Bloodstained reached 1 million copies
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Sonoshee
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This.
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Reception and availability, for sure, but both games have different situations surrounding them.
I don't want to disparage Bloodstained because it's clearly a good one-of-those, but there's a huge gulf between "bringing back" a 2.5D metroidvania in 2019, and bringing back Shenmue.
One is in a genre that's infinitely more popular now than it was back then, with a proven market, dozens of modern takes to measure against, and is simply cheaper and less complex to create. That doesn't mean it was "easy", of course. Good games are never easy to make.
The other is a direct sequel to an 18 year-old game that is slow, story-driven, doesn't fit comfortably into a genre, doesn't conform to modern trends. Not to mention the negativity surrounding the KS campaign (some of it warranted, the vast majority of it overblown).
Shenmue III would've had to score 85+ in order for the broader gaming community to give it a proper chance, in my opinion.
I don't want to disparage Bloodstained because it's clearly a good one-of-those, but there's a huge gulf between "bringing back" a 2.5D metroidvania in 2019, and bringing back Shenmue.
One is in a genre that's infinitely more popular now than it was back then, with a proven market, dozens of modern takes to measure against, and is simply cheaper and less complex to create. That doesn't mean it was "easy", of course. Good games are never easy to make.
The other is a direct sequel to an 18 year-old game that is slow, story-driven, doesn't fit comfortably into a genre, doesn't conform to modern trends. Not to mention the negativity surrounding the KS campaign (some of it warranted, the vast majority of it overblown).
Shenmue III would've had to score 85+ in order for the broader gaming community to give it a proper chance, in my opinion.
I wish that were more true. I think there are still people in positions of influence -- journalists, PR, marketing, some developers -- who still use Resetera to gauge the "general core gamer opinion" on relevant topics. Of course, anyone with half a brain would cast a larger net than a single forum, and anyone who frequents there should quickly recognise how skewed the hivemind can be. But still, any influence at all is too much influence, in my opinion
I agree.
Not to mention that in 2015 when KS was announced, there wasn't Resetera (I think Neogaf splitted in 2017-2018), so the initial hate toward this game started on neogaf and was carried on to resetera, with also a huge contribute of shenmue community that frequented those forums (sometime even in good faith, but still a real damage was done there), everything else (reviews, youtubers videos etc.) just follow suit like always.
Not to mention that in 2015 when KS was announced, there wasn't Resetera (I think Neogaf splitted in 2017-2018), so the initial hate toward this game started on neogaf and was carried on to resetera, with also a huge contribute of shenmue community that frequented those forums (sometime even in good faith, but still a real damage was done there), everything else (reviews, youtubers videos etc.) just follow suit like always.
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But that's the state of gaming, there are thousands of choices and it's a highly competitive market. It doesn't means that people won't like a 6+ game, but you can't blame them for putting their money into something they are more certain that they'll enjoy.
It's not about budget either, we hear everyday about very well done games with very little budget but that just know their target expectations and hit it consistently.
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I don't blame anybody for playing it safe with their money. The reality is that Shenmue III would feel like a gamble at $50 for most gamers, even if the meta score was closer to an 80. With a 68, you've basically guaranteed the people who are half-interested will either pass or wait till the game's $10-15 or under.
You need a lot of money to make a game that resembles the Shenmue experience, and lots of fans had high expectations regarding scope, detail, production values etc. so budget did matter to S3 in that regard.
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I've played Bloodstained for 11 hours and am at 99.50% completion or something like that, just missing a few secret rooms. Shenmue 3 took me about 60 hours to Platinum? It's a big game for a meager budget.
It's also worth mentioning that Bloodstained had a four month head start. Could Shenmue 3 hit a million with the additional GOG and Steam sales? Personally I think it will - not anytime soon mind - but even a game like Alan Wake which was a big flop at launch eventually did good numbers once it hit digital platforms (admittedly a lot of those copies sold for budget prices but hey a sales a sale)
It's also worth mentioning that Bloodstained had a four month head start. Could Shenmue 3 hit a million with the additional GOG and Steam sales? Personally I think it will - not anytime soon mind - but even a game like Alan Wake which was a big flop at launch eventually did good numbers once it hit digital platforms (admittedly a lot of those copies sold for budget prices but hey a sales a sale)
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I finished Bloodstained and I liked it a lot, but Shenmue III is a much bigger achievement, even with its flaws.
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Yeah, I don't agree that Bloodstained is the better game. For personal comparison, I put about 80 hours (maybe 90, I can't remember now) into RotN on Game Pass, during a free three months I had; I cleared the game 100%, and collected/synthed just about everything aside from getting 9 of the boss shards (requires repeat playthroughs). I would absolutely never play it again, though. For Shenmue III I have a current play time of about 150 hours, and would play it again tomorrow.
I don't mean to say that RotN is a bad game (obviously I wouldn't have put that much time into it if it was), but it was pretty underwhelming. I much prefer the classicvania-styled games (CV, CV3, Rondo, Bloodlines, X68K, Rebirth, in particular), but SotN is a defining classic, and probably my favorite game in its subgenre. So I get why RotN seemed to try to feel like something of a remake of SotN, but with Order of Ecclesia glyphs. Broadly speaking, RotN fairs all right with it, but really falls down on the details. First of all, I don't care how it's dressed up, great 2D, hand drawn graphics will always look better than 3D rendered graphics. RotN doesn't look bad at all, but I find it kind of lifeless, visually, and suffers from that kind of Vaseline look UE4 has at times. As an extension of the 3D rendering, the main character's attack timings are-- "idiosyncratic" I guess would be the diplomatic way to put it. The base weapon delays for most weapons are pretty awful to begin with, and basically railroaded me into using boots until I got the Yagrush. Optimizers start to open up other weapon types, but that's pretty near the end of the game when you can get them. The main offender is the delay in being able to attack when landing from a jump. It basically makes the player a sitting duck for half a second, and is my biggest actual complaint about the game. (Also, shards are stupidly OP, and pretty much break the game very early on.)
Overall, RotN just isn't as well designed as SotN, and doesn't offer any compelling reason for me to play it instead of just replaying SotN. Something that I think is really amazing about SotN is the amount of attention put into unique enemy death animations and sounds. It's kind of a hold over from Rondo, but it adds a lot of character to everything you fight in Dracula's castle. RotN, understandably, just has enemies fade out of existence, and the only really unique parts are when the chain and sickle enemies have their chain links flying around the screen, or the legs on the bugs outside the tower area stretch from one corner of the screen to the other (theses are unintended, by the way). As much as I like games with female protagonists, the story in Bloodstained is pretty uninteresting to me, also, and it doesn't have the benefit of tying into themes established by a decade's worth of previous games in the series (not to mention being a direct sequel to an all-time great game in Rondo).
I wouldn't even say RotN is the best metroidvania I've played that was released in the last ten years. Guacamelee! and Ori were both way better, in my opinion. Michiru Yamane still does great work, though. A lot of the soundtrack is pretty great, especially "Gears of Fortune." "Forgotten Jade" is almost as good as "Lost Painting," too.
Shenmue III, for me, is a far more polished, ambitious, and fun game. I know it's a sacrilegious suggestion for some, but I actually enjoy playing Shenmue III more, in a lot of ways, than I do the first two games, and I'm someone who personally most wanted the kickstarter to be for a Shenmue III exclusively on the Dreamcast.
About the sales, I'm not really that surprised, and I honestly don't think Shenmue III will ever hit those numbers. I'd love to be proven wrong, but price differences aside, these games were playing by two separate sets of rules. The bar for Bloodstained was only a couple of inches off the ground. Shenmue III had to hurdle a 30 foot wall. There's no sizable contingent of the gamer-space that takes every opportunity it can to tear down SotN, like there is for the Shenmue series. Iga's 'vanias were always the mainstream of mainstream. I didn't bother supporting the RotN kickstarter, because I knew it would have no trouble hitting the mark. Conversely, I was very surprised that Shenmue III even got over the initial funding mark. The first game may have been a million-seller, but it's always demonstrated a dichotomy between people who "get it," and those who don't. For those who don't it's a 'trash walking-sim with nothing to do.' For those who do get it, it's often the greatest thing ever. The two sides have rarely been able to reconcile these differences. Frankly I feel the group that doesn't get it has always been the more mainstream group, and that's why you have outlets reviewing Shenmue III as a 3 or 4 out of 10.
I'm not sure the metacritic score really hurt Shenmue III's sales, per se, but I'm sure the more generally negative scuttlebutt about the game that went along with it did. I also don't really understand why Deep Silver and/or Suzuki wanted to push Shenmue III as a AAA game. I'm sure Deep Silver was looking at it in terms of getting holiday sales, but there was no way SIII was going to be able to compete with the biggest releases of the year. Also releasing it for full-price MSRP was probably a mistake. It sort of seems like Deep Silver was just getting greedy, but for all I know Suzuki could have wanted to do it that way.
Hindsight's always 20/20, though.
I don't mean to say that RotN is a bad game (obviously I wouldn't have put that much time into it if it was), but it was pretty underwhelming. I much prefer the classicvania-styled games (CV, CV3, Rondo, Bloodlines, X68K, Rebirth, in particular), but SotN is a defining classic, and probably my favorite game in its subgenre. So I get why RotN seemed to try to feel like something of a remake of SotN, but with Order of Ecclesia glyphs. Broadly speaking, RotN fairs all right with it, but really falls down on the details. First of all, I don't care how it's dressed up, great 2D, hand drawn graphics will always look better than 3D rendered graphics. RotN doesn't look bad at all, but I find it kind of lifeless, visually, and suffers from that kind of Vaseline look UE4 has at times. As an extension of the 3D rendering, the main character's attack timings are-- "idiosyncratic" I guess would be the diplomatic way to put it. The base weapon delays for most weapons are pretty awful to begin with, and basically railroaded me into using boots until I got the Yagrush. Optimizers start to open up other weapon types, but that's pretty near the end of the game when you can get them. The main offender is the delay in being able to attack when landing from a jump. It basically makes the player a sitting duck for half a second, and is my biggest actual complaint about the game. (Also, shards are stupidly OP, and pretty much break the game very early on.)
Overall, RotN just isn't as well designed as SotN, and doesn't offer any compelling reason for me to play it instead of just replaying SotN. Something that I think is really amazing about SotN is the amount of attention put into unique enemy death animations and sounds. It's kind of a hold over from Rondo, but it adds a lot of character to everything you fight in Dracula's castle. RotN, understandably, just has enemies fade out of existence, and the only really unique parts are when the chain and sickle enemies have their chain links flying around the screen, or the legs on the bugs outside the tower area stretch from one corner of the screen to the other (theses are unintended, by the way). As much as I like games with female protagonists, the story in Bloodstained is pretty uninteresting to me, also, and it doesn't have the benefit of tying into themes established by a decade's worth of previous games in the series (not to mention being a direct sequel to an all-time great game in Rondo).
I wouldn't even say RotN is the best metroidvania I've played that was released in the last ten years. Guacamelee! and Ori were both way better, in my opinion. Michiru Yamane still does great work, though. A lot of the soundtrack is pretty great, especially "Gears of Fortune." "Forgotten Jade" is almost as good as "Lost Painting," too.
Shenmue III, for me, is a far more polished, ambitious, and fun game. I know it's a sacrilegious suggestion for some, but I actually enjoy playing Shenmue III more, in a lot of ways, than I do the first two games, and I'm someone who personally most wanted the kickstarter to be for a Shenmue III exclusively on the Dreamcast.
About the sales, I'm not really that surprised, and I honestly don't think Shenmue III will ever hit those numbers. I'd love to be proven wrong, but price differences aside, these games were playing by two separate sets of rules. The bar for Bloodstained was only a couple of inches off the ground. Shenmue III had to hurdle a 30 foot wall. There's no sizable contingent of the gamer-space that takes every opportunity it can to tear down SotN, like there is for the Shenmue series. Iga's 'vanias were always the mainstream of mainstream. I didn't bother supporting the RotN kickstarter, because I knew it would have no trouble hitting the mark. Conversely, I was very surprised that Shenmue III even got over the initial funding mark. The first game may have been a million-seller, but it's always demonstrated a dichotomy between people who "get it," and those who don't. For those who don't it's a 'trash walking-sim with nothing to do.' For those who do get it, it's often the greatest thing ever. The two sides have rarely been able to reconcile these differences. Frankly I feel the group that doesn't get it has always been the more mainstream group, and that's why you have outlets reviewing Shenmue III as a 3 or 4 out of 10.
I'm not sure the metacritic score really hurt Shenmue III's sales, per se, but I'm sure the more generally negative scuttlebutt about the game that went along with it did. I also don't really understand why Deep Silver and/or Suzuki wanted to push Shenmue III as a AAA game. I'm sure Deep Silver was looking at it in terms of getting holiday sales, but there was no way SIII was going to be able to compete with the biggest releases of the year. Also releasing it for full-price MSRP was probably a mistake. It sort of seems like Deep Silver was just getting greedy, but for all I know Suzuki could have wanted to do it that way.
Hindsight's always 20/20, though.
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Shenmue 3 on Amazon US
This is the kind of thing Shemmue is always up against. 315 ratings, a 4.5 star rating overall, but the first review everyone sees is a 1/5 'historic let down' from a reviewer who only gives things a 1 or a 5, and the review is full of complete lies "For god sake, in Shenhua's house there is a loading screen just to walk up the single step into her living room". People love to pile on things negatively these days, it's fucking sad.
This is the kind of thing Shemmue is always up against. 315 ratings, a 4.5 star rating overall, but the first review everyone sees is a 1/5 'historic let down' from a reviewer who only gives things a 1 or a 5, and the review is full of complete lies "For god sake, in Shenhua's house there is a loading screen just to walk up the single step into her living room". People love to pile on things negatively these days, it's fucking sad.
Mittens2317
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Metroidvania games have seen a spike in popularity over the last five years or so. Shenmue is a cult game with a loyal fan base, but it isn't massive. I don't really think there's much of a comparison in any way other than funding platform.
But I still think the new font's shite, so I'm saying it's because of that.
But I still think the new font's shite, so I'm saying it's because of that.
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Yeah , Bloodstained is the most bargain basement generic game genre out there. It cast such a wide net how could it not be a hit? A side scroller! By the casual gamer loved Castlevania guy? Not only that but Bloodstained is multiplatform, even on Switch. That's a layup. Shenmue III would gave sold 1 million units like Shenmue 1 did if Peter Moore didn't fuck up and discontinue the Dreamcast early. Then he pulled the dickhead move of selling Shenmue 2 US rights to God damn unproven amateur Xbox instead of industry Juggernaught PlayStation. Now here we are.
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Mittens2317
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^Depends on which way you look at it. Shenmue II had less competition on the Xbox, whilst "classic" and "must-buy" PS2 games were seemingly being released every other week, over saturating the platform. The game could've been drowned out by these other games, and may have actually sold worse.
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It hurts because we care of Shenmue. But imagine coming across a new MGS or random game page with almost 5 five star average and reading all the positive reviews below the 1-star one. I think my opinion of the game would be excellent and would easily makes me keen to buy the game, at least be interested.
Actually, I expected S3 would get 4 strict stars on this site and to read more divisive opinions in the review section. It's a bit better than I thought.
Sonoshee
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Sadly, he had no choice. Sega were losing money and instead of going bankrupt they decided to go third party and live to fight another day.
spud1897
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The dreamcast ending was inevitable but the move to the Xbox was 100% the wrong move from a commercial perspective. However I'm sure I read somewhere that getting Shenmue to work on a PS2 was much more difficult than the Xbox.
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Considering how little Shenmue 2 was improved on Xbox despite all the power on board, Sega was blatantly reluctant to try any tricky port. Their strategy was pretty clear at the time: Xbox got the most ambitious Dreamcast-cancelled projects, Gamecube the ones which targeted the teen&kid market and PS2 the remaining lot.
Sput Vas Normandy
There's a lot of buzz around Shenmue 4
Like always, I'm gonna say it with few words:
I never played a Castlevania in my life, and still I played a few hours of Bloodstained normaly. You couldnt say the same with Shenmue 3.
Btw I think the Steam release will be great for the sales. Steam it's bigger than you think, Epic is smaller than you think, and PS4 users aren't the most appropiate public for games like Shenmue
I never played a Castlevania in my life, and still I played a few hours of Bloodstained normaly. You couldnt say the same with Shenmue 3.
Btw I think the Steam release will be great for the sales. Steam it's bigger than you think, Epic is smaller than you think, and PS4 users aren't the most appropiate public for games like Shenmue
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Wtf ? Shenmue 2 had NO installed base on Xbox. 1 million People bought it on Dreamcast. Way to miss the point. ANY game on Xbox is potential competition for Shenmue2 , not everybody strictly compares games in categories. $60 is $60. Common sense tells you 50 million is greater than 10 million. The fact that history tells you Shenmue IIx was a colossal flop should make defending such a poor choice folly.
spud1897
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There's arguments for both sides here. As @Godokunodan says the first game sold 1 million copies (I think 1.2 was the final number) but it was still a divisive game. I don't know how much stock I put in Wikipedia but apparently only 100k copies of Shenmue 2 sold on the DC between Europe and Japan by 2003. That's a heck of a drop. Some would have been attributed to DC's being got rid of for PS2's of course, probably a good number, but I promise you there was also a good number of people who didn't like the first game and decided to miss the 2nd installment, which is a shame as Shenmue 2 is very highly praised in the gaming media.
Add that into a smaller market base for the Xbox, a seemingly lazy port (in some eyes) and next to no marketing and it was always on a hiding to nothing. Reading between the lines if it did 100k sales I'd be impressed.
But then it comes down to Sega's decision making and I think @Yokosuka summed it up perfectly.
The re-releases have done OK in terms of sales. Again VG Chartz I don't put much stock in terms of their accuracy, have the PS4 version at 270k sales and Xbox at 70k sales, making 340k sales without PC. Steam Spy estimates there's 50k-100k owners on PC so you're touching 390k-440k sales and I'd imagine that data is slightly under-doing it in terms of numbers. I remember reading a thread on here by @tomboz who worked out that Shenmue 1 and 2 sales were still going along slowly (I can't remember the numbers he came up with) but The re-releases could easily have hit 500k sales which is good. There is a market there for Shenmue!
I suppose my point being is that if Shenmue III can emulate the sales figures of the re-releases, in time, then it has been a relative success but I can't see it being a 1 million seller. The issue is a lack of accurate sales figures but I'd hazard a guess it's done around 200k sales so it has got someway to go to match the re-releases.
I'd love for it to hit 1 million sales but unless Shenmue 4 delivers a proper breakout moment in terms of the franchise going forward I think it will struggle to ever do those numbers. That said as long as it makes money and gives us fans what we want then there's no issue with that.
Add that into a smaller market base for the Xbox, a seemingly lazy port (in some eyes) and next to no marketing and it was always on a hiding to nothing. Reading between the lines if it did 100k sales I'd be impressed.
But then it comes down to Sega's decision making and I think @Yokosuka summed it up perfectly.
The re-releases have done OK in terms of sales. Again VG Chartz I don't put much stock in terms of their accuracy, have the PS4 version at 270k sales and Xbox at 70k sales, making 340k sales without PC. Steam Spy estimates there's 50k-100k owners on PC so you're touching 390k-440k sales and I'd imagine that data is slightly under-doing it in terms of numbers. I remember reading a thread on here by @tomboz who worked out that Shenmue 1 and 2 sales were still going along slowly (I can't remember the numbers he came up with) but The re-releases could easily have hit 500k sales which is good. There is a market there for Shenmue!
I suppose my point being is that if Shenmue III can emulate the sales figures of the re-releases, in time, then it has been a relative success but I can't see it being a 1 million seller. The issue is a lack of accurate sales figures but I'd hazard a guess it's done around 200k sales so it has got someway to go to match the re-releases.
I'd love for it to hit 1 million sales but unless Shenmue 4 delivers a proper breakout moment in terms of the franchise going forward I think it will struggle to ever do those numbers. That said as long as it makes money and gives us fans what we want then there's no issue with that.