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Hardly the gotcha moment you thought it was.Id say the fact the reviews are low gives you some indication of how the game has been received by the wider world. You'd swear S3 was a masterpiece
Budget Is NOT An Excuse
- Thread starter gladias9
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Oh come off it. Opinion may be subjective, but when a considerable swathe of existing Shenmue fans have issues with, say, III's story (or massive lack thereof) that's a glaring issue. If it's not what a large chunk of its key demographic want, it's a problem.
These people aren't going to invest in IV so easily, if ever asked to. That's a glaring issue.
The meh review scores, while subjective, will scare away potential new buyers into the series and sales ain't looking good. That's a glaring issue.
You can split hairs about opinion on the game being subjective all you like, but when the future of the series rests in this community's collective enthusiasm / interest in IV, these opinions matter.
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Thank you for articulating this perfectly
Truck_1_0_1_
I Don't Know, but I Have You!
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I don't think there's a lack of story. There, subjective.
/argument
And not coming off anything, White Mask.
Low reviews? Through all media outlets, user scores and everything taken into account, its sitting in the mid to high 70s; that's low?
No intention on a, "gotcha," moment; merely used your words to prove yourself wrong. Black and white.
I'm off to the chiropractor.
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Better White Mask than White Knight, eh?
Also, I didn't say 'low reviews', I said 'meh' reviews, which in my opinion encapsulates perfectly the mediocre 69 average it's currently sitting at on Metacritic.
Not trying for a 'gotcha' moment, mind. I just didn't say that.
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I think as a whole reviewers have been pretty fair on the game, except one or two i have seen which just dont seem to like Shenmue fullstop. I think a 70 for a game that despite being very good gameplay wise has various glaring issues is both fair and reasonable.
After I finished the game I myself would have given it a 7/10. But i would have expected more 4/5s
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- Nov 21, 2019
I think all-in-all it's a pretty amazing achievement how far they were able to go. Yes, the story and presentation issues are valid, but looking at the big picture this is a kickstarter game that sought out to go head to head with other AAA $60 releases and held its own.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the first kickstarter game I can think of that released in that space. Other big kickstarter titles (Mighty No. 9, Bloodstained, Broken Age, Yooka-Laylee) are mostly digital and released in the $30-40 space, and are reviewed accordingly.
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It really is astounding the level of quality that was achieved given the limitations. The quality of the environments, gameplay and in-world options are a fantastic achievement given the nature of the game’s development.
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For all the hate going around about Niaowu, when I was exploring the area I kept thinking to myself "this is what AAA Shenmue looks like!"
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- mjqjazzbar
It's just a shame a 'disappointing' low budget Shenmue is enough to completely kill some fans' interest in the series. So many of us spent years begging for scraps and we got a decent steak all things considered. I mean I get it. We're all older and devoting yourself fully to a video game series is a bit silly, but I find it a bit sad you wouldn't at least hold out hope for what this amazing creator can come up with if given a chance to continue the series now that he has experience with UE4 and a new studio. I see so many things that can be built upon in Shenmue 3 and made better in a sequel, but some of you just see complete darkness and I think that sucks.
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yep. I was blown away by Niaowu. Especially at night it looks beautifully done.
continuing from mjqjazzbar’s post, i completely agree. Personally I’m going to treasure S3 first and foremost as the game that was ‘never’ meant to happen. As the game that such a dedicated community managed to resurrect. It is a shame that a few of these same individuals feel like they’ve been so badly let down by it that they cannot see any good in it. I’m just grateful I’m on the opposite end of the scale, because I do love S3 and everything it represents.
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It's disheartening to me, but I think people have a right to judge the game as is and if they decide that it's not for them, then they move on from the series. But reading threads on what story content was promised that didn't make it into the game tells me it was planned but due to time/budget, they weren't able to add it.
I don't think it's particularly easy to say it's 100% on poor planning, since things often don't go according to plan. I can picture them having more difficulties getting to an alpha state than originally planned due to new team, new tech, new publishers mid project, which could eat into the time and budget needed to create content. Even if the story is written out, you still need to factor in all the time needed from all the disciplines that would work on cutscenes. Honestly, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle and there's no way to know for sure.
If Shenmue IV completely falls flat on the story front, then at that point I'll chalk it up to poor planning. If Shenmue IV builds upon Shenmue III and gives us a solid story, I hope those folks that were disappointed come back to the series. I just hope people can take a step back and try to understand how difficult it is to pull-off what they did considering the budget and timeframe.
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- Nov 23, 2019
100% agree with this. I wouldn't say I've abandoned the series at all; I don't consider S3 to be a well told story but it doesn't do anything to break the existing story (another reason it's different from GoT S8) so if S4 comes back with that S2 energy, I'm all for it. I've said elsewhere on this forum that YS has my money for S4 already. As much as I dislike S3 I don't consider it bad enough to turn me off the series or anything, I just wish it was better because this is likely the most "mainstream" splash it's going to make.
Yes and no. The money is definitely on display, clearly every penny was put toward development and lots of time and effort was spent; it's more what it was spent on that people take issue with.
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- Nov 21, 2019
Yeah, the way I've mentioned it before is it had a rare opportunity to get a "second chance at a first impression". It's essentially a reboot of the series. I do feel that in today's landscape it's harder for good games to be unknown, so if S4 hits a mid-to-upper 80's metacritic like S1 and S2, or at the very least rights a lot of the wrongs it could still sell relatively well, maybe more than S3.
However, I would agree that S3 would probably have more hype and anticipation going for it and that does mean something.
We've had a lot of good discussions about this so we probably won't budge too far from our opinions, and at the end of the day it's difficult to know for sure all that's happened behind the scenes during development. I would say that I acknowledge that the project wasn't planned and prioritized to 100% efficiency, but also believe that the difficulties of starting from scratch shouldn't be dismissed regarding how the story turned out, either.
Truck_1_0_1_
I Don't Know, but I Have You!
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Lunar Eternal Blue is my 5th favourite game ever, so Mystere is a high point with myself
I was responding to Heartbeats (hence the split in quoting)
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Lunar Eternal Blue is my 5th favourite game ever, so Mystere is a high point with myself
I was responding to Heartbeats (hence the split in quoting)
Keep my name out your mouth, don´t make me pit blow you until you turn into a mound of dust on the ground!
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I don’t think that comes across as intended here. Or maybe it’s just my mind...
I already specified that they used a self made engine, the game was 40x it's size and they actually hired actors who knew what the fuck they were doing and the game also had easily 40x more dialogue to be acted.Hark at this bloke handwaving away 24 million dollars like it's nothing.
Lol what?! You're going to denie India is not a low wage country?
Dude. Have you visited planet earth? Shenmue 1 and 2 HD sold around 300,000 copies. Let's da
Yeah that's low. Shenmue 2 alone was in the high 8's and 9s by both fans and critics.