Does the lack of Shenmue 4 change your opinion of Shenmue 3?

I don't know what that is.
Near the fishing pond in Bailu village there is a mini game where you have to catch the biggest fish there is (Shenhua proclaims this fish the “King of Bailu” during a nighttime chat with her but doubts Ryo could catch it or that she can even cook it.) Anyway, when you catch this King of Bailu you get a tee shirt.
 
On this subject, I absolutely cannot bring myself to change Ryo’s clothes. Doesn’t seem right.

Needs his doubtless stinky white shirt, blue jeans and brown leather jacket on.
 
On this subject, I absolutely cannot bring myself to change Ryo’s clothes. Doesn’t seem right.

Needs his doubtless stinky white shirt, blue jeans and brown leather jacket on.
I agree. Changing clothes is cool and all but gotta stay “canon” with Ryos standard outfit.

But it is cool being able to remove your jacket and being able to wear a blue or red tee.
 
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This is almost certainly true but who's to say in what ways it would be different?
I believe you yourself gave an example of this in your last post. Obviously, we'll never know for certain, but we seem to be in agreement that having a fluid budget had a negative impact on the development of Shenmue 3. With that in mind, it seems fair to say that having a fixed budget would have led to a better game.
Because of what you said about the Epic deal being the reason the game was able to "break even" in the first place. If not all the investors made their money back then obviously the Epic deal represented a sizeable chunk of change.
To the best of my knowledge, the amount Epic paid Deep Silver has never been revealed publicly. We do know that some of the other Epic deals around that time were for $10m-$15m though, which I'd say counts as a sizable chunk of change.
Sorry, I should clarify. For YS Net to "break even", I mean that places them at $0 (basically it's the point at which their investors have made their money back and the rev split begins), because YS Net is the developer and they raised $7M, there is no expectation that they make that money back since technically with KS, they made their money first.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Yu Suzuki didn't make Shenmue 3 with the expectation of making no money. As you pointed out earlier, the money generated through Kickstarter was effectively sales. It may not have been YS Net's money to begin with, but after the Kickstarter campaign ended and the payments were processed, the money became theirs and thus for them to break even they would need to recoup that money. Otherwise, you could argue that YS Net had technically "broken even" before the game had even been released.
I know what you mean by this but what I'm pointing out is that the same logic can be used to paint Suzuki as a kind of con man (Jim Sterling all but tiptoes up to this line). The fact remains that, regardless of whatever Suzuki wants to do with Shenmue, he insists on selling it as an epic martial arts story that requires several multimillion dollar games to properly tell. Ever since the first Project Berkley trailer, every single Shenmue trailer has been basically the same: epic music, action packed, usually showing off the QTEs, lots of martial arts, and some dramatic sequences. If he wants to make some slow paced slice of life minigame simulator, this is how those games look in trailers:

There's always been a certain degree of dissonance between the Shenmue games and their trailers though. If you think back to the first Shenmue game, how much time is actually spent fighting versus picking up items and talking to random people? Had the slice-of-life genre been a thing back then, I expect we'd have seen more Animal Crossing-like trailers. We did see this to a certain degree with Shenmue 3 with the Spirit of the Land trailer. The same goes for the first half of the A Day in Shenmue trailer, in which Ryo can be seen buying food from street vendors and playing mini-games.
No, and the only reason he got it for S3 is because people wanted to see the Shenmue story continue, which is why he began the campaign by saying "Shenmue's story was left incomplete...". He did not sell it on the back of creating something new and innovative, or minigames, or anything else (and he continues this trend when talking about sequels to this day).
Please go back and look at some of the stretch goals for Shenmue 3 and then tell me again that he didn't sell the game based on mini-games and innovation, at least in part.

I think it's also quite telling that he's currently exploring the idea of making a prequel rather than a fourth game. And just to be clear; this isn't a prequel that follows Iwao's journey through China, thus allowing us to explore the Shenmue story from a different angle. It would be a sequel set in Yokosuka during a time when we know that nothing of significance really happens.
What makes Shenmue's world interesting is the story. The worldbuilding are all the cool side characters, NPCs that teach you moves, little touches like the Wude and Chawan signs, the mystery behind the murder of Sunming, the mysticism of the mirrors and Shenhua; that's what gives Shenmue's world its flavor and history, what makes it feel lived in and real. You can strip away Lucky Hit and still be left with a compelling game; you can't do the reverse. And the story is the gameplay, I completely reject the notion that playing through S2 and ignoring all the minigames is the same thing as reading a novel: it's not.
Maybe to you it is. To many, though, all of those little extra details are a big part of the Shenmue experience.
 
having a fluid budget had a negative impact on the development of Shenmue 3. With that in mind, it seems fair to say that having a fixed budget would have led to a better game.
It's certainly possible but I wouldn't make that claim for sure. S3 suffers from so many deep, fundamental issues that it's impossible to say if a higher, fixed, budget would have remedied it. For instance, would the voice acting and dialogue still be terrible in order to emulate 20 year old DC games?
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Yu Suzuki didn't make Shenmue 3 with the expectation of making no money.
They didn't make no money, they made $7M from KS and over $10M more from investors. Which became a huge problem when S3 turned out be a, let's use DS's term, "niche product".
As you pointed out earlier, the money generated through Kickstarter was effectively sales. It may not have been YS Net's money to begin with, but after the Kickstarter campaign ended and the payments were processed, the money became theirs and thus for them to break even they would need to recoup that money.
No, "break even" means to basically zero out, where you have neither profit nor loss. The KS money represented Suzuki's budget to make the game; in an ideal world, he would have spent that making the game and then profited a little once the game was released. Instead, he took on millions of dollars more from investors who needed to recoup their investment (because they actually had to spend money) before splitting the profits.
Otherwise, you could argue that YS Net had technically "broken even" before the game had even been released.
If Suzuki spent all the KS money on development and then made $0 extra when the game was released, yes, that would be breaking even. This is why I keep harping on about how financially irresponsible S3's development was, and how simple KS makes it to work backward from the audience you have.
There's always been a certain degree of dissonance between the Shenmue games and their trailers though. If you think back to the first Shenmue game, how much time is actually spent fighting versus picking up items and talking to random people?
And it's been an almost universal criticism since the first game. If he doesn't want it to be a criticism then he shouldn't sell the games like that.
Had the slice-of-life genre been a thing back then, I expect we'd have seen more Animal Crossing-like trailers.
I suspect that if Suzuki approached Sega with the concept for Shenmue with that kind of trailer, they would not have given him $70M. Again, if he wants the big bucks, he should clean up the incongruities within the series to make it more appealing; OR he can just take less money. This should not be so difficult for him.
Please go back and look at some of the stretch goals for Shenmue 3 and then tell me again that he didn't sell the game based on mini-games and innovation, at least in part.
Only one of the stretch goals pertains to minigames and it, along with 4 other stretch goals pertain to Baisha, which was cut. I also can't speak to what the rapport or skill tree systems are.
I think it's also quite telling that he's currently exploring the idea of making a prequel rather than a fourth game.
I think it's quite telling that there's less than zero interest in that.
And just to be clear; this isn't a prequel that follows Iwao's journey through China, thus allowing us to explore the Shenmue story from a different angle. It would be a sequel set in Yokosuka during a time when we know that nothing of significance really happens.
Yes because Shenmue 1 was the last popular game that he made and maybe he just wants to relive past glories? Who knows? If he wants to make a weird Japanese life simulator then he shouldn't have set the series in China and made it about martial arts, I'm not sure what to say.
Maybe to you it is. To many, though, all of those little extra details are a big part of the Shenmue experience.
What details? Shenmue is famously bereft of side content. If you're talking about how the world is highly detailed and there are superfluous minigames and shops, that presumably is something that will always exist in one form or another (and exist in many games to a far greater degree). Every RPG has towns, side quests, NPCs and minigames. But that circles back to my point, Shenmue is a story that takes place in a highly detailed world, it's not a highly detailed world that exists for its own sake.
 
It's certainly possible but I wouldn't make that claim for sure. S3 suffers from so many deep, fundamental issues that it's impossible to say if a higher, fixed, budget would have remedied it. For instance, would the voice acting and dialogue still be terrible in order to emulate 20 year old DC games?
I'm not sure that any "what if" claim can be made with any true degree of certainty, but given the fact that we both seem to be of the same opinion (or at least you were in agreement a few posts back), I think we can end this line of discussion here. I'm really not interested in hearing you go on about Shenmue 3's "fundamental issues" for the thousandth time.
They didn't make no money, they made $7M from KS and over $10M more from investors. Which became a huge problem when S3 turned out be a, let's use DS's term, "niche product".
No, "break even" means to basically zero out, where you have neither profit nor loss. The KS money represented Suzuki's budget to make the game; in an ideal world, he would have spent that making the game and then profited a little once the game was released. Instead, he took on millions of dollars more from investors who needed to recoup their investment (because they actually had to spend money) before splitting the profits.
If Suzuki spent all the KS money on development and then made $0 extra when the game was released, yes, that would be breaking even. This is why I keep harping on about how financially irresponsible S3's development was, and how simple KS makes it to work backward from the audience you have.
We seem to be splitting hairs here. My original point was that YS Net should have done more to secure the future of the franchise when the deal with Deep Silver was struck; whether that be through an agreement that Shenmue 4 would be made if a realistic sales target was met or a guarantee that YS Net would get a fair share of the revenue generated by the finished game. Deep Silver got out what they put in and then some. YS Net started the development cycle with $7.2m in the bank, yet seem to have come away from the whole thing with very little.
Only one of the stretch goals pertains to minigames and it, along with 4 other stretch goals pertain to Baisha, which was cut. I also can't speak to what the rapport or skill tree systems are.
You seem to be only looking at the stretch goals that were reached. Excluding subtitles; jobs, stalls, gambling, and mini-games make up around half of the total stretch goals. The rest are new in-game mechanics and side quests. None are directly related to the story (though I suppose you could argue that some of the mechanics may have improved the quality of storytelling, if you really wanted to). Given that the original target was just $2m, if Suzuki was really as desperate to tell the story as you seem to think he is, he could have had a $4m stretch goal for Shenmue 4, and a $6m stretch goal for Shenmue 5.
I think it's quite telling that there's less than zero interest in that.
Suzuki seems to be interested enough to have talked about it in several interviews.
Yes because Shenmue 1 was the last popular game that he made and maybe he just wants to relive past glories? Who knows? If he wants to make a weird Japanese life simulator then he shouldn't have set the series in China and made it about martial arts, I'm not sure what to say.
You're the one who suggested that his instincts were to focus on the story, not me. I'm merely pointing out that there is a whole lot of evidence that suggests otherwise. Again, before you try and put words in my mouth again, I'm not suggesting that he doesn't care about the story, just that like many Shenmue fans, he seems to see it as just one part of the overall Shenmue experience.
What details? Shenmue is famously bereft of side content. If you're talking about how the world is highly detailed and there are superfluous minigames and shops, that presumably is something that will always exist in one form or another (and exist in many games to a far greater degree). Every RPG has towns, side quests, NPCs and minigames. But that circles back to my point, Shenmue is a story that takes place in a highly detailed world, it's not a highly detailed world that exists for its own sake.
The first Shenmue game is full of side content. Perhaps not in the traditional sense, with quest markers, and big green arrows, but being able to stumble upon random conversations with Ryo's friends, help an old lady find the Yamamoto house (or leave her to freeze to death in the park), or learn special moves by being in the right place at the right time encourages and rewards exploration in a way that very few other games do. This, together with the highly detailed setting, can help make players feel like they're wandering through a living, breathing, world, which in turn allows the story to hit a whole lot harder than it otherwise would. Take all that "superfluous" stuff away, and you're left with an interactive movie with very little depth, at which point, I'd much rather be reading a novel.
 
I'm not sure that any "what if" claim can be made with any true degree of certainty, but given the fact that we both seem to be of the same opinion (or at least you were in agreement a few posts back), I think we can end this line of discussion here. I'm really not interested in hearing you go on about Shenmue 3's "fundamental issues" for the thousandth time.
The degree to which S3's flaws are the result of deliberate choices and/or the story not actually being properly planned out matters because it's not something that budget will fix and will continue to be an albatross to the series going forward. Sometimes just throwing money at a developer does not actually result in a better game (see Star Citizen).
YS Net started the development cycle with $7.2m in the bank, yet seem to have come away from the whole thing with very little.
Why would you think they'd have come away with more if the game didn't make money? It should have been fairly obvious that the KS money was insufficient when they took on additional investment and publisher support.
You seem to be only looking at the stretch goals that were reached.
Because that's all that pertains to the game that was released and even then most of them seem not to have materialized.
Excluding subtitles; jobs, stalls, gambling, and mini-games make up around half of the total stretch goals. The rest are new in-game mechanics and side quests. None are directly related to the story (though I suppose you could argue that some of the mechanics may have improved the quality of storytelling, if you really wanted to).
I'll be honest: I have no idea what most of these stretch goals mean or how the budget meaningfully reflects their cost and the more I think about it, the shadier the whole thing looks.
Given that the original target was just $2m, if Suzuki was really as desperate to tell the story as you seem to think he is, he could have had a $4m stretch goal for Shenmue 4, and a $6m stretch goal for Shenmue 5.
First of all, I'm hardly alone in thinking that Suzuki wants to tell the story of Shenmue. You think I just conjured up that the game represents his life's work and that he's had all the chapters on hand for decades? Clearly $2M was not enough to make S3 as it exists and, considering the stretch goals go all the way up to $11M and the eventual budget was $20M, it's pretty fair to say that the initial goal was never going to be the actual budget.
Suzuki seems to be interested enough to have talked about it in several interviews.
1. What Suzuki is interested in and what people will pay him to create are very different things. and 2. I seem to recall him mentioning all the remaining chapters of the story, and all the new characters to be introduced, and how many games he wants to spread it over more than him discussing the prequel.
I'm merely pointing out that there is a whole lot of evidence that suggests otherwise.
He just did an interview where he talked about how much story is left and how much he'd have to actually cut in order to get it done in 5 games.
Again, before you try and put words in my mouth again, I'm not suggesting that he doesn't care about the story, just that like many Shenmue fans, he seems to see it as just one part of the overall Shenmue experience.
Without bitching about S3 again, let's just say that he made that game already and it didn't go over well, even with Shenmue fans.
The first Shenmue game is full of side content. Perhaps not in the traditional sense, with quest markers, and big green arrows, but being able to stumble upon random conversations with Ryo's friends, help an old lady find the Yamamoto house (or leave her to freeze to death in the park), or learn special moves by being in the right place at the right time encourages and rewards exploration in a way that very few other games do.
S1 has a few optional scenes as a relic of its age (it was from back in the day when selling strategy guides was still a big part of console game design) and its emphasis on being "real time" (something that the series walked back significantly in the sequel). Most of the optional content in Shenmue is a result of the clock; you need minigames to waste time while you wait for events to occur (this isn't a criticism mind you, I'm just pointing out how the game was designed). There are very few optional scenes that you can intentionally seek out in S1 on a first time playthrough and the best ones are either, say it with me: learning moves, story stuff pertaining to the mirrors, or character development. S2 does it much better (natch) when you have the option of thanking the people who helped you before leaving Wan Chai, but I wouldn't really consider that side content.
This, together with the highly detailed setting, can help make players feel like they're wandering through a living, breathing, world, which in turn allows the story to hit a whole lot harder than it otherwise would.
I agree with this to an extent but it has to be said that most of the optional content is S1 is so ridiculously hidden that you wouldn't find it without knowing precisely how to look for it. Again, I'm not criticizing, but this is not something that can be realistically achieved in this day an age under budget constraints, and it's not even something that S3 (or really S2 for that matter) does as far as I'm aware. A lot of this sort of thing is closer to what's considered an easter egg nowadays. Also, I'm not sure what you think I'm advocating for here: I've said repeatedly that Shenmue should play like an RPG, plenty of games have achieved living, breathing worlds before and since Shenmue for considerably less money.
Take all that "superfluous" stuff away, and you're left with an interactive movie with very little depth, at which point, I'd much rather be reading a novel.
Again, you're telling me that you'd rather read a novel than play through S2, just following the story? I'm not sure what you're driving at with this.
 
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The degree to which S3's flaws are the result of deliberate choices and/or the story not actually being properly planned out matters because it's not something that budget will fix and will continue to be an albatross to the series going forward. Sometimes just throwing money at a developer does not actually result in a better game (see Star Citizen).
But how can you properly plan something out when you don't have a fixed budget? Had Yu known that he'd end up with four years and twenty million dollars, who's to say he wouldn't have opted to tell more of the story? Maybe he'd have gone the other way and targeted a hyper-realistic Bailu? Ultimately, we'll never know, but it seems fair to say that many of the decisions made leading up to and during the Kickstarter stage of the project set them on a course from which it was very difficult to deviate. I'm almost certain that we'd have ended up with a better game if Suzuki had been given a fixed budget right from the get-go, whether that budget had been higher, lower, or the same as the one he ended up with.
Why would you think they'd have come away with more if the game didn't make money? It should have been fairly obvious that the KS money was insufficient when they took on additional investment and publisher support.
The game did make money though. Not a lot of it, but enough to cover the cost of development; towards which YS Net put $7.2m. We can argue until the cows come home over whether that money truly belonged to YS Net or not, but as far as I'm concerned, from the moment it left our bank accounts and entered theirs, it did.
Because that's all that pertains to the game that was released and even then most of them seem not to have materialized.
Whether or not they were reached is somewhat irrelevant, really; at least in the context of this discussion. Yu needed to come up with stretch goals that he thought would get people to pledge more money. He could have promised additional story, or new locations, but he instead chose to go primarily with more mini-games, jobs, and gambling opportunities. He clearly believed that these elements were important to the Shenmue experience, and, rightly or wrongly, was under the impression that fans of the franchise did as well.
I'll be honest: I have no idea what most of these stretch goals mean or how the budget meaningfully reflects their cost and the more I think about it, the shadier the whole thing looks.
That's a question for Yu Suzuki, I'm afraid. I'm as in the dark as you on this one.
First of all, I'm hardly alone in thinking that Suzuki wants to tell the story of Shenmue. You think I just conjured up that the game represents his life's work and that he's had all the chapters on hand for decades? Clearly $2M was not enough to make S3 as it exists and, considering the stretch goals go all the way up to $11M and the eventual budget was $20M, it's pretty fair to say that the initial goal was never going to be the actual budget.
For the thousandth time, I'm not saying that he doesn't want to finish the story. My point was that doing so is what enables him to continue making games and trying new things, which I think is just as important to him as conluding Shenmue's narrative; if not more so.
1. What Suzuki is interested in and what people will pay him to create are very different things. and 2. I seem to recall him mentioning all the remaining chapters of the story, and all the new characters to be introduced, and how many games he wants to spread it over more than him discussing the prequel.
Not really sure what you point is here...
He just did an interview where he talked about how much story is left and how much he'd have to actually cut in order to get it done in 5 games.
I'm getting tired of saying this now. Nowhere have I said that he doesn't care about the story. I'm sure he'd love to finish it if given the opportunity, although not if it meant stripping away all of the things that make Shenmue Shenmue.
Without bitching about S3 again, let's just say that he made that game already and it didn't go over well, even with Shenmue fans.
It didn't go over well with some Shenmue fans. Others quite liked it.
S1 has a few optional scenes as a relic of its age (it was from back in the day when selling strategy guides was still a big part of console game design) and its emphasis on being "real time" (something that the series walked back significantly in the sequel). Most of the optional content in Shenmue is a result of the clock; you need minigames to waste time while you wait for events to occur (this isn't a criticism mind you, I'm just pointing out how the game was designed). There are very few optional scenes that you can intentionally seek out in S1 on a first time playthrough and the best ones are either, say it with me: learning moves, story stuff pertaining to the mirrors, or character development. S2 does it much better (natch) when you have the option of thanking the people who helped you before leaving Wan Chai, but I wouldn't really consider that side content.
Sounds to me like you're one of those people who'd prefer it if Shenmue had quest markers and arrows.

Side content is anything that distracts you from the critical path, of which, the Shenmue series has always had plenty. The fact that it's difficult to seek out some of these optional scenes is a huge positive as far as I'm concerned. Knowing that I could just randomly stumble upon an interaction that I've never seen before despite playing through the games countless times is a big part of what keeps me coming back. Give me that over some shitty fetch quest every day of the week.
Again, you're telling me that you'd rather read a novel than play through S2, just following the story? I'm not sure what you're driving at with this.
Again, you're putting words in my mouth. In some of your other posts, you've talked about wanting to turn Shenmue into a 2D game with partial voice acting and no English dub. Your labeling of mini-games and non-story-related NPC interactions as superfluous would presumably suggest that you'd do away with those as well. I'm not sure why you brought Shenmue 2 into this, but if the next Shenmue game were like that, then yes, I'd prefer to just read the novelization and be done with it. I can imagine a much more interesting world than the one you described.
 
The degree to which S3's flaws are the result of deliberate choices and/or the story not actually being properly planned out matters because it's not something that budget will fix and will continue to be an albatross to the series going forward. Sometimes just throwing money at a developer does not actually result in a better game (see Star Citizen).

Why would you think they'd have come away with more if the game didn't make money? It should have been fairly obvious that the KS money was insufficient when they took on additional investment and publisher support.

Because that's all that pertains to the game that was released and even then most of them seem not to have materialized.

I'll be honest: I have no idea what most of these stretch goals mean or how the budget meaningfully reflects their cost and the more I think about it, the shadier the whole thing looks.

First of all, I'm hardly alone in thinking that Suzuki wants to tell the story of Shenmue. You think I just conjured up that the game represents his life's work and that he's had all the chapters on hand for decades? Clearly $2M was not enough to make S3 as it exists and, considering the stretch goals go all the way up to $11M and the eventual budget was $20M, it's pretty fair to say that the initial goal was never going to be the actual budget.

1. What Suzuki is interested in and what people will pay him to create are very different things. and 2. I seem to recall him mentioning all the remaining chapters of the story, and all the new characters to be introduced, and how many games he wants to spread it over more than him discussing the prequel.

He just did an interview where he talked about how much story is left and how much he'd have to actually cut in order to get it done in 5 games.

Without bitching about S3 again, let's just say that he made that game already and it didn't go over well, even with Shenmue fans.

S1 has a few optional scenes as a relic of its age (it was from back in the day when selling strategy guides was still a big part of console game design) and its emphasis on being "real time" (something that the series walked back significantly in the sequel). Most of the optional content in Shenmue is a result of the clock; you need minigames to waste time while you wait for events to occur (this isn't a criticism mind you, I'm just pointing out how the game was designed). There are very few optional scenes that you can intentionally seek out in S1 on a first time playthrough and the best ones are either, say it with me: learning moves, story stuff pertaining to the mirrors, or character development. S2 does it much better (natch) when you have the option of thanking the people who helped you before leaving Wan Chai, but I wouldn't really consider that side content.

I agree with this to an extent but it has to be said that most of the optional content is S1 is so ridiculously hidden that you wouldn't find it without knowing precisely how to look for it. Again, I'm not criticizing, but this is not something that can be realistically achieved in this day an age under budget constraints, and it's not even something that S3 (or really S2 for that matter) does as far as I'm aware. A lot of this sort of thing is closer to what's considered an easter egg nowadays. Also, I'm not sure what you think I'm advocating for here: I've said repeatedly that Shenmue should play like an RPG, plenty of games have achieved living, breathing worlds before and since Shenmue for considerably less money.

Again, you're telling me that you'd rather read a novel than play through S2, just following the story? I'm not sure what you're driving at with this.
How can you even criticize Shenmue 3 when you didn’t even know about the King of Bailu? You never did this mini game and therefore missed out on what Shenmue 3 has to offer.

It was fun trying to catch the King of Bailu and S3 is a GAME and games should be fun.

Perhaps you would have traded in the King of Bailu for a cutscene where Elder Yeh sits your ass down and painstakingly explains why the poem exists?
 
But how can you properly plan something out when you don't have a fixed budget? Had Yu known that he'd end up with four years and twenty million dollars, who's to say he wouldn't have opted to tell more of the story? Maybe he'd have gone the other way and targeted a hyper-realistic Bailu? Ultimately, we'll never know, but it seems fair to say that many of the decisions made leading up to and during the Kickstarter stage of the project set them on a course from which it was very difficult to deviate.
This is why I say it depends because you're right, Suzuki may place equal or greater value on any number of things that I disagree with. With a fixed budget of $20M, we may still have had Baisha cut, but had realistic noodle physics (something he actually claimed to want) or we could have gotten an improved combat system. As a general rule, yes more money locked down earlier would be better for the project, but it does not guarantee a better game, if that makes sense.
The game did make money though. Not a lot of it, but enough to cover the cost of development; towards which YS Net put $7.2m. We can argue until the cows come home over whether that money truly belonged to YS Net or not, but as far as I'm concerned, from the moment it left our bank accounts and entered theirs, it did.
If it made money, then they made money (and all the investors would have also made money). Of course the 7.2M was YS Net's money, I'm not saying it wasn't; all I'm saying is that they obviously spent it and more during S3's development and they aren't entitled to recoup it.
Whether or not they were reached is somewhat irrelevant, really; at least in the context of this discussion. Yu needed to come up with stretch goals that he thought would get people to pledge more money. He could have promised additional story, or new locations, but he instead chose to go primarily with more mini-games, jobs, and gambling opportunities. He clearly believed that these elements were important to the Shenmue experience, and, rightly or wrongly, was under the impression that fans of the franchise did as well.
I was always under the impression that the story for S3 was locked down and non-negotiable and that any of the stretch goals were going to be about expanding the game/world, which is actually much more financially responsible than promising additional story content. Suzuki initially just wanted to make a story focused game but was talked out of it (and seemingly into the KS) by Ryan Payton. I didn't really pay attention to any of this at the time, as I didn't want to be spoiled; I gave my money and let Suzuki do his thing.
My point was that doing so is what enables him to continue making games and trying new things, which I think is just as important to him as conluding Shenmue's narrative; if not more so.
This is where I think wires are getting crossed. Trying what new things? S3 is slavish to being what it thinks people want from a Shenmue game to a fault and, apart from the stamina system and level system, it barely adds anything new to Shenmue, much less new in terms of games more broadly.
Not really sure what you point is here...
That it doesn't matter how interested Suzuki is in making a Shenmue prequel. However unlikely S4 is (and it's mighty unlikely at this point), a Shenmue prequel in Yokosuka is even less likely than that.
I'm getting tired of saying this now. Nowhere have I said that he doesn't care about the story.
I didn't say that you said that. You were talking about all the evidence that Suzuki doesn't care that much about it and/or cares at least as much about nebulous other things. Which I'm not disagreeing with at all btw, which is why I keep saying that there's no guarantee that an increased budget would make S3 good or that the series moving forward will be good.
I'm sure he'd love to finish it if given the opportunity, although not if it meant stripping away all of the things that make Shenmue Shenmue.
And what are those things?
It didn't go over well with some Shenmue fans. Others quite liked it.
Not enough. And if he wants to make games for that tiny audience, then he should budget and advertise the game accordingly, which he seems unwilling to do.
Sounds to me like you're one of those people who'd prefer it if Shenmue had quest markers and arrows.
I would prefer if the content was actually possible to access on a first playthrough. Deus Ex, Breath of the Wild, the Witcher, hell, even Assassin's Creed allow you to play without quest markers and also don't require the player to ask a million NPCs the same question.
Side content is anything that distracts you from the critical path, of which, the Shenmue series has always had plenty. The fact that it's difficult to seek out some of these optional scenes is a huge positive as far as I'm concerned.
If it's difficult to seek out, then it's not distracting you from the critical path, is it? It's also impossible to seek out unless you know what the critical path is. Shenmue 1 is painfully antiquated in this respect.
Knowing that I could just randomly stumble upon an interaction that I've never seen before despite playing through the games countless times is a big part of what keeps me coming back. Give me that over some shitty fetch quest every day of the week.
Random events are cool but again, not exactly economical and not something that's overly present in either sequel. And let's be real, they're almost all just cutscenes, not actual gameplay.
Your labeling of mini-games and non-story-related NPC interactions as superfluous would presumably suggest that you'd do away with those as well.
Minigames and NPCs that say some variation of "I can't help you, ask someone else" are expensive wastes of production resources at Shenmue's current scale, particularly when the combat system and dialogue system are so compromised; that's just the reality of game development. Limit NPC interaction, reduce the importance of minigames (Shenmue 1 has one arcade, S3 has like half of Niaowu devoted to minigames) and first spend the resources making the important parts of the game good: good dialogue, well paced breadcrumb trail, good combat that is facilitated by learning moves from NPCs etc. I'm not going to write a full GDD here but please stop assuming that just because I want Shenmue to be successful and financially viable, I mean I want linear corridors with cutscenes and fighting. I want the game to be something that isn't so easy to laugh at and embarrassing to play.
I'm not sure why you brought Shenmue 2 into this
Because it's the only example of a Shenmue game where you can (reasonably) just follow the critical path without encountering progress-halting roadblocks. And to the extent that it does contain those elements, they should be eliminated going forward.
if the next Shenmue game were like that, then yes, I'd prefer to just read the novelization and be done with it.
Well you got your "true" Shenmue game and still appear to have to wait for the novelization so I don't see how that's preferable.
I can imagine a much more interesting world than the one you described.
Where did I describe the world of Shenmue? I described an (extremely high-level) financially viable business plan for the series.
 
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I agree, I like Shenmue 3 now.
That’s better.

Now go catch him. I recommend renting the quality fishing set from Huangs Tackle Shop and fish in the big pond

Let me know when you’ve caught the King of Bailu and I’ll expect your revised positive review of S3 on my desk by noon tomorrow.
 
On this subject, I absolutely cannot bring myself to change Ryo’s clothes. Doesn’t seem right.

Needs his doubtless stinky white shirt, blue jeans and brown leather jacket on.
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I've been wandering around Niaowu a lot recently and I must admit I have become quite used to changing the jeans to a black pair! Feels a little different but fresh, yet doesn't break the tradition with the tiger jacket. I did try some of the other colours for the T-shirt but they were too vibrant and looked odd with the jacket.
 
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I've been wandering around Niaowu a lot recently and I must admit I have become quite used to changing the jeans to a black pair! Feels a little different but fresh, yet doesn't break the tradition with the tiger jacket. I did try some of the other colours for the T-shirt but they were too vibrant and looked odd with the jacket.
I thought the red tee looked pretty cool with the jacket. Also the Sega-blue tee by itself looked cool.

Does the game discourage you from wearing the black pants? The description says it looks uncool or something.
 
This is why I say it depends because you're right, Suzuki may place equal or greater value on any number of things that I disagree with. With a fixed budget of $20M, we may still have had Baisha cut, but had realistic noodle physics (something he actually claimed to want) or we could have gotten an improved combat system. As a general rule, yes more money locked down earlier would be better for the project, but it does not guarantee a better game, if that makes sense.
I guess what it really comes down to is whether you believe that Yu Suzuki still has what it takes to make good games. I do, ergo, I choose to believe that better circumstances would have led to a better game. There are no guarantees, of course, but his track record would seem to suggest as much.
If it made money, then they made money (and all the investors would have also made money). Of course the 7.2M was YS Net's money, I'm not saying it wasn't; all I'm saying is that they obviously spent it and more during S3's development and they aren't entitled to recoup it.
If you spent money developing a product and that product went on to generate enough money to cover the cost of development, would you not expect to come away from the endeavor with at least as much money as you first put in?
I was always under the impression that the story for S3 was locked down and non-negotiable and that any of the stretch goals were going to be about expanding the game/world, which is actually much more financially responsible than promising additional story content. Suzuki initially just wanted to make a story focused game but was talked out of it (and seemingly into the KS) by Ryan Payton. I didn't really pay attention to any of this at the time, as I didn't want to be spoiled; I gave my money and let Suzuki do his thing.
I just don't buy this. Nothing about Shenmue 3 suggests to me that the story was ever a priority. It's sloppily told and there's nowhere near enough of it.
This is where I think wires are getting crossed. Trying what new things? S3 is slavish to being what it thinks people want from a Shenmue game to a fault and, apart from the stamina system and level system, it barely adds anything new to Shenmue, much less new in terms of games more broadly.
I was speaking more about the series as a whole here (and Suzuki's wider catalog of games), although there's evidence to suggest that he wanted to introduce new ideas into Shenmue 3 as well (the higher ground battle system, magic maze, character perspective system, etc), even if none of them ever came to fruition.
That it doesn't matter how interested Suzuki is in making a Shenmue prequel. However unlikely S4 is (and it's mighty unlikely at this point), a Shenmue prequel in Yokosuka is even less likely than that.
For whatever it's worth, I think that a prequel is a terrible idea (especially one set in Yokosuka, where we know nothing of significance really happens until that day when the snow turned to rain). However, for as long as Suzuki continues to entertain the idea of making one before making Shenmue 4 and Shenmue 5, I don't see how you can possibly argue that finishing the story is his main focus.
I didn't say that you said that. You were talking about all the evidence that Suzuki doesn't care that much about it and/or cares at least as much about nebulous other things. Which I'm not disagreeing with at all btw, which is why I keep saying that there's no guarantee that an increased budget would make S3 good or that the series moving forward will be good.
Me saying that the story is not Suzuki's main priority is not the same as me saying that he doesn't care about the story at all.
And what are those things?
To me, Shenmue's biggest strength is its immersive world (which comes from the highly detailed environments and the fact that you can talk to pretty much every NPC), but I think the answer to this question will vary quite a bit depending on who you ask. For example, I know that some people are really into the games' combat (something that never really appealed to me all that much besides its connection to the story), while others love being able to play mini-games, or get a job (again, things that I'm not all that bothered about besides their existence adding to the believability of the world).

Shenmue means different things to different people, which made scaling it back without compromising anybody's ideal Shenmue experience an impossible task. I think it would be fair to say that the team failed in this regard, though would argue that they were always destined to given how ambitious the project ended up being, and that they deserve credit for how close they ultimately came.

Could Suzuki have honed in on one or two specific areas of the Shenmue experience instead of trying to tick every box? Absolutely. The fact that he didn't, though, would seem to suggest that he considers all of these elements essential parts of the Shenmue formula, or, at the very least, that he felt that including them was important for meeting the wants and needs of the fans who backed him when nobody else would.
Not enough. And if he wants to make games for that tiny audience, then he should budget and advertise the game accordingly, which he seems unwilling to do.
Personally, I think that smarter monetization is the key to moving the series forward, but agree that in its current format, Shenmue is not a mass-market product and cannot be pitched as such.
I would prefer if the content was actually possible to access on a first playthrough. Deus Ex, Breath of the Wild, the Witcher, hell, even Assassin's Creed allow you to play without quest markers and also don't require the player to ask a million NPCs the same question.
There is nothing in any of the Shenmue games that can't be accessed during a first playthrough.
If it's difficult to seek out, then it's not distracting you from the critical path, is it? It's also impossible to seek out unless you know what the critical path is. Shenmue 1 is painfully antiquated in this respect.
Knowing that there's a possibility of stumbling upon some secret interaction is more than enough of a distraction for me. You may find that concept antiquated, but I much prefer it to being hit with a notification or quest marker that then leads to some boring fetch quest. Don't get me wrong, there are some modern games that do side content well, but most tend to follow the same tired formula, which, to me at least, is massively inferior to the approach taken by Shenmue despite coming decades later.
Random events are cool but again, not exactly economical and not something that's overly present in either sequel. And let's be real, they're almost all just cutscenes, not actual gameplay.
Oh absolutely. Allocating resources to content that most players will never consume is a risky strategy, especially when you're already on a tight budget. However, it's an incredibly effective way to encourage exploration, and, imo, makes for a much better game (assuming you can make it work without compromising other areas).

And no. Not all of the optional interactions in Shenmue are "just cutscenes". Many of the moves that you can learn from NPCs (one of the few things that you seem to have actually liked about the Shenmue games) can only be learned by being in the right place at the right time. I suppose you might argue that it would be better if the game guided players toward these interactions (or just placed them along the critical path so that they couldn't be missed), but I'd strongly disagree with that assertion. Not only does the possibility of learning these new moves incentivize exploration, but it also adds to the sense of realism.
Minigames and NPCs that say some variation of "I can't help you, ask someone else" are expensive wastes of production resources at Shenmue's current scale, particularly when the combat system and dialogue system are so compromised; that's just the reality of game development. Limit NPC interaction, reduce the importance of minigames (Shenmue 1 has one arcade, S3 has like half of Niaowu devoted to minigames) and first spend the resources making the important parts of the game good: good dialogue, well paced breadcrumb trail, good combat that is facilitated by learning moves from NPCs etc. I'm not going to write a full GDD here but please stop assuming that just because I want Shenmue to be successful and financially viable, I mean I want linear corridors with cutscenes and fighting. I want the game to be something that isn't so easy to laugh at and embarrassing to play.
I agree to a certain extent about the mini-games (at least when it comes to how many of them ended up being in Shenmue 3), but would argue tooth and nail for future Shenmue games having a fully-voiced cast, even if facilitating that meant having fewer non-critical NPCs or some with AI-generated voices. Again, though, this kinda comes back to that idea of what makes Shenmue Shenmue. For me, realism and story are the two most important things, so I'd sooner those areas be prioritized, even if that meant cuts elsewhere (I wouldn't mind if the game switched from 3D to 2D for combat, for example).
Because it's the only example of a Shenmue game where you can (reasonably) just follow the critical path without encountering progress-halting roadblocks. And to the extent that it does contain those elements, they should be eliminated going forward.
I was talking about the future of the franchise, rather than the past, but if you insist on using Shenmue 2 as an example, there are at least two points in the game where you hit "progress-halting roadblocks". Even if there weren't though, just following the critical path requires engaging with a lot of the elements that you deem to be superfluous (asking random NPCs for information and directions, earning money to buy maps and pay for hotel rooms, having large open areas that can be explored freely, etc). To make the game work without any of those things, you'd almost have to teleport players from one key conversation/fight to the next with no exploration in between them, at which point, yes, that starts to sound like something that would be better experienced in a different format, whether that be a book, a movie, or a visual novel.
Well you got your "true" Shenmue game and still appear to have to wait for the novelization so I don't see how that's preferable.
I'm not sure I'd really consider Shenmue 3 to be a "true" Shenmue game, but I'm still glad that we got it. Suzuki could have instead chosen to make a crappy 2D visual novel-style game that bombed even harder, in which case, we'd still be sitting around waiting for a conclusion to the story, only without having had the chance to experience Shenmue 3.
I described an (extremely high-level) financially viable business plan for the series.
A novel would be a whole lot more financially viable and would allow for a much more immersive experience than a low-budget 2D game in which half of the characters speak Japanese and the other half don't speak at all. To me, what you're describing isn't really a Shenmue game at all; just a means to an end. If finishing the story is what we're shooting for, I'll take a novel over a game built almost entirely around compromises every day of the week.
 
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No, it doesn't retroactively make me enjoy or appreciate Shenmue 3 any less. I thought it was a swell follow up to I & II. Some folks argued that it didn't advance the series' gameplay in a meaningful way, but I like that it stuck to its guns and didn't modernize much. Shenmue 3 is just that...Shenmue. Not Yakuza 9, not a fast-paced action game, but rather a clunky relic of the 90's that we love. I prefer Shenmue 3 the way it is over it trying to be something its not.

Perhaps it did some damage to the future of the series? Would anyone here be able to fill me in on that? Did the controversies around the funding & release of Sehnmue 3 (and its subsequent reception) affect the prospects of Shenmue 4 in a way we have evidence for?
 
I guess what it really comes down to is whether you believe that Yu Suzuki still has what it takes to make good games. I do, ergo, I choose to believe that better circumstances would have led to a better game. There are no guarantees, of course, but his track record would seem to suggest as much.
I have to believe the guy who made Shenmue 2 can make a better game than Shenmue 3, but I would have also thought the director of Star Wars would have directed another good movie in the interim 40 years...
If you spent money developing a product and that product went on to generate enough money to cover the cost of development, would you not expect to come away from the endeavor with at least as much money as you first put in?
That's not how game development, especially KS, works. The developer is who the money is spent on and KS backers are essentially buying the game before it's made.
I just don't buy this. Nothing about Shenmue 3 suggests to me that the story was ever a priority. It's sloppily told and there's nowhere near enough of it.
Not as S3 currently exists. But again, Ryan Payton's words; I'm not sure why he would lie though, particularly as that piece of advice doesn't exactly paint him in the best light.
(the higher ground battle system, magic maze, character perspective system, etc), even if none of them ever came to fruition.
Even though the stretch goals were hit...
However, for as long as Suzuki continues to entertain the idea of making one before making Shenmue 4 and Shenmue 5, I don't see how you can possibly argue that finishing the story is his main focus.
I don't recall him ever saying he'd make a prequel before he'd make a sequel, just that he'd be interested in doing one. I don't think even the biggest Suzuki simp would be ok with that.
Me saying that the story is not Suzuki's main priority is not the same as me saying that he doesn't care about the story at all.
I didn't say that you said he doesn't care about it at all, you've repeatedly said he potentially cares about it less than basically everything else about the series, which is the point I was making.
To me, Shenmue's biggest strength is its immersive world (which comes from the highly detailed environments and the fact that you can talk to pretty much every NPC)
I don't understand how having good graphics (for the time) and hundreds of NPCs who tell you they can't help you makes Shenmue's world immersive (and in fact I would argue talking to people who sound like weird robots makes the game less immersive). I agree that Shenmue's immersive world is one if its biggest strengths but that would be true if the game didn't let you, say, pick up a random orange just to look at it.
For example, I know that some people are really into the games' combat (something that never really appealed to me all that much besides its connection to the story)
Regardless of how you or I personally feel about the combat, the combat system in Shenmue, a game about a martial artist learning martial arts, is inarguably one of (if not the) pillars. Taking away the fighting game inputs made it so you could no longer learn moves from NPCs which has a huge cascading effect on some of Shenmue's only meaningful side content.
There is nothing in any of the Shenmue games that can't be accessed during a first playthrough.
Yes there absolutely is. Shenmue is 100% dictated by the story. Just as an example, if you are tasked with finding Heartbeats bar and you accidentally stumble upon it, you are forever shut out from all of the side content you could have experienced while looking for Heartbeats bar. Therefore, without knowing what the critical path is and what triggers it, you have no idea what's side content or main content (which I get was kind of the point but again: antiquated).
And no. Not all of the optional interactions in Shenmue are "just cutscenes". Many of the moves that you can learn from NPCs (one of the few things that you seem to have actually liked about the Shenmue games) can only be learned by being in the right place at the right time. I suppose you might argue that it would be better if the game guided players toward these interactions (or just placed them along the critical path so that they couldn't be missed), but I'd strongly disagree with that assertion. Not only does the possibility of learning these new moves incentivize exploration, but it also adds to the sense of realism.
There are many ways to do this kind of thing better. You could make NPCs who teach you moves always available or increase the window, you could have the game take place over a fixed amount of time so there's less chance to miss events, you could even have a set number of move slots somewhere in the UI so the player at least knows what to be on the lookout for.
but would argue tooth and nail for future Shenmue games having a fully-voiced cast, even if facilitating that meant having fewer non-critical NPCs
There you go. If the only NPCs you could interact with were, say, shop owners, that alone would dramatically reduce the cost. Though I can't understand why voice acting (particularly of Shenmue's horrible quality) is so important. Do you find Yakuza or Zelda less immersive?
just following the critical path requires engaging with a lot of the elements that you deem to be superfluous (asking random NPCs for information and directions, earning money to buy maps and pay for hotel rooms, having large open areas that can be explored freely, etc)
I don't have anything against asking NPCs for information and I don't know where I've even implied it. NPCs in S2 are far more useful than in S1 (a greater percentage of them will help you and many of them will even walk you to your destination; this is good), earning money is also not something superfluous as long as it's part of the story though it's worth pointing out that you only need to pay for the Come Over Guest House, Ryo stays for free with Xiuying and in Kowloon and in Guilin (and Yokosuka, for that matter) so, again, how this came to be some kind of pillar of the series I will never know. Buying maps is hardly essential and exploring open areas is called an RPG.
To make the game work without any of those things, you'd almost have to teleport players from one key conversation/fight to the next with no exploration in between them, at which point, yes, that starts to sound like something that would be better experienced in a different format, whether that be a book, a movie, or a visual novel.
I don't understand where I've said this at all. Exploration is a big part of Shenmue, I've repeatedly cited finding the Four Wude, the Chawan signs, the Hazuki Basement etc. as high points.
Suzuki could have instead chosen to make a crappy 2D visual novel-style game that bombed even harder, in which case, we'd still be sitting around waiting for a conclusion to the story
You can only think this if you think he spent $7-20M making that game and are thus deliberately missing my point.
A novel would be a whole lot more financially viable and would allow for a much more immersive experience than a low-budget 2D game in which half of the characters speak Japanese and the other half don't speak at all.
This is such an insulting thing to say. Seriously. Tell the guys who made Disco Elysium that a novel would have been "more immersive" than the game they made. You wanna question if I like Shenmue; do you even like video games?
I'll take a novel over a game built almost entirely around compromises every day of the week.
Shenmue 3 is probably the best example of a game built almost entirely out of compromises that I can think of.
 
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Perhaps it did some damage to the future of the series? Would anyone here be able to fill me in on that? Did the controversies around the funding & release of Sehnmue 3 (and its subsequent reception) affect the prospects of Shenmue 4 in a way we have evidence for?
While I don't know the extent to which it can be said that the controversies around the funding/release of S3 affected the prospects of S4 (I personally don't put a lot of stock in that), it's pretty clear that the poor sales performance of S3 relative to its budget is the main reason we're not getting S4.
 
That's not how game development, especially KS, works. The developer is who the money is spent on and KS backers are essentially buying the game before it's made.
You're right. Although Kickstarter has in the past gone to great lengths to emphasize that backing a project is not the same as pre-ordering, that tends to be how most people treat it these days (even if the average Shenmue 3 backer pledged significantly more than the cost of purchasing a single copy of the game). The same cannot be said though for money generated elsewhere, whether that be through exclusivity deals or sales of the final product.
Not as S3 currently exists. But again, Ryan Payton's words; I'm not sure why he would lie though, particularly as that piece of advice doesn't exactly paint him in the best light.
Who knows. Perhaps some misguided attempt to shield Yu from criticism? Or you can choose to believe that Yu went from wanting to make a game that was entirely story-focussed to a game that barely touched on the story at all based on the say-so of Ryan Payton.
I don't recall him ever saying he'd make a prequel before he'd make a sequel, just that he'd be interested in doing one. I don't think even the biggest Suzuki simp would be ok with that.
The fact that he's exploring the idea when there are still at least two more Shenmue games to make would seem to suggest as much, no? Why talk about it in two interviews if it's not something he's seriously considering?
I don't understand how having good graphics (for the time) and hundreds of NPCs who tell you they can't help you makes Shenmue's world immersive (and in fact I would argue talking to people who sound like weird robots makes the game less immersive). I agree that Shenmue's immersive world is one of its biggest strengths but that would be true if the game didn't let you, say, pick up a random orange just to look at it.
The items needed to be modelled either way and the animations for picking up key items would also have had to be made. With that in mind, being able to inspect random objects likely adds very little to the overall cost of production.

As for some NPCs being unhelpful, I really don't see your issue. Most of the people in Yokosuka probably wouldn't have known who Charlie was or where to find sailors, so them telling Ryo as much makes perfect sense. What wouldn't make sense would be if Ryo could only ask one or two specific people for leads (which would also make story progression incredibly frustrating).
Regardless of how you or I personally feel about the combat, the combat system in Shenmue, a game about a martial artist learning martial arts, is inarguably one of (if not the) pillars. Taking away the fighting game inputs made it so you could no longer learn moves from NPCs which has a huge cascading effect on some of Shenmue's only meaningful side content.
Of course Shenmue needs to have combat. I was merely expressing that the quality of said combat isn't something that concerns me too much. I'm well aware that there are plenty of people who see things differently.
Yes there absolutely is. Shenmue is 100% dictated by the story. Just as an example, if you are tasked with finding Heartbeats bar and you accidentally stumble upon it, you are forever shut out from all of the side content you could have experienced while looking for Heartbeats bar. Therefore, without knowing what the critical path is and what triggers it, you have no idea what's side content or main content (which I get was kind of the point but again: antiquated).
You could make this argument about pretty much every game ever made; save for those that throw up a big warning whenever players reach a point of no return. Would you rather Shenmue had taken this approach, or would you have preferred it if the game manufactured some artificial roadblock preventing players from finding Heartbeats until after they'd spoken to the right person? It kind of does do this in other places already, and these are the very worst parts of the game.
There are many ways to do this kind of thing better. You could make NPCs who teach you moves always available or increase the window, you could have the game take place over a fixed amount of time so there's less chance to miss events, you could even have a set number of move slots somewhere in the UI so the player at least knows what to be on the lookout for.
Respectfully, all of these ideas sound terrible to me. I like that you can only find Yamagishi-san having a drink and reminiscing about his old friend in the immediate aftermath of Iwao's death. If he were there all the time, the moment would lose all meaning.
Do you find Yakuza or Zelda less immersive?
Yes. I enjoy both series, but don't find either to be particularly immersive.
You can only think this if you think he spent $7-20M making that game and are thus deliberately missing my point.
Not at all. If he'd used just the Kickstarter money to make such a game (which you seem to be suggesting he should have), I think we'd be in the exact same position we are now, only without Shenmue 3 to show for it.
This is such an insulting thing to say. Seriously. Tell the guys who made Disco Elysium that a novel would have been "more immersive" than the game they made. You wanna question if I like Shenmue; do you even like video games?
Firstly, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the guys who made Disco Elysium couldn't care less about the opinions of some random person on the internet, let alone get offended by them. What this even has to do with Disco Elysium (a game centered primarily around player choice and stat-based skill checks; two things that would not translate well at all to any of the mediums I mentioned -- although would work quite well as a table-top board game), I'll never really know, but I find it rich that you find this insulting given some of your comments about Shenmue 3.
Shenmue 3 is probably the best example of a game built almost entirely out of compromises that I can think of.
Case in point.
 
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