Do you think Shenmue III would've been received better if it didn't take 19 years for it to be released?

I don't wanna write the same thing again, so just re-read the title

  • Yes

    Votes: 38 76.0%

  • No

    Votes: 12 24.0%
  • Total voters
    50
the_phoenix_mirror

the_phoenix_mirror

10 years early.
Joined
Feb 26, 2021
Location
The good ol' US of A
Favourite title
Shenmue II
Currently playing
Daytona USA Iraq version
A lot of people disliked Shenmue III because they waited for this game for 19 years and when the game was released it didn't do much in terms of story and a lot of other gameplay mechanics left a bad taste in people's mouths, but what if Shenmue III released around let's say 2007 on the PS3 same graphics, story, and gameplay as the one that came out in 2019. Do you think Shenmue III would've gotten more of a positive outlook because it wouldn't have been that far from the second game?
 
In my opinion yes, in my opinion 18 years of hype did damage in relation to peoples expectations for Shenmue III, I think i finished Shenmue II for the first time in 2017 so i didn't wait a lot of time for Shenmue III, i didn't imagined that Shenmue III needed to be like Shenmue II to be good, nothing like that.

But i can imagine how painful it was to wait 18 years for the saga to continue, 18 years just imagining Shenmue III, making theories and much more, this was hard for many people.

For 18 years a lot of people imagined the perfect continuation of Shenmue II, 18 years of hype did damage in my opinion because after 18 years the hype was so high, the expectations was so high that people wanted a lot of things.

Probably people wanted to see Ziming and the other leaders, Xiuying returning and all the things and theories they imagined for 18 years but this didn't happen so it was a deception for them, but i feel that this will happen in Shenmue IV, Shenmue III is about other things.

I can understand this feeling of wanting more things but Shenmue is a slow pace story in my opinion. If Shenmue III was released at that time then i think people would received the game better, one of the reasons is waiting less for a continuation so less hype, people waited for 18 years so the hype was high, and Shenmue III was a kickstarter game, Yu Suzuki was not with SEGA anymore, it is sad but it is what it is.

But i disagree when people say that Shenmue III did not advanced the plot, that Shenmue III only have 20 minutes of story and things like that. Shenmue III is about other things, Shenmue III to me is about Ryo living with Shenhua in Bailu village like second home to him, is about Ryo and Shenhua getting to know each other more and living together, it is about developing their bond, it is about the peaceful and calm time in Ryo's journey, it is about Ryo training and developing more as a martial artists and much more.

My final answer is yes, Shenmue III would be received better if it was released in 2003 or 2004 for example, people imagined this game for 18 years and expected too much, the hype was really high but of course that people can dislike the game and that's okay, but i really feel that the game would have been better recieved at that time.
 
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Probably a little better, critically, if the budget was decent

Sales probably would've been a bomb still, especially as an xbox exclusive.

Nobody would be expecting an ending in 3 because it would still be within an acceptable gap in releases if released on the xbox or even 360. There also wouldn't have been the hype and expectations generated from the success of the kickstarter had it released way back.

Pretty much everything shenmue pioneered or made a core focus is standard practice in gaming development. Open world, changing weather, day and night cycle, fully voiced NPCs, QTEs, etc
 
No. It still would have been a Shenmue game and many people did not like 1 and 2. Why should they like 3 better all of a sudden. Does not make any sense to me.

And I have disgree @Dehone . Shenmue is still the only games series that has a open world that makes sense.

your average open world game does not make sense at all. You are just a foreign object in a big but empty world. You do not fit on there and your actions really do not matter. The NPC are just there for the sake of being there. They have no scedule. Do not react to main character and do not give hints etc.

Shenmue is still better than every modern game out there.-+
 
9dragons said:
No. It still would have been a Shenmue game and many people did not like 1 and 2. Why should they like 3 better all of a sudden. Does not make any sense to me.
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I think we are talking about the Shenmue fans as well, the Shenmue community as well not just about other people and the people that do critics.

In my opinion Shenmue III even divided the Shenmue community, some Shenmue fans love Shenmue I and II and love Shenmue III as well, i saw some people that even prefer Shenmue III than the other Shenmue games, other Shenmue fans love Shenmue I and II but hate Shenmue III so to answer the question of the thread i thought even more about the Shenmue community.

Rakim said:
If, content wise, it was exactly the same game we got in 2019 I honestly think it would have been panned even harder.
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People waited 18 years for this game, 18 years just imagining Shenmue III, 18 years just making theories and expecting too much, because the waiting was so long the hype was really high so people expected too much like the perfect Shenmue III, harder than people waiting and imagining for 18 years expecting the perfect continuation for Shenmue II? i really don't agree.

People even say bad things about Shenmue III just because Shenmue III have the same style as the previous games, people say bad things about Shenmue III just because is not like other modern games, at that time probably even this would not have happen harder the way it happened in 2019, when i say this things i'm talking even more about the Shenmue community.

Can you all imagine the pressure that Yu Suzuki probably felt to deliver the continuation for Shenmue II after 18 years? i can imagine that for him was really hard... even for Yu Suzuki i think that this was harder than if it was at that time in my opinion.
 
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9dragons said:
No. It still would have been a Shenmue game and many people did not like 1 and 2. Why should they like 3 better all of a sudden. Does not make any sense to me.

And I have disgree @Dehone . Shenmue is still the only games series that has a open world that makes sense.

your average open world game does not make sense at all. You are just a foreign object in a big but empty world. You do not fit on there and your actions really do not matter. The NPC are just there for the sake of being there. They have no scedule. Do not react to main character and do not give hints etc.

Shenmue is still better than every modern game out there.-+
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Not sure what you mean by "makes sense". If we're setting the bar for untouchable gaming status, characters with schedules and giving hints is a pretty low bar. Receiving hints occurs in other open world, quest based games.

You can see characters with schedules in an elder scrolls game. In Red Dead Redemption, people eat, work, transport prisoners, drink, and go to bed. You can even see certain NPCs progress throughout the game when they're doing things such as building a house. The environment and people reacting to your character and their actions is pretty common at this point. You can see that in fallout games from a decade ago. Not sure what games you've been playing.

Outside of the people Ryo personally knows, the environment and people in it arent reacting to him. There are a few exceptions where some nameless NPCs will tell Ryo that the mad Angels are looking for him after he steps on too many toes(all voiced by the same person). In shenmue 2, the copy paste NPC is more than obvious. The only time these nameless NPCs react to Ryo is when he asks them a question and they give him the same generic answer the lady across the streets gave him or they walk him to the destination. Again, the only people reacting to Ryo as the story progresses are people who personally him, which happens in pretty much any game.

And say modern games do lack some features such as closing your shop and going home. That in itself doesnt make a game incapable of being surpassed. If were just factoring in storytelling, acting and interesting characters into what makes a game great(and we should), Shenmue has lost many times over.
 
Well we should just agree to disgree. To me Shenmue is the only open worldish gamei can play without getting bored. I tried every famous open world out there and I could never get the past the 1 hour mark at best. The open world feels so bland and boring. They never give you the feeling you are realyl a part of the world. You feel just like a foreign object driven by quests that do not make any sense now. Driven by objects and quest makers also makes story telling quite impossible. Because you get lost so often and cannot follow the story. This games are not made for me.
 
the_phoenix_mirror said:
what if Shenmue III released around let's say 2007 on the PS3 same graphics
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no way there would've been same gfx. Shenmue 3 engine uses Unreal 4 which is far more advanced than anything on PS3, especially the lighting.

But on the whole, yes I do think it would've been much better received if it came out in the PS3 era as gamers didn't get too spoiled by then yet
 
I look at Shenmue 3 that we got is 85% of the game I anticipated, 7 1/2% of changes I was welcome to, and 7 1/2% were some things I think needed improvement.

As opposed to 2007, let's say the Dreamcast managed to survive until the end of its console generation and Shenmue was a much bigger success, I think instead it'd make better sense if the game came out in late 2002 in Japanese/mid 2003 rest of the world on Dreamcast. We would've been able to complete "our Shenmue story" by carrying over our saves from one game to the next. I think that would've helped but on the same token, we would have gotten a different game in some aspects.

I think if Shenmue continued course back then, I think for the rest of the franchise, we'd probably have gotten the game in Japanese with English subs (as was intended for the North American release of Shenmue 2, but how it was in its PAL release). For some, that's good. And for others, they'd probably miss Corey Marshall and Eric Kelso. We would've still had the VF engine for sure. QTEs would've remained for sure. Would more Sega arcade classics show up? Who knows.

I think a portion of the disappointment is more of a reaction to wanting the story to end, not a continuation. I came into Shenmue III knowing it would end on a cliffhanger. Based on the fights with Xiuying, if Ryo were to fight Lan Di, he'd have no chance of winning. Hell, he couldn't lay a finger on two old men in Shenmue III. But after binge playing 1-3 these last few weeks, I felt Shenmue III progresses the story no differently than the first two games. I think some aspects could've been better, but I was generally satisfied with the game.

But I don't disagree that the long wait contributed to the disappointment of some players. Yes, I wish the game would've came out in December 2002 in Japan and spring of 2003 in the rest of the world. But none of us can change that history unless one of us has the powers of the Flash that can allow us to travel to a universe where that happened. If Shenmue III came out earlier, would we have had Yakuza? Who knows, but either way, I was largely happy with what we got.
 
Maybe if it had been released on the original Xbox...maybe...but that's a can of worms. It would be a different game to the one we actually got no matter what. I do believe it would have probably had the carried on momentum going from Shenmue II and I do believe AM2 would have been learning what works and what doesn't. I do think it would have been a different game as a whole.

But we don't live in that world so who is to say?

I'd rather just focus on the Shenmue III we got then dwell in the Shenmue III that could have been but wasn't due to reasons.
 
It was doomed when the Dreamcast failed, if it played and progressed like shenmue 1 or especially 2 it would have been great

Instead we waited almost 20 years and got garbage
 
Alex_Star said:
I'd be fine if they used the same graphics engine as the first two games and instead spent their millions on actual story and gameplay.
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Well they spent 70% of their time building the systems on the new game so it left very little else.

Also Cedric commented that using the original engine would have been more cost prohibitive.
 
I think i am among the few people that really liked 3. I just wanted another adventure with Ryo and I did not expect a big leap in story telling. I depends a lot on expecations how you see game. I would have been dispointed too if you would have expected a big leap in story. But i have learned many years ago to not expect anything about new games of a series a I like. These games will always be better in my expecations than they are in reality.

It also impressive that they have made it that S3 plays feel like the original games. That is impressive considering the 20 year gap between these 2 games.

S3 is a good game not the best Shenmue game but still a good game.

I am glad they did not use the old engine. After seeing how bad the remaster runs with the bugs it s good they started all over with the Unreal 4 engine.

But that is just me.I can understand when people were not happy with 3 because they had highter expectations.
 
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Who knows? Although the original concept for Shenmue 3 didn't sound very Shenmue-like: a Telltale style game where you're talking to Shenhua for 80% of the time. The radical switch-up in style immediately following the grandeur and openness of Shenmue 2's world could have caused a different kind of disappointment. And while Shenmue 2 Disc 4 is excellent...I'm not sure an entire game like that would have been well received.

Give it 10 years and I think there'll be a renewed appreciation for Shenmue 3 as an underrated gem, like we've seen happen with other media.
 
Alex_Star said:
I'd be fine if they used the same graphics engine as the first two games and instead spent their millions on actual story and gameplay.
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It doesn't really work like that, tbh.

Shenmue's code is over 20 years old, possibly quite poorly documented, and built to work on proprietary hardware only. It just wouldn't be as efficient as using a modern engine like UE4 to build a new game. That meant rebuilding all of Shenmue's major systems again from scratch, which understandably took time.

Revan said:
The original concept for Shenmue 3 didn't sound very Shenmue-like: a Telltale style game where you're talking to Shenhua for 80% of the time. The radical switch-up in style immediately following the grandeur and openness of Shenmue 2's world could have caused a different kind of disappointment. And while Shenmue 2 Disc 4 is excellent...I'm not sure an entire game like that would have been well received.
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Important to remember this. Who knows what the $2 million version of Shenmue III would have looked and played like, but in the grand scheme of things we got one of the better outcomes and shouldn't forget that.
 
SteveT90 said:
It was doomed when the Dreamcast failed, if it played and progressed like shenmue 1 or especially 2 it would have been great

Instead we waited almost 20 years and got garbage
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I can only disagree. I liked Shenmue III and don't think the game is garbage at all. In fact, I think it's one of my favourite games of the last generation and I say that in all honesty.
 
I look at Shenmue III as the "Superman Returns" of the franchise as strange as that is to say. By no means am I saying that's a bad thing (and I do enjoy Superman Returns as well, but I do get why people don't enjoy that movie). To me, Shenmue is about substance over style, and I think the third game captured that. These days, we're filled with more media that tend to be style over substance, and very few tend to balance between the two. I felt that thinking along with how present day instant gratification technology may have "destroyed" are pre-conceptions. But hey, I could be wrong "boomer" on that one.

But allow me to go back to why I feel Shenmue III is like Superman Returns and to give a more elaborate answer to the original question in addition to what I already posted. I can't deny they are kind of victims of their own release times. Superman Returns would've been a better-received movie by the public and fans if it came out back in the early 80s as opposed to Superman III (and of course with Christopher Reeve still as Superman, etc). As a result of its criticisms, we got Man of Steel, which I felt was more of a style over substance movie (and there's nothing wrong with that. As I said before, I am 100% a substance over style guy) as a result of how people reacted to Superman Returns. And to me, making Shenmue style over substance would ultimately ruin what makes Shenmue great regardless of when and how it's released.

I say in the end, we'll get a much better Shenmue IV as a result.
 
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