At least we'll know the rest of the story

I don't think anyone here is advocating for the series to be finished in a medium other than games. But if that SADLY had to happen, which medium would we prefer.

Preferring the series not be completed above seeing it is a valid choice too I guess. :-)
 
Personally, I would feel deeply sad if Shenmue IV is not a video game. The interaction, the choices you make, everything would become linear through the novelization... or else, Suzuki comes back to the books in which you're the hero (Lonewolf and so on...) to offer the choices to the players but it would never reach the beauty and aesthetics of the original games. Shenmue IV has to exist just like the 3rd did before it. Period !
 
If ever Shenmue turns out to be a manga, Jiro Taniguchi would be the ideal artist but that's an impossible dream and I just learned he died three years ago, RIP.

The Tragedy of P & Red Bouquet by Rumiko Takahashi might be nice inspirations as well, especially if Kenji Mayawaki is doing the art.

A novel, with some illustrations, is my favorite option. It doesn't need to be Balzac but there's room to communicate a great sense of realism and journey in the case of objective narration. And novel is the best format to help imagination going wild (like thinking what if Shenmue novel would be a video game). I fear the pace in manga/comics would be too fast for Shenmue.

I'm more hesitant with visual novel. I would rather have a 2D point & click, with more choices than Time Hollow for instance.
 
If a visual novel means having Kenji Miyawaki sprites/CGs, I sign directly.
For me a visual novel would still have to include explorable 3D environments like Hotel Dusk -- so closer to an adventure game -- for it to have any hope of feeling like Shenmue.

I think the budget visual novel format of 2D characters on static backgrounds wouldn't work anywhere near as well as, say, a Telltale-style game, but there'd obviously be a difference in budget there.
 
I’d rather the story went untold and the possibility of another video game being released was always there than have the story completed in any way other than how it was intended to be told.
 
I’d rather the story went untold and the possibility of another video game being released was always there than have the story completed in any way other than how it was intended to be told.
How you define "intended" makes a big difference. If you mean how Yu envisions wrapping up the series now, in 2020, then that's still possible. If you mean how it was originally intended back in 1999 or whatever then yeah...zero chance :p
 
For me a visual novel would still have to include explorable 3D environments like Hotel Dusk -- so closer to an adventure game -- for it to have any hope of feeling like Shenmue.

I think the budget visual novel format of 2D characters on static backgrounds wouldn't work anywhere near as well as, say, a Telltale-style game, but there'd obviously be a difference in budget there.


Well, it all depends of the visual novel indeed. Some are pretty barebones and static, other have a shitload of CGs, sprites with effects like zooming and rotating, 3D and even animated cutscenes.
 
I'd actually cry is Shenmue IV turned into a visual novel! I've just never fond them engaging and a misuse of the medium. I genuinely can't think of anything worse - other than it being cancelled.

I'd be content if the open world nature of Shenmue was condensed and it was done in a scene/level structure similar to Telltale as mentioned but I still would want actual fighting segments and not all combat dedicated to QTEs. Also, I'd still like moments in interiors to where we could navigate was Ryo similar to a scene like in Shenmue 1 where your in the basement looking for the mirror. If it chucked in a few segments like that the TellTale approach would be forgivable.

But I really don't think Shenmue IV will be condensed, if anything I think after the foundations laid by Shenmue III it will only be an improvement :)
 
Last edited:
I'd actually cry is Shenmue IV turned into a visual novel! I've just never fond them engaging and a misuse of the medium. I genuinely can't think of anything worse - other than it being cancelled.

I'd be content if the open world nature of Shenmue was condensed and it was done in a scene/level structure similar to Telltale as mentioned but I still would want actual fighting segments and not all combat dedicated to QTEs. Also, I'd still like moments in interiors to where we could navigate was Ryo similar to a scene like in Shenmue 1 where your in the basement looking for the mirror. If it chucked in a few segments like that the TellTale approach would be forgivable.

But I really don't think Shenmue IV will be condensed, if anything I think after the foundations laid by Shenmue III it will only be an improvement :)
At this point it wouldn’t make any sense to go down that road. The engine is already built and whilst there’s still work to be done, sacrificing the work that’s already been done for a substandard solution would be a huge waste.
 
I think even if the game can be made, half arsed or not. I'd still want the original scripts to be released so we can see what it was meant to be all along.
 
Reducing the amount of VO in the game, like Yakuza, but keeping plenty of NPCs who can speak via text (it's really not that big of a deal); limiting the amount of stores you can enter so the team doesn't have to model thousands of interiors and random little figurines; begging Sega for free or cheap licenses for the arcades; not having two completely voice acted language tracks; reusing music; reusing NPC assets. These all seem to be sensible options that would keep us from necessarily turning Shenmue into a visual novel. I think these are all worthy things to consider if we're serious about continuing this series. Compromise isn't the death of Shenmue.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top