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

[JCJ]

It's a difficult, but interesting question.

If a Shenmue III with the exact same dialogue and plot and systems, but only downgraded graphics and the VF fighting engine, had come for the original Xbox in 2004, I guess it would have been panned way harder than the real 2019 game. Having the grand Shenmue II experience so recent, and the expectation of the Shenmue franchise being industry-leading, would have made that game a real shock.

However, the more realistic possibility of a 2004 Shenmue III with the main story beats we got on the 2019 one, but a bigger budget and Sega's talent to polish the writing, dialogue, cutscenes, music, QTEs, etc. would have been really well received among fans of previous games. Although I also think it wouldn't have expanded the audience significantly.

 

[orient]

In the space of just over a year, Shenmue II went from an 88 metacritic on Dreamcast, to an 80 on Xbox.

I think it's safe to say a game of the same type would've dropped a few points again to the mid 70s maybe, in 2004, but I don't think it would've been as low as 68.

Outside of a few egregious translation errors, I think the actual dialogue in Shenmue 3 is the best in the series by a fair margin, and there are a few other aspects of S3 I think are best-in-series, as well. The voice acting is a clear example, which was atrocious in S2. Another is the movement controls, which were panned on Xbox back in the day.

There are definitely elements of S3 that would've been seen as big improvements over S2 if it had been released in 2004.

 

[RyoHazuki84]

It's a difficult, but interesting question.

If a Shenmue III with the exact same dialogue and plot and systems, but only downgraded graphics and the VF fighting engine, had come for the original Xbox in 2004, I guess it would have been panned way harder than the real 2019 game. Having the grand Shenmue II experience so recent, and the expectation of the Shenmue franchise being industry-leading, would have made that game a real shock.

However, the more realistic possibility of a 2004 Shenmue III with the main story beats we got on the 2019 one, but a bigger budget and Sega's talent to polish the writing, dialogue, cutscenes, music, QTEs, etc. would have been really well received among fans of previous games. Although I also think it wouldn't have expanded the audience significantly.

Probably on the original XBox in Europe and North America, but probably on DC in Japan in 2004 since the Dreamcast was still supported there (at least until 2007)

 

[Reprise]

I think it really depends and is hard to know, because ultimately there would have been a lot of differences. For a start there would have been greater hardware limitations and that would have inevitably had an impact on the design of the game, but in theory it also would have had a larger budget and would have been handled by AM2 and Sega.

Hypothetically, if the exact same product (with downgraded graphics) was issued 19 years ago, then no I don't think it would have been received any better by critics or fans. The same fundamental issues would have remained, i.e. the story and pacing, and people would have found the change in combat engine jarring and a considerable downgrade.

That said, if the larger budget and shorter amount of time between releases would have meant that the combat engine remained largely the same and that the story was handled much better, then I do think it's possible. It's hard to say though, because it was already becoming "cool" to hate on Shenmue after Shenmue 2 was released and if they kept the engine the same I feel people would have ripped on it for not keeping up with the times. It just not being as good as Shenmue 2 would have given some critics licence to hate on it.

 

[mr munkee]

I think the opposite might be likely actually. I think it could have gotten worse reception if it released a long time ago (as the exact same game it currently is). If anything, the 19 year wait IMO made people blindly love it simply because "it exists" after that long.

I have a different perspective on the series since I never knew about it or played it when it was current. In 2020 I played through 1, 2, and 3 all back to back. 1 and 2 became some of my favorite games of all time and 3 was an extreme disappointment for pretty much every reason. So the long wait and the timing was never part of my Shenmue experience, I judged the games purely on their merrits of gameplay/story and that was my perspective.

 

[Alex banana]

If it had the same team at SEGA and it was released on the Dreamcast a few years after S2, then I can't see S3 turning out as it actually did - I imagine it would have been better than S2. S3 as it was actually released was - bar the story - as good as we could have realistically expected, it was trying to follow one of the best games ever - from scratch.

 

[sdojo]

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.

If we get a shenmue 4