews where Deep Silver wasnt on board yet
or were they just announced that they are on board
and Yu Suzuki literally told the interviewers about all that different stuff
that he isnt sure about if they are gonna be able to add that with the budget they have.
And then surprisingly we pretty much got all of that in the final game after Deep Silver came on board.
I wonder who paid for all of it? Maybe some anonymous donator from Sony ...
or it was the multi platform company that agreed to publish the game ... ?

Was it Deep Silver who forced Yu Suzuki to skip a release on Xbox? No.
Pretty much all of Deep SIlvers games are multi platform, so PC, PS and Xbox.
And same case again, there are literally interviews where Yu Suzuki stated
that he wants to honor Sonys help at E3 by making Shenmue 3 a PS console exclusive game.
Why would Deep Silver make it PS exclusive, that makes no sense for a third party multi platform publisher.

We literally got MORE game because of Deep Silver, not less.
If you look at it from a neutral standpoint, i have no idea how anyone can come to the conclusion
that we got a downgraded or more restricted or worse game because of Deep Silver.
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I don't blame Deep Silver at all quite frankly. I'm very grateful to them actually. It's because of them we got Shenmue III to the finish line in the first place. It sucks that they're not in it for Shenmue 4 but it is what it is. Ultimately I still feel like SEGA is the one who should still be held accountable for Shenmue's future or lack thereof. Sega has all the resources and tools internally to make a Shenmue game if they wanted to. If Sega would just properly fund a Shenmue sequel and have the RGG team help YS make the game, we would have had Shenmue 4 a long time ago.
 
I feel with all the resurgance of nostalgia these days in both film(big fan of Keatons return as Batman here) and games will bolster Shenmue's chances of continuing in a fourth entry.

It may not be Deep Silver, whom I stand by my statement they weren't the best, though they did help.

110i has been very on-the-nose with their teasing, so I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see them do it.


I don't think Sega has much interest in doing anything, even though they should. They have at least two franchises that deserve sequels in both Shenmue and Skies of Arcadia, but they seem content in relying on Sonic, who still makes coin regardless of overall quality.

As far as series' go, Shenmue is still probably one of those with the most dedicated and larger fanbases than you normally see, so that also helps.
 
Valascaziel said:
As far as series' go, Shenmue is still probably one of those with the most dedicated and larger fanbases than you normally see, so that also helps.
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Yeah. But also it feels like you have to expect to game to be sold almost only to the Shenmue's fanbase.

Like, if you want to make Shenmue 4, you know the fans will be there. But apparently it won't attract much out of the fanbase.
 
Guy-ManAfterAll said:
Yeah. But also it feels like you have to expect to game to be sold almost only to the Shenmue's fanbase.

Like, if you want to make Shenmue 4, you know the fans will be there. But apparently it won't attract much out of the fanbase.
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Part of it is that it is difficult to grow the fanbase without some changes but you risk alienating the original audience.

I do think they could monetise the fanbase better though IMO. The Anime being a prime example of a missed opportunity
 
spud1897 said:
Part of it is that it is difficult to grow the fanbase without some changes but you risk alienating the original audience.

I do think they could monetise the fanbase better though IMO. The Anime being a prime example of a missed opportunity
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Yes, I do think the license can be somewhat profitable too. With Spin Off products, like the anime, a manga, novels, small spinoff games etc that the fans would jump onto, as well as bringing new fans thanks to a different take on the universe and using those profits to develop the main storyline games. And those game can be profitable and successful if you don't expect 35 millions game sold. As seen with Shenmue 3, it can have its fair share of success, even if it's not critically acclaimed.
 
spud1897 said:
Part of it is that it is difficult to grow the fanbase without some changes but you risk alienating the original audience.

I do think they could monetise the fanbase better though IMO. The Anime being a prime example of a missed opportunity
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This is a good point. The original NiER was nowhere near the same style as its unexpected sequel.

The gameplay was significantly altered, which attracted a lot of action fans to the series and revitalized it.

Changing Shenmue that much could alienate its core audience, which I don't think Suzuki is willing to really do.

I say that because NiER Automata really never interested my wife, as she felt a lot of what made the original so special wasn't inherent to the new game(even though it was very good).
 
There's plenty of space to alter gameplay while keeping the core intact or at least very familiar.
It needs to keep the whodunnit mechanics, talking to people, taking notes, looking for places...
Then the fighting, training and npc interaction (all those involving AI) could be seriously altered. It could be a beautiful coincidence, with Ryo becoming more Akira Yuki concerning his fight style/moves and spirit in S2 first, S3 later and now S4 including the Virtua Fighter system (there's chances for it). That addition/change only, would attract many new players to the series and we the pretorian guard get VF RPG, almost, at last. And Shenmue 4.
 
He does still have his exclusive Shenmue 3 picture pinned on his twitter (from 2018). He is very active on twitter and has done a lot of work since Shenmue 3 including his own manga. I would think he would have had many other options to “pin” at the top of his feed over the past 4-5 years. Probably over analyzing, but I think this points to him knowing something is going on behind the scenes that he can’t discuss yet.
 
ShenSam said:
As Cedric always responded to my tweets those latest years, I try my chance again today :

View attachment 17787

"Could we hope for any news in the Shenmue universe for the following months ?"

Hope he'll answer ^^
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ShenSam said:
So he answered :
View attachment 17788

Cedric : "Hello, I can't really answer to this question. I hope so, in any case"

Seems Cedric isn't on the boat anymore concerning the future of shenmue

Will ask the same question to any potential shenmue interactors in the next days
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Thanks man! Really appreciate it!
 
I haven't seen such a media blackout for a game sequel in a long time. Nobody knows anything, nobody can answer questions. Still, they are hoping for something. In the end еverything is possible, both the worst case scenario and the best. Тotal madness! :LOL:
 
I don't even think Yu Suzuki has any desire to make the game. It's been nearly 3 and a half years since Shenmue 3 was released without so much as a word on the series' future.
 
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Right.

I get that the dream happened, etc., but we're all in our 30s or older. YS is in his mid 60s. At some point the dream continues or it dies.... going 3 1/2 years without a comment about a sequel or even a real in-depth interview about Shenmue 3 development is pretty weird and not encouraging... I get having to keep contracts secretive, but this series lives and dies on the fan base and they're not doing much to keep me involved.
 
mjqjazzbar said:
Right.

I get that the dream happened, etc., but we're all in our 30s or older. YS is in his mid 60s. At some point the dream continues or it dies.... going 3 1/2 years without a comment about a sequel or even a real in-depth interview about Shenmue 3 development is pretty weird and not encouraging... I get having to keep contracts secretive, but this series lives and dies on the fan base and they're not doing much to keep me involved.
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Very well stated. At this point the radio silence is getting weird.
Oh wait, but we have some trolls from 110 industries teasing us on Twitter! That's definitely gotta mean something right?! 🤦‍♂️
 
mjqjazzbar said:
Right.

I get that the dream happened, etc., but we're all in our 30s or older. YS is in his mid 60s. At some point the dream continues or it dies.... going 3 1/2 years without a comment about a sequel or even a real in-depth interview about Shenmue 3 development is pretty weird and not encouraging... I get having to keep contracts secretive, but this series lives and dies on the fan base and they're not doing much to keep me involved.
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I get the frustration and as someone who is working to put out Shenmue content regularly I do have my moments where I really do wish we had more to go on.

The way I see it is we've a choice. Make them update us by staying active or just go quiet and let things die.

Despite my own frustrations I know what I'm doing. That said I've been trying to nail down an interview with YSNET for a while now and I will mention the above should I get it.
 
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