An annoucement about shenmue is coming ?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Hiki said:
In my opinion Final Fantasy XV is a good example that a game story can have a lot of things in different types of media, telling stories that they had to cut in the games or something like that.

About Final Fantasy XV we got the game and DLCs with story, we got the online mode, we got the CGI movie that added more things to the story, we got the short anime that i think it was 5 episodes, we got a mobile game, i think we even got a book and other things.

All i am saying is that Shenmue can have this things too to add more to the story, and we can still get the game Shenmue IV. 😊
Click to expand...
These things would all be nice, but every game that I’m aware of that’s gone down this road concluded the main story first before creating the expanded world.

If money were no object and the story being concluded was already something that was guaranteed to happen, there’d be no harm in going down this road early - but given the uncertainty surrounding the future of the series, spending money (no matter how little) on anything but continuing the story in game presents a risk.

There’s every chance that it could pay off, but the way I see it, if the average gamer wasn’t interested in the first two games (which were revolutionary for their time) back in the late 90’s, they’d have to create something pretty damn special to get people on board now.
 
tomboz said:
At this point in time, I’m not sure that pumping out filler is particularly helpful, especially as they’re seemingly having to cut content that was originally written into the story. It really depends on what Yu has planned for the remaining game(s) and whether or not any chapters or significant events have (or have had) to be cut, but assuming there are - they should be taking priority over everything else right now.
Click to expand...

I'm coming from an angle where I wouldn't mind any hypothetical show to flesh out characters and create new arcs. It's just a personal opinion, but I think that would be better than a straight forward 1:1 conversion of the story.

The overall plot would be serialised, but it could have episodes that focus on specific characters and provide a flashback episode providing a seperate story that adds depth to the character.

I'm probably being crap at explaining what I mean, but it's fairly common in a lot of comic series and TV shows.

An anime or tv series is entirely different from producing a video game... it's 100% story and can be told in a more efficient manner (i.e. no "oh I need 60 billion dollars to progress the plot, I better gamble and chop wood for the 5 hours to get past this story gate"), so the idea of 'filler' or having more back story and character development doesn't really bother me.
 
Reprise said:
I'm coming from an angle where I wouldn't mind any hypothetical show to flesh out characters and create new arcs. It's just a personal opinion, but I think that would be better than a straight forward 1:1 conversion of the story.

The overall plot would be serialised, but it could have episodes that focus on specific characters and provide a flashback episode providing a seperate story that adds depth to the character.

I'm probably being crap at explaining what I mean, but it's fairly common in a lot of comic series and TV shows.

An anime or tv series is entirely different from producing a video game... it's 100% story and can be told in a more efficient manner (i.e. no "oh I need 60 billion dollars to progress the plot, I better gamble and chop wood for the 5 hours to get past this story gate"), so the idea of 'filler' or having more back story and character development doesn't really bother me.
Click to expand...
Nah. That’s my bad. For some reason I was picturing manga in a similar vain to the one’s released between the first two games. In that sense, I’d much rather have a manga showing how Chai came to be in Niao-Sun’s service or showing her formulating her plot to take down Lan Di than a manga to flesh out a character.

If they do go down the anime route though, it would be good to have a series of character building vignettes to pad out the story between the main story beats. I was actually thinking about how they might go about a live action or anime series last night and I think that if they keep the run-time short and episode count low (maybe 6 x 22), it could actually work quite well (although they’d have to do something about the mid-section of S1 and pad out S3 quite a bit).
 
tomboz said:
These things would all be nice, but every game that I’m aware of that’s gone down this road concluded the main story first before creating the expanded world.

If money were no object and the story being concluded was already something that was guaranteed to happen, there’d be no harm in going down this road early - but given the uncertainty surrounding the future of the series, spending money (no matter how little) on anything but continuing the story in game presents a risk.

There’s every chance that it could pay off, but the way I see it, if the average gamer wasn’t interested in the first two games (which were revolutionary for their time) back in the late 90’s, they’d have to create something pretty damn special to get people on board now.
Click to expand...
I understand your point of view, i think all the Shenmue Fans are worried that maybe we won’t get Shenmue IV, and that doing something in another type of media in the wrong way could do damage, we got Shenmue III after 18 years, i have hope that we will get Shenmue IV. Well... i need to have this hope, i love Shenmue so much.

A good example is the Resident Evil movies, i think a lot of people hated the Resident Evil movies, but the movies didn’t have a negative impact on the games i believe, Resident Evil games are popular and going strong.
 
Here's a few facts: Shenmue I and II did very well for basic upgraded ports. Secondly, Shenmue III "met expectations".

A game doesn't just generate $7 million and the interest in continuing the series in *some form* just vanishes entirely.

I want Shenmue IV and still strongly believe we will get it. I think this is a PS5 version with all DLC and possibly a meatier DLC to push the story on.

Sony PS France has uploaded at least 4 videos to their PlayStation playlist today, all set to private. It is possible one of them is this Shenmue announcement. They recently put several indies out there, such as Bugsnax and that weird food game for PS5. They'll give something.

Remember, they marketed Shenmue before and acknowledged how vocal fans have been. They'll probably do it again.

But if we don't get a DLC or game-and the story concludes in an anime, then at least we saw our ending and Yu got a portion of his wish granted.
 
Hiki said:
I understand your point of view, i think all the Shenmue Fans are worried that maybe we won’t get Shenmue IV, and that doing something in another type of media in the wrong way could do damage, we got Shenmue III after 18 years, i have hope that we will get Shenmue IV. Well... i need to have this hope, i love Shenmue so much.

A good example is the Resident Evil movies, i think a lot of people hated the Resident Evil movies, but the movies didn’t have a negative impact on the games i believe, Resident Evil games are popular and going strong.
Click to expand...
Yes, but the continuation of the Resident Evil franchise wasn’t dependent on the movies being successful. Also, you know that the Resident Evil movies made over $1bn, right? It’s probably in the top 20 most profitable movie series of all time.

I don’t think any fan can really make a call on whether or not it’s the right decision as none of us know the circumstances. At this point we don’t even know what the plan is nor who will be conducting it (in terms of whether it is YSNet or Sega). That doesn’t change the fact that changing mediums half way through a story is a risky strategy - even if it’s the only realistic option available to them at this time.
 
Valascaziel said:
But if we don't get a DLC or game-and the story concludes in an anime, then at least we saw our ending and Yu got a portion of his wish granted.
Click to expand...
That would be the worst thing that could happen to the series and frankly I don't believe it is going to happen.
 
In my opinion Yu Suzuki will only give up to concludes the story in the games if he really don't see any other way to make the games, he really don't want to give up. Yu seems really determine to continue, who saw his message in Shenmue III credits knows that.

If this announcement is Shenmue in another type of media i think we will see side stories, or something like that, something that will add more to Shenmue Story. Imagine a side story with Ren or other characters as the main character, or imagine what Revan said, i think it could be really interesting, and we can still get Shenmue IV.

“For as long as there are those who wish to see Shenmue live on, I will never give up on my own personal journey to complete its story. As with Shenmue 3, the Shenmue story is with you. I sincerely hope that, together, we can continue to spin the tale of Ryo and his adventures in Shenmue 4.” - Yu Suzuki
 
Last edited:
tomboz said:
Nah. That’s my bad. For some reason I was picturing manga in a similar vain to the one’s released between the first two games. In that sense, I’d much rather have a manga showing how Chai came to be in Niao-Sun’s service or showing her formulating her plot to take down Lan Di than a manga to flesh out a character.

If they do go down the anime route though, it would be good to have a series of character building vignettes to pad out the story between the main story beats. I was actually thinking about how they might go about a live action or anime series last night and I think that if they keep the run-time short and episode count low (maybe 6 x 22), it could actually work quite well (although they’d have to do something about the mid-section of S1 and pad out S3 quite a bit).
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Either something that fills in gaps and adds to the existing story (Chai and Niao-Sun are great examples on how that could be done effectively) or a series of character building vignettes to pad out the story between the main story beats. Or both. It really depends how many episodes get commissioned and what ground they want to cover.

I was thinking more 12 - 20 episodes that are 22 minutes each, but that might be a bit ambitious.
 
orient said:
But, why?
Click to expand...
It's complicated. In theory, I don't really have a problem with a Shenmue cartoon/show/Netflix series. Aside from sharing some of @tomboz 's worries about an unsuccessful foray into other media potentially crippling the IP, I just don't have faith in these forms of media. I have an abundance of faith in Suzuki to direct cinematography, but pretty much short of Satoshi Kon rising from the grave (may he rest in piece) to partner with Suzuki, I do not have much faith that the end result would be a particularly valuable piece of media.

If we were to assume that someone else is going to direct this hypothetical adaptation, it wouldn't be canon, as far as I'm concerned. I don't really care about the conventional opinion that companies holding IPs determine canon. If the original author/director isn't involved, I see it as, at best, a sort of sub-canon.

Ideally, for me, if Shenmue went through a change of medium, either for parts of the story, or to complete it, it would be in the form of a manga with Miyawaki Kenji. I could see that partnership with Suzuki, given Miyawaki's passion for the series, producing some bold results. It's also a more artistic medium, in general, so I feel that would fit more in line with Shenmue.

I think, regardless of what other popular medium might be chosen, increasing exposure in the West would be a bit of a nonstarter. Even if it had a giant budget to play with. At least in Japan, a manga avoids some of the stigma around anime. Manga has more potential to reach all audiences in Japan, regardless of age. Anime--a term that really applies to all animated works, but just limiting it to the colloquial English usage--is something the culture typically sees as a thing one grows up with as a young person, and grows out of around high school. It would probably be unlikely that a Shenmue manga hits the boomer salary-man crowd, since they're probably too busy reading stuff about philanderous salary men who marry their affairs with food tourism (no, I'm not joking), but I think the audience is much wider in that part of the world as a manga rather than anime.

In any event, I really don't expect this announcement (if there even will be one) to be about Shenmue in other popular forms of media. I imagine it will be something much less elaborate, like a mini web series of panel drawings, or something.
 
Rydeen said:
It's complicated. In theory, I don't really have a problem with a Shenmue cartoon/show/Netflix series. Aside from sharing some of @tomboz 's worries about an unsuccessful foray into other media potentially crippling the IP, I just don't have faith in these forms of media. I have an abundance of faith in Suzuki to direct cinematography, but pretty much short of Satoshi Kon rising from the grave (may he rest in piece) to partner with Suzuki, I do not have much faith that the end result would be a particularly valuable piece of media.

If we were to assume that someone else is going to direct this hypothetical adaptation, it wouldn't be canon, as far as I'm concerned. I don't really care about the conventional opinion that companies holding IPs determine canon. If the original author/director isn't involved, I see it as, at best, a sort of sub-canon.

Ideally, for me, if Shenmue went through a change of medium, either for parts of the story, or to complete it, it would be in the form of a manga with Miyawaki Kenji. I could see that partnership with Suzuki, given Miyawaki's passion for the series, producing some bold results. It's also a more artistic medium, in general, so I feel that would fit more in line with Shenmue.

I think, regardless of what other popular medium might be chosen, increasing exposure in the West would be a bit of a nonstarter. Even if it had a giant budget to play with. At least in Japan, a manga avoids some of the stigma around anime. Manga has more potential to reach all audiences in Japan, regardless of age. Anime--a term that really applies to all animated works, but just limiting it to the colloquial English usage--is something the culture typically sees as a thing one grows up with as a young person, and grows out of around high school. It would probably be unlikely that a Shenmue manga hits the boomer salary-man crowd, since they're probably too busy reading stuff about philanderous salary men who marry their affairs with food tourism (no, I'm not joking), but I think the audience is much wider in that part of the world as a manga rather than anime.

In any event, I really don't expect this announcement (if there even will be one) to be about Shenmue in other popular forms of media. I imagine it will be something much less elaborate, like a mini web series of panel drawings, or something.
Click to expand...
An anime movie could be a different beast though. Anime series definitely (in general) cater to a younger audience and are more commercially minded works but feature length anime still commands respect and is seen as artistically worthy for adult audiences. I'd be more than happy with someone like Mamoru Hosoda being on board with a Shenmue anime feature project, especially given his last work, Mirai, was so mature in its themes.
 
I might have an unpopular opinion here but havent people been complaining about the lack of character development and story telling in Shenemue III? I remember most of fans enjoyed the story telling part in Shenmue in general.

To me a book / manga / anime is the perfect media for slow paced story telling and character development. It usually contains a lot of dialogs and background description (if well written), and I would be very happy with that.
 
So if Shenmue 1&2 is announced for the Switch I'll be extremely happy but part of me would wonder why the hell they would wait so long. Also why aren't the Yakuza games being ported to the Switch. I know I've said this many times but it just doesn't make sense from a business aspect.
 
SeoulIsMagic said:
I might have an unpopular opinion here but havent people been complaining about the lack of character development and story telling in Shenemue III? I remember most of fans enjoyed the story telling part in Shenmue in general.

To me a book / manga / anime is the perfect media for slow paced story telling and character development. It usually contains a lot of dialogs and background description (if well written), and I would be very happy with that.
Click to expand...
I agree with that for sure, especially for the manga part. I prefer manga over anime (thou I haven't read any for a long time now). The non-moving images, often more detiled naturally leaves room for the imagination to flow. Many years ago I remember reading the manga "The Great Teacher Onizuka" and enjoyed it, a lot. But when I saw the anime I didn't like it at all. It didn't have the same vibe to it. The imagination fills the gaps when readin the manga.
 
Sergeynest said:
That would be the worst thing that could happen to the series and frankly I don't believe it is going to happen.
Click to expand...

Frankly, that could be as bad as A Song of Ice and Fire being cancelled after Game of Thrones S8. There’s no certainty that an anime could satisfactorily bring the story to a close and if we get a shit ending then it would just leave a bitter taste in everybody’s mouth.

I don’t mind a Shenmue anime if it would increase interest in the series and allow further games to be made, but it shouldn’t be used as a substitute for sequels unless Yu Suzuki himself is absolutely certain that he won’t be able to finish it, which doesn’t seem to be the case if you look at the statements he’s made since S3’s release.
 
Well this is the week where we will maybe get the announcement, or more likely will not get the announcement and AestheticGamer1 will be all like "oh erm I guess it's coming next week. It's definitely coming soon though guys".
 
Somehow I didn't hear about this until now, and apologies for not reading 34 pages of comments about it, I wish I could say I have the time and energy to do so. Nonetheless I wanted to throw my thoughts into the pile.

Perhaps the announcement will be on the 4th, as much as I would love this to be our Shenmue IV announcement, I don't think it will be. It seems a weird way to do it? Then again, it would come under the category of "unexpected" :LOL: But the wording in the tweet makes me think not. I think it is more likely to be:

- Shenmue III for Xbox, Shenmue I&II/III for Switch. Would love to see it on the Xbox as that's my main console, I don't own a Switch but the more hands that can get hold of Shenmue the better.

- New DLC? It's possible? Baisha chapter, extra side stories for missing chapters/content or character side stories. All of these things sound interesting to me.

- New media - manga, anime, light novels etc.. all possible. Personally I don't think these would be chosen as a medium to continue the main story as it's not even been a year since Shenmue III release to know that this is the only way to continue. We had to wait almost 2 decades for Shenmue III so I don't think after such a short time it would be possible to know Shenmue IV couldn't happen as a game. If it was this that was announced, I think it would be side stories.

Of course... it could all turn out to be nothing/just new merch or something ridiculous to tease in such a way :cry:
 
@ShaunHastings Hey man, just to get you up to speed, he has claimed it is not a port of Shenmue 3 (and it was implied that it's not a port of any kind, which I mention since some of us had speculated it could be a Switch port of the first two games). He also said it's "something new". He also confirmed it's not Shenmue 4 and it's not as big as that, but it's bigger than a novel.

New DLC or an expansion of some sort is possible. I think that would be pretty cool, especially if it's something that takes place after the end of the game and acts as a bridge to Shenmue 4.

A manga or anime series/film has also been discussed.

It's certainly exciting. I just hope the guy isn't full of shit.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top