Better than Shenmue 1&2: Your thoughts?

While I think Shenmue III is underrated and underappreciated, nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can beat Shenmue II for me. It's the best game in the world!

I do however agree that on the whole Shenmue III is better than Shenmue I.
 
The funny thing is Zero Chan is a fellow Virtua Fighter 5 tournament player. I've seen her around at a lot of tournaments like Sega Cup. Let's be real, she hated everything about Shenmue 3. She gave the game a 5 out of ten for Christ's sake. She wanted to run to Hermits Nest( a closed off area at the games outset) and beat down the two Blue Spiders in 16 minutes lol. She literally said that . Read the article carefully ok? Thanks.

Let's me make it clear, because people are getting the point muddled: Yu Suzuki closing off areas further because of complaints about invisible walls is the wrong response. If the people want the area to be more open world just open the world up more, let them wander and explore to their hearts content. Why is Ryo doing an about face every time he approaches an area boarder further in the first place? How does he know what he is looking for in in the village square? So he has to stay there for 2 hours? Does he have spider sense? Making Ryo about face at every invisible wall takes away player agency. Adding real physical walls to the area is not a solution. It's more like pouring water on a grease fire. My concern isn't "oh smaller areas are so terrible and claustrophobic" it's more like that's pretty much the opposite of a solution for Shenmue 4. If he keeps that up Zero Chan is going to rate Shenmue 4 a 2.5 out of ten. Nobody wants that.
 
The funny thing is Zero Chan is a fellow Virtua Fighter 5 tournament player. I've seen her around at a lot of tournaments like Sega Cup. Let's be real, she hated everything about Shenmue 3. She gave the game a 5 out of ten for Christ's sake. She wanted to run to Hermits Nest( a closed off area at the games outset) and beat down the two Blue Spiders in 16 minutes lol. She literally said that . Read the article carefully ok? Thanks.

Let's me make it clear, because people are getting the point muddled: Yu Suzuki closing off areas further because of complaints about invisible walls is the wrong response. If the people want the area to be more open world just open the world up more, let them wander and explore to their hearts content. Why is Ryo doing an about face every time he approaches an area boarder further in the first place? How does he know what he is looking for in in the village square? So he has to stay there for 2 hours? Does he have spider sense? Making Ryo about face at every invisible wall takes away player agency. Adding real physical walls to the area is not a solution. It's more like pouring water on a grease fire. My concern isn't "oh smaller areas are so terrible and claustrophobic" it's more like that's pretty much the opposite of a solution for Shenmue 4. If he keeps that up Zero Chan is going to rate Shenmue 4 a 2.5 out of ten. Nobody wants that.
Now I actually agree with the walls in Shenmue III, why are they there? You could explore and then only trigger the story when ready. This also feeds into players having the option to finish a game quickly 1.5x faster it they so wish)

What Shenmue 4 needs to do is allow the player to choose what they do within whatever area it is in. Do they hammer story or do they do some side stuff, explore play mini-games etc. However the story itself needs to be fleshed out more so then Shenmue III.

But wanting to hammer through story as a quick as you can is typical of some gamers this generation. Attention span is limited so they want instant gratification. Shenmue is not the game to do that as the idea of it is to engrossed yourself in the world. Give the player options to focus solely on the story if they wish but not at the expense of the core feel.

If they make the world more enclosed and encourage exploration then that's all cool. If its smaller but fully open from the offset that works for me.
 
@xatruio the only old Shenmue activity that seems out of place in Shenmue 3 is turtle racing. When I first played the Shen 3 Kickstarter Backer demo on PC, and turtle racing was in it, I was like WTF, this should have stayed on the Dreamcast. There's no way a grown man is going to want to race turtles that move at like .0000000005 miles per hour. Everything else that made it over from the old games is freaking great, yes, even Lucky Hit.
I always assumed the Turtle racing was a joke.
This is slightly part of the problem of the 3rd game for me - the self knowing in-jokes etc. This often happens to series (see Star Wars or any later series of a sitcom), they start relying on nostalgia, nods and in-jokes as method of world building. It can seem instantly gratifying but it leaves a hollow feeling as it basically just goes "please see Shenmue 1".

I'm really really happy with the statement that Shenmue 3 was for the fans and Shenmue 4 won't be. There was sickening parts of fan service in Shenmue 3 (Why is Chai there, why does the first "thug" look like the Tattoo artist from S1, why are there pictures of S1 characters in my hotel (ITS A PORT - GET IT!), even the forklifts felt really just stuck on like "heres some forkifts!".
 
The funny thing is Zero Chan is a fellow Virtua Fighter 5 tournament player. I've seen her around at a lot of tournaments like Sega Cup. Let's be real, she hated everything about Shenmue 3. She gave the game a 5 out of ten for Christ's sake. She wanted to run to Hermits Nest( a closed off area at the games outset) and beat down the two Blue Spiders in 16 minutes lol. She literally said that . Read the article carefully ok? Thanks.

Let's me make it clear, because people are getting the point muddled: Yu Suzuki closing off areas further because of complaints about invisible walls is the wrong response. If the people want the area to be more open world just open the world up more, let them wander and explore to their hearts content. Why is Ryo doing an about face every time he approaches an area boarder further in the first place? How does he know what he is looking for in in the village square? So he has to stay there for 2 hours? Does he have spider sense? Making Ryo about face at every invisible wall takes away player agency. Adding real physical walls to the area is not a solution. It's more like pouring water on a grease fire. My concern isn't "oh smaller areas are so terrible and claustrophobic" it's more like that's pretty much the opposite of a solution for Shenmue 4. If he keeps that up Zero Chan is going to rate Shenmue 4 a 2.5 out of ten. Nobody wants that.
It depends if he means the areas will be more naturally broken up rather than with "invisible walls" - that includes the combat, there are no impossible battles in Shenmue 1&2 (the only one I can think of is where you get captured with Ren). I actually beat some of those bosses before you were meant to but it basically just goes to the cutscene and you get any tiger power restored after waking up.

The old solution of S1 of "i dont need to go there" isn't really a good solution. But to keep the narative tight and not a plain open world game (which are fun but tend to be a bit of a piss-about sandbox rather than this) it needs to keep the areas small. This may relate to world design or putting proper story mechanics in place that stop you from leaving an area. Bailu was awful for this (in fact the first 3-4 hours of Shenmue 3 are pretty bad. It gets a lot better but the worst part of the game is at the start.)
 
I agree completely Spud1897. Gamers these days are all hungry for instant gratification. Thats where a lot of the complaints against Shenmue 3 spawn from: a complete and total lack of patience. There should be a disclaimer when you start up Shenmue 3 so gamers know what they are signing up for. This game is not Assasins Creed nor is it Final Fight or Streets of Rage.
 
It's refreshing to see a positive thread about S3 without having it descend into S3 bashing and calling the OP a troll for having his opinion. It's also nice that some folks aren't totally blinded by their own dislike (or hate) for S3 to the extent of questioning a differing opinion's authenticity.

Oh wait... never mind.


So in many ways I do enjoy the gameplay mechanics of S3 more than S1. The training mini games are fun, chopping wood, fishing, whackamole, etc are all great additions and went some way to making me feel more immersed. I spent many an hour in an empty parking lot or in the dojo levelling up my moves and while there was a sense of achievement once you maxed it all out, I really liked the Kung Fu meter in 3 more-so. It encouraged me not to grind the levelling up, but instead to do a bit of training every day, (or a few times a day). The environments, especially in Bailu, are superior to anything in S1 too. When I first saw the fields of flowers after the intro, I instantly fell in love with the scene.

At the moment, and I reserve the right to change my mind, I would say I prefer S3 over S1. Personally speaking, nothing will ever top S2 (unless IV and/or V do), as it is by far my favourite game of all time. It was the first Shenmue game I played on the DC, and that which initiated my obsession with the series. But contrary to another poster's damning statement, I will be playing S3 again and again down the line.

One last thing- Some people seem to be misinterpreting what Yu is referring to when he talks about smaller spaces. Whilst developing Kowloon they had to make the streets, passageways and corridors wider than what they had started off with, because Ryo would get stuck and manoeuvring became nigh impossible. This is what he wants to improve on and make work, and he's quite straight forward when he explains it. So I don't think it has anything to do with invisible walls blocking off areas.


Edit: And as for what Zero Chan scores III or IV, I really don't care in the slightest. Doesn't affect me in any way whatsoever.
 
Bailu is the best section of Shenmue III for me.
Completly with you guys on this one. Bailu was definitely on par with all the other locations in the Shenmue series. It brought that home feel of Yokosuka in Shenmue 1.
Niwao in terms of astetics, arquitecture and natural beauty is for me the best in the series, but at the same time feels empty most of the times. If it had turned out to be like Hong Kong in Shenmue 2 it would easily become my favorite location in the series. But at the end of the day for me what matters is quality over quantity, so I would rather have much smaller Niwao that feels alive with interesting npc's than have big city full of empty streets, shops and restaurants.
 
The fact that reviewers hate the invisible walls in Shenmue 3 is because they were there 18 years ago , and Suzuki felt no compulsion to update that design choice for 2019.
There's definitely some truth to this. I would also add that the mission design in S3 needs some granularity. In S1, your objective morphs from finding about Lan Di, to finding about Master Chen, the Mirrors, the Mad Angels etc. there's more to discover than just the main goal. In S2, the initial goal is to find Lishao Tao and then Yuanda Zhu but there's so much more in between from the four Wude, to Ren, to the Yellowheads and then beyond to Guilin. S3 begins with Yuan missing and ends with you finding Yuan; the lack of secondary objectives makes it feel like there is very little progress when S3 arguably moves the plot forward more than the first 2 games. I would say that this is far more important than the size of the areas, I actually found Niaowu to be too big for its own good.
 
But wanting to hammer through story as a quick as you can is typical of some gamers this generation. Attention span is limited so they want instant gratification. Shenmue is not the game to do that as the idea of it is to engrossed yourself in the world. Give the player options to focus solely on the story if they wish but not at the expense of the core feel.
You hit the nail on the head here. While I disagree with attention spans and the notion that gamers have somehow "changed" (there were ultra ADHD arcade games in the 80s and there are 100+ hour RPGs today), the idea that Shenmue needs to open itself to different play styles is exactly right and was the direction that S2 was moving compared with S1. In S1, the game will stop and force the player to "kill time" for lack of a better word, because it wanted you to explore the world or whatever and on my latest replay, I would run to the next location and then just Alt-tab to do something else while the time ticked away. The game was attempting to force me to appreciate it, but that seldom works (especially nowadays with cell phones). Look at BotW; that game offers tremendous player choice and is suuuuuper slow for the most part, but it doesn't feel like a slog because at nearly any time you're in total control of the pacing except for one time: when it rains. It's the universal complaint of BotW, that when it rains, your progress is basically stopped and you have to just wait it out. The more Shenmue can distance itself from the "my way or the highway" attitude, the more appealing it will be.
 
@ Sh3ppy, no you are getting two things mixed up. First Yu Suzuki mused on the idea of making Shenmue 4 a "beautiful small area game" rather than a beautiful open world game . In this response: Screenshot_2020-05-13-18-24-49.pngSuzuki then later responded that he would
Like to design a way for Ryo to navigate narrow spaces, and he refered to Kowloon, which in reality is a collection of in building catacombs. Currently when Ryo bumps into any wall or obstruction he comes to a complete halt, which is robotic and awkward looking. Suzuki stated that he is an engineer by trade (computer engineer) and would like to devise a better way for Ryo to navigate tight spaces. Two totally different things and I don't see how anyone could get them confused. I will screenshot and add that part of the interview in about an hour.Screenshot_2020-05-14-16-50-59.png

That part about improving Ryo's navigation animation was one of the more positive parts of the IGN Japan Interview, as well as adding throws to combat , obviously as well as giving Ryo the ability to sit on park benches whenever he wants in order to activate a "speed up time" feature.
 
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If S3 came out on the Xbox or even the 360, I would probably say its in the running to be just as good as the first two.......if it also had the story to back it up(and even just slightly better voce acting and translation), but getting this product in 2020, no.
 
I agree completely Spud1897. Gamers these days are all hungry for instant gratification. Thats where a lot of the complaints against Shenmue 3 spawn from: a complete and total lack of patience. There should be a disclaimer when you start up Shenmue 3 so gamers know what they are signing up for. This game is not Assasins Creed nor is it Final Fight or Streets of Rage.
That's not it at all. There's lots of games that require patience and commitment. Not every game is a deathmatch in Call of Duty. You're generalizing all of gaming into one thing and implying Shenmue 3 is the only game in existence that does things differently.

The real problem is there's no gratification at all. There's no reward in any way, including story building like in the first games. S1 and S2 were slow games too, but there was always developments in the story to keep things interesting. The only real reward in the game is the last 30 minutes of Bailu before you leave, and then the final 20 minutes in Naiowu. Up until those points, there's no mystery to solve or a story to unravel. It's just hunting down some thugs. Where'd the thugs go.
 
One of the many things I liked about this interview is when he addresses Niaowu and how he would have liked it to be 4 times as dense (paraphrasing here),. That's one of the things that really sells HK in S2, just the sheer number of people walking about. And it's something which is noticeably lacking in a place like Niaowu. Have it be more dense, and I think a lot of the complaints people have with Niaowu would go away. Of course there is more to it than that, but it would be a significant improvement.
 
"Instant gratification" is a very misleading concept anyway since it implies that slow-paced games deliver only sporadic satisfactions, which is not true.

The way Shenmue games are designed does give the player instant gratifications, although they are mostly informal:

- Concept of open world by itself, where you're free to do what you want.

- Everything you trigger in the environment leads to a cutscene. It's very part of Shenmue DNA.

- fascination of meeting unique inhabitants as if they were attractions by themselves. S3 succeeds the job quite well considering the challenge but general lack of deepness prevents the game to be on par with S1 & S2.

- Music is changing according the place (S2 & S3) or the moment you are in the story (S1). In S3, the music is repetitive and badly selected.

- Full of details. S3 is impressive in that area, but not as much as the original games. Details are not only meant to please the eye but give some insight about the world. And S3 details were very superficial. Just compare the draw exploration.

- Mini-games and capsule toys. Problem of S3 is that their number (or the way they are implemented) overrides the immersion. And immersion is part of the whole satisfaction of Shenmue.

- Engaging story, mysteries, revelations and characters so your mind is kept in effusion between your trivial occupations, by briefly imagining new theories each time the story progresses.
That way, I completely agree with Thomasina. Shenmue 3 failed to keep my interest at the same level S1 & S2 did.
 
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My order from best to worst is 1, 2 and then 3.

The gap between 1 and 2 is pretty small for me but the intimacy of the world in the first game is unlike anything I have experienced before, even to this day. It's hard to explain this but the world feels 'real'. You can feel the love put into almost every NPC, who don't just feel like they are inserted into the world for the sake of it. For example, look at how the relationship between Kurita san and the flower shop girl develops as the game progresses, or how the guy working night shifts at the tomato mart's problems slowly begin to escalate to the point that he has to work a job at the harbor. In the first game, there is so much attention to detail and you are rewarded for investing in its world and talking to people. I love how these things, along with the events in Shenmue 2 and the conversations with Joy, are left to be organically discovered, rather than being guided towards them via plinking icons as you probably would in Shenmue 3 as a result of the new sidequest system. The first two games (but especially Shenmue 1) are more of an 'experience' than a game. The generic RPG elements brought into Shenmue 3 kill not only the sense of reward you get from randomly initiating an event but also reduce the merits of exploration and engagement with NPCs. Most NPCs aren't worth talking to in 3 (for non story related reasons) unless they have the sidequest icon next to them, as this is often the way in which they get some form of 'development'. The exception to this rule being the reactions post Ryo's encounters with the thugs. My main gripe is that I'm constantly being reminded that I'm playing a game in Shenmue 3 (which sounds weird because I know that's what it is) but the first two in the series never made me felt like that. They fully pull me into the world.

While Bailu can be charming and feels mostly like a Shenmue game, it still doesn't fully capture essence of the originals. It's a poor man's Dobuita for me (but still enjoyable). Niawou and the castle part of the game are a stain on the series and I don't think it would be fair to even say that side of the game is a 'poor man's Hong Kong'. Overall, a lot of the new changes to Shenmue 3 involved introducing generic RPG elements into the series (stamina/food system, Yakuza-style sidequests, etc) which has served to steal away some of the charm away that the originals exuded. That being said, I don't think 3 was a terrible game and indeed, I feel with some additional development for Niao Sun, Ge, broom girl, Ren, Shenhua (in Niawou) and fat guy, along with a less-rushed ending, it could have been very enjoyable. Because of this, I still want a fourth game as much as I did a third, because I'm optimistic that Yu will respond to our feedback, implement it and deliver a great sequel.
 
My order from best to worst is 1, 2 and then 3.

The gap between 1 and 2 is pretty small for me but the intimacy of the world in the first game is unlike anything I have experienced before, even to this day. It's hard to explain this but the world feels 'real'. You can feel the love put into almost every NPC, who don't just feel like they are inserted into the world for the sake of it. For example, look at how the relationship between Kurita san and the flower shop girl develops as the game progresses, or how the guy working night shifts at the tomato mart's problems slowly begin to escalate to the point that he has to work a job at the harbor. In the first game, there is so much attention to detail and you are rewarded for investing in its world and talking to people. I love how these things, along with the events in Shenmue 2 and the conversations with Joy, are left to be organically discovered, rather than being guided towards them via plinking icons as you probably would in Shenmue 3 as a result of the new sidequest system. The first two games (but especially Shenmue 1) are more of an 'experience' than a game. The generic RPG elements brought into Shenmue 3 kill not only the sense of reward you get from randomly initiating an event but also reduce the merits of exploration and engagement with NPCs. Most NPCs aren't worth talking to in 3 (for non story related reasons) unless they have the sidequest icon next to them, as this is often the way in which they get some form of 'development'. The exception to this rule being the reactions post Ryo's encounters with the thugs. My main gripe is that I'm constantly being reminded that I'm playing a game in Shenmue 3 (which sounds weird because I know that's what it is) but the first two in the series never made me felt like that. They fully pull me into the world.

While Bailu can be charming and feels mostly like a Shenmue game, it still doesn't fully capture essence of the originals. It's a poor man's Dobuita for me (but still enjoyable). Niawou and the castle part of the game are a stain on the series and I don't think it would be fair to even say that side of the game is a 'poor man's Hong Kong'. Overall, a lot of the new changes to Shenmue 3 involved introducing generic RPG elements into the series (stamina/food system, Yakuza-style sidequests, etc) which has served to steal away some of the charm away that the originals exuded. That being said, I don't think 3 was a terrible game and indeed, I feel with some additional development for Niao Sun, Ge, broom girl, Ren, Shenhua (in Niawou) and fat guy, along with a less-rushed ending, it could have been very enjoyable. Because of this, I still want a fourth game as much as I did a third, because I'm optimistic that Yu will respond to our feedback, implement it and deliver a great sequel.
Great post; you summed most of my feelings in regard to Shenmue 3 specially regarding the side quests the characters and npc's. As for the locations I respect your opinion but I think you are being a little bit harsh; personally in terms of environment, aesthetic and atmosphere they are very good specially Bailu. Its true that Niaowu falls short compared to Hong Kong in Shenmue 2, much because it feels more empty. I would have definitely prefered it to have much less shops and more interesting and interactable npc's.
As for the Rpg elements, I think the idea great but not very well implemented and it is not well balanced either, but it gives meaning and purpose as well as connecting every different element in the game, but if improved and better well balanced it can make the game world much more believable, interactable amd atmospheric.
If Yu Suzuki manages to improve and better balance all of these aspects and at the same time deliver a great story, I believe he can achieve the best game in the series.
 
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