- Joined
- Sep 20, 2018
Yes! I posted on there quite regularly back in the day. I think I remember you from the forums too come to think of it?
General Impressions
- Thread starter spud1897
- Start date
Indeed!
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2018
Feels so incredibly good to be back post Shenmue III, it’s almost like being born again. I wanted to avoid any and all discussion, thoughts, etc. so I could indulge myself for the past month or so neutrally in both languages. Managed to juice near 100hrs out of the game, there really is so much charm and authenticity to Shenmue III, it’s unapologetic and refreshing. Though there’s no definitive award for getting the most out of a budget, Suzuki-San has done it. Any shortcomings were ultimately due to it, but none that weren’t able to be put aside easily for the overall package at hand. I could go on, but it’s all been said and has been fun to read and discuss, but in the end I’m still just so appreciative to be apart of this ride. So looking forward to Shenmue IV, this series is magic.
Just finished S3. I really took my time with it, I must have spent close to 100 hours in it. I felt the magic of being in the world of Shenmue again, and considering the low budget the game had, I was impressed.
I enjoyed the new fighting system and the many moves that it comes with, just would like going forward for that experience to be more polished and add throw moves. Gambling was not great IMO, they really should have card games (high card, poker, 21), so the games are not all entirely luck based. The mini arcade games were fine, but missing classics like Hang On and Space Harrier. Would be great if actual Sega classics made their way back into the arcade, including Virtua Fighter.
The ending did feel rushed, and I was hoping for an abundance of information in regards to some of the answers we had going into Shenmue 3, so the lack of that information was a bit disappointing, but overall, I really loved Shenmue 3 and I'm itching for the continuation of the story in S4.
I enjoyed the new fighting system and the many moves that it comes with, just would like going forward for that experience to be more polished and add throw moves. Gambling was not great IMO, they really should have card games (high card, poker, 21), so the games are not all entirely luck based. The mini arcade games were fine, but missing classics like Hang On and Space Harrier. Would be great if actual Sega classics made their way back into the arcade, including Virtua Fighter.
The ending did feel rushed, and I was hoping for an abundance of information in regards to some of the answers we had going into Shenmue 3, so the lack of that information was a bit disappointing, but overall, I really loved Shenmue 3 and I'm itching for the continuation of the story in S4.
Telekill
Sega Game Gear Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2018
- Location
- Beginings of Dystopian Hell
- Currently playing
- Resident Evil 5 (PS4), Helldivers 2 (PS5), God of War: R (PS5)
I FINALLY completed Shenmue 3 about two days ago. Sadly, it took me that long to find the time to complete it. Anyway...
The game's two area's felt like the two previous Shenmue games. The first area, Shenhua's village felt like the first game to me while the city felt more like the second.
I didn't like the stamina system even after getting most my health full via training. It was simply annoying but that was essentially my only gripe about the game.
I felt that the story was really ramping up for the last couple hours of the game and it has me excited for a potential 4th.
I did get super annoyed with the Red Snakes. Especially that scrawny guy in the gray sweater. I relished beating his friends to hell in front of him and then finishing him off.
I think that given how the battle with Lan Di went that Ryo is gonna say "f**k it" and buy a gun to finish him off at their next encounter.
The game's two area's felt like the two previous Shenmue games. The first area, Shenhua's village felt like the first game to me while the city felt more like the second.
I didn't like the stamina system even after getting most my health full via training. It was simply annoying but that was essentially my only gripe about the game.
I felt that the story was really ramping up for the last couple hours of the game and it has me excited for a potential 4th.
I did get super annoyed with the Red Snakes. Especially that scrawny guy in the gray sweater. I relished beating his friends to hell in front of him and then finishing him off.
I think that given how the battle with Lan Di went that Ryo is gonna say "f**k it" and buy a gun to finish him off at their next encounter.
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2018
I think that given how the battle with Lan Di went that Ryo is gonna say "f**k it" and buy a gun to finish him off at their next encounter.
I would approve of this if Yu Suzuki has to compromise and make Shenmue IV the last.
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2020
Totally agree.
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2020
I loved Shenmue 3. I agree with everyone about the issues with the lack of real additions to the overall Shenmue story, but I really enjoyed the game and would probably back a Shenmue IV at the same level that I did before. I think that we all have our own conception of what a 'Shenmue game' is. There are some complaints that I have seen around the internet that I actually enjoyed about the game, and I think that if certain elements were removed, it would have been less of a 'Shenmue game' for me.
For me, Shenmue was always about being the most realistic game to simulate Ryo's life experiences as he serches for his father's killer. (To me) The reason the first game(s) were ground breaking graphically, was to add to the immersion rather than set a benchmark. I like that Ryo has to earn money to pay his way. I like that you can at least knock on every door in the city. I like that you can open up drawers that you have a right to open, and that Ryo doesn't do things that he doesn't have a right to do-such as enter Shenhua's room or go behind a clerk's counter. I liked that in the original games, that there was an animation for drinking a soda bought from the machine, and that you could pick up and inspect items in shops, and I assume those things weren't added to 3 for budgetary reasons. In the original games, I feel like the use of a real fighting game's engine also added to this realism. I know that Suzuki made VF, so it might seem like an obvious choice, but there were probably easier options to implement that would have made more sense as we never fully explore the fullness of that engine in Shenmue.
For me, Shenmue 3 pretty much nailed these aspects. I would venture to say that Niaowu probably had more shops that I could visit and actually patronize than Shenmue 1 and 2 combined. I remember in Shenmue 2 there was a section of Hong Kong that was an electronics district, and another that was full of food stalls, but I couldn't purchase a thing from any business on either street. In Niaowu, everybody has something to offer. I also disagree with those who wish for a way to skip through dialogue on the first play through. To me, this would break the realism. In real life if you ask someone a question, you have to listen to them finish speaking, out of respect-especially someone like Ryo. Those who complain about S3's length would have found the game much shorter if you could just skip dialogue and wait for a journal entry to pop up. There are even cries on the internet to 'modernize' Shenmue by adding skippable dialogue and way-points on the map. For me, this would destroy what Shenmue is about, for me. For me, the game is about immersion in a place.
I loved the forklifts in the first game, and always wished that the second game had them instead of carrying boxes. I actually liked that Ryo had to catch the bus to go to work every morning. I liked that he had a lunch break in the middle, and then had to go back to work before he could resume his investigation at night. For me, that was the essence of Shenmue. It was realistic. Ryo has to go to bed at night, because a human cannot go indefinitely without rest, despite what other open world games might pretend. I wish that Niaowu had a better forklift segment, but I realize that the harbor area from Shenmue 1 was almost as big as all of Niaowu, so I understand why it was cut down in this game.
Another thing that people on the internet have complained about, that I liked the inclusion of, was the stamina system. I always wondered why in the original games Ryo could drink but not eat, and I always wanted to see that included to make the game more realistic. I think that having your health drain throughout the day, and drain more during strenuous activity is brilliant. It make sense to me, in a game that has you go to sleep at night, and has you actually reach down to pick up items and herbs, rather than just automatically adding them to your inventory. Now, parts of it I would have done differently. I would have made it more realistic. I would have limited how much the player can carry(at least in the first playthrough), but made food boost your health more realistically. I don't think its realistic to eat 6 heads of lettuce to get your energy back up, or 20 apples or whatever. I would have made food increase your health more than it does, but limit your ability to carry too much so that you had to visit stalls when hungry and just keep a few items on you to replenish health if you weren't nearby a stall.
I also liked that Stamina and health were tied together. As Ryo was not taking bullets or being stabbed with swords by enemies in this game, it makes sense to keep the realistic immersion of the game. Getting into a fight and getting punched up would reduce one's stamina by about the same amount as if one had been just jogging around town all day talking to people and playing arcade games.
I for one didn't terribly miss the actual Sega Arcade games. For one, I doubt there was any thing that could be done about them being in the game. I assume that Sega didn't want to give Yu the rights to use them, or wanted to charge too much for them. Also, while I appreciate the option to play them at the arcade, I never much liked Space Harrier, Outrun, or Hang-On, and I never tried to get the high scores on them in the first two games. I actually played the QTE games in the arcades more, so I didn't personally miss the actual Sega games, and I didn't mind the stand in games that the team created to replace them. It would have been nice if the real games were there, but what can you do?
I think that most of the issues of the game can be attributed to the meager budget, and I can excuse most of them because of it. I think that even some of the customer service issues, such as the Epic store exclusivity was likely because of this. I can imagine that sometime around the beginning of last year, they realized that they needed 8 or 9 more months to finish the game, and they only had enough money to pay the staff for 4-6 months, and so they went around looking for additional investment, and Epic games offered them the money to finish the game in exchange for the timed PC exclusivity. I could totally be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is more or less what happened.
I miss the animations for drinking and would have loved animations for eating, but I think they knew that was something that they would either add at the end of production, or not add at all.
My biggest complaint about the game, was that the fights were far too easy. I got addicted to perfecting my kung fu, and mastered every move in the game, and even playing the game on hardest, it was way too easy in the last moments. Instead of running a gauntlet, all of the goons just went down with one punch, and even the red snake boss at the end was a joke. I also would have liked to actually fight the 3 bodyguards at the end. I think this was a missed opportunity and it would have lengthened the ending section and made the game feel more like the ending of Shenmue 1 where you have to do the 70 man fight and then fight the leader of the gang, and then Chai.
I don't understand how they could have messed up the QTEs the way that they did. The sequences were really well done, but the button commands disappeared so quickly that I almost always missed on the first try. I would rather had a chance to get it right on the first try, rather than failing everytime and having to memorize the commands, but this is a minor issue.
Again, I agree with everyone about the lack of story related quests in the game, or rather how little story we actually got or how little was explained. I never knew the name of either of the muscle guys, in the same way that I knew Don Niu or Yuan or Goro or Big Z. I didn't even catch the name of Niao Sun in the game, and never knew that she was an important character until reading that on here.
All in all, I enjoyed what I played, and I hope that we get another game, or even 2 to finish the story. I hope that this game can sell a couple hundred thousand copies and Yu Suzuki can go to Sega or another investor and say look," this is what we did with such a small budget. We sold a quarter of a million copies (They sold 81,000 just to backers). We have the engine built and a team in place, and we can make the next game in 3 years instead of 4 and sell the same amount of copies." Hopefully we won't have to do a kickstarter for Shenmue IV and this can serve as a demonstration to investors what YsNet can do with just 12 million dollars.
For me, Shenmue was always about being the most realistic game to simulate Ryo's life experiences as he serches for his father's killer. (To me) The reason the first game(s) were ground breaking graphically, was to add to the immersion rather than set a benchmark. I like that Ryo has to earn money to pay his way. I like that you can at least knock on every door in the city. I like that you can open up drawers that you have a right to open, and that Ryo doesn't do things that he doesn't have a right to do-such as enter Shenhua's room or go behind a clerk's counter. I liked that in the original games, that there was an animation for drinking a soda bought from the machine, and that you could pick up and inspect items in shops, and I assume those things weren't added to 3 for budgetary reasons. In the original games, I feel like the use of a real fighting game's engine also added to this realism. I know that Suzuki made VF, so it might seem like an obvious choice, but there were probably easier options to implement that would have made more sense as we never fully explore the fullness of that engine in Shenmue.
For me, Shenmue 3 pretty much nailed these aspects. I would venture to say that Niaowu probably had more shops that I could visit and actually patronize than Shenmue 1 and 2 combined. I remember in Shenmue 2 there was a section of Hong Kong that was an electronics district, and another that was full of food stalls, but I couldn't purchase a thing from any business on either street. In Niaowu, everybody has something to offer. I also disagree with those who wish for a way to skip through dialogue on the first play through. To me, this would break the realism. In real life if you ask someone a question, you have to listen to them finish speaking, out of respect-especially someone like Ryo. Those who complain about S3's length would have found the game much shorter if you could just skip dialogue and wait for a journal entry to pop up. There are even cries on the internet to 'modernize' Shenmue by adding skippable dialogue and way-points on the map. For me, this would destroy what Shenmue is about, for me. For me, the game is about immersion in a place.
I loved the forklifts in the first game, and always wished that the second game had them instead of carrying boxes. I actually liked that Ryo had to catch the bus to go to work every morning. I liked that he had a lunch break in the middle, and then had to go back to work before he could resume his investigation at night. For me, that was the essence of Shenmue. It was realistic. Ryo has to go to bed at night, because a human cannot go indefinitely without rest, despite what other open world games might pretend. I wish that Niaowu had a better forklift segment, but I realize that the harbor area from Shenmue 1 was almost as big as all of Niaowu, so I understand why it was cut down in this game.
Another thing that people on the internet have complained about, that I liked the inclusion of, was the stamina system. I always wondered why in the original games Ryo could drink but not eat, and I always wanted to see that included to make the game more realistic. I think that having your health drain throughout the day, and drain more during strenuous activity is brilliant. It make sense to me, in a game that has you go to sleep at night, and has you actually reach down to pick up items and herbs, rather than just automatically adding them to your inventory. Now, parts of it I would have done differently. I would have made it more realistic. I would have limited how much the player can carry(at least in the first playthrough), but made food boost your health more realistically. I don't think its realistic to eat 6 heads of lettuce to get your energy back up, or 20 apples or whatever. I would have made food increase your health more than it does, but limit your ability to carry too much so that you had to visit stalls when hungry and just keep a few items on you to replenish health if you weren't nearby a stall.
I also liked that Stamina and health were tied together. As Ryo was not taking bullets or being stabbed with swords by enemies in this game, it makes sense to keep the realistic immersion of the game. Getting into a fight and getting punched up would reduce one's stamina by about the same amount as if one had been just jogging around town all day talking to people and playing arcade games.
I for one didn't terribly miss the actual Sega Arcade games. For one, I doubt there was any thing that could be done about them being in the game. I assume that Sega didn't want to give Yu the rights to use them, or wanted to charge too much for them. Also, while I appreciate the option to play them at the arcade, I never much liked Space Harrier, Outrun, or Hang-On, and I never tried to get the high scores on them in the first two games. I actually played the QTE games in the arcades more, so I didn't personally miss the actual Sega games, and I didn't mind the stand in games that the team created to replace them. It would have been nice if the real games were there, but what can you do?
I think that most of the issues of the game can be attributed to the meager budget, and I can excuse most of them because of it. I think that even some of the customer service issues, such as the Epic store exclusivity was likely because of this. I can imagine that sometime around the beginning of last year, they realized that they needed 8 or 9 more months to finish the game, and they only had enough money to pay the staff for 4-6 months, and so they went around looking for additional investment, and Epic games offered them the money to finish the game in exchange for the timed PC exclusivity. I could totally be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is more or less what happened.
I miss the animations for drinking and would have loved animations for eating, but I think they knew that was something that they would either add at the end of production, or not add at all.
My biggest complaint about the game, was that the fights were far too easy. I got addicted to perfecting my kung fu, and mastered every move in the game, and even playing the game on hardest, it was way too easy in the last moments. Instead of running a gauntlet, all of the goons just went down with one punch, and even the red snake boss at the end was a joke. I also would have liked to actually fight the 3 bodyguards at the end. I think this was a missed opportunity and it would have lengthened the ending section and made the game feel more like the ending of Shenmue 1 where you have to do the 70 man fight and then fight the leader of the gang, and then Chai.
I don't understand how they could have messed up the QTEs the way that they did. The sequences were really well done, but the button commands disappeared so quickly that I almost always missed on the first try. I would rather had a chance to get it right on the first try, rather than failing everytime and having to memorize the commands, but this is a minor issue.
Again, I agree with everyone about the lack of story related quests in the game, or rather how little story we actually got or how little was explained. I never knew the name of either of the muscle guys, in the same way that I knew Don Niu or Yuan or Goro or Big Z. I didn't even catch the name of Niao Sun in the game, and never knew that she was an important character until reading that on here.
All in all, I enjoyed what I played, and I hope that we get another game, or even 2 to finish the story. I hope that this game can sell a couple hundred thousand copies and Yu Suzuki can go to Sega or another investor and say look," this is what we did with such a small budget. We sold a quarter of a million copies (They sold 81,000 just to backers). We have the engine built and a team in place, and we can make the next game in 3 years instead of 4 and sell the same amount of copies." Hopefully we won't have to do a kickstarter for Shenmue IV and this can serve as a demonstration to investors what YsNet can do with just 12 million dollars.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2020
PS. I also loved that you can change your clothes in the game, as it is realistic. In fact, they could have even forced you to change clothes by rotation, if you didn't manually do it, and they could have had a cool mini game where Ryo has to wash his clothes out everyday. LOL.
I got addicted to clothes shopping in the game, and managed to get every T-shirt but 2 or 3 that I missed due to them being tied to sidequests that I didn't know about, or had expired by the time I figured out that they were from sidequests. On my main file I got every pair of pants and shoes, and every jacket except for the Red Satin one(which is the ugliest one)-which I got on my second file that I let my daughter play.
Was there more than one Kung Fu outfit? I did spam the Reverse Hill Kick trade in at the pawn shop to get most of this stuff, because the forklift job in this game was not as good as part 1 and didn't pay well at all. I only did this after save scumming to get the 500,000 tokens from gambling-which was still incredibly hard to do even by cheating. I don't think I will ever platinum this game, because I don't feel like trying to catch 900 more fish, but if I do I won't have to worry about the gambling trophies or the money trophies.
I got addicted to clothes shopping in the game, and managed to get every T-shirt but 2 or 3 that I missed due to them being tied to sidequests that I didn't know about, or had expired by the time I figured out that they were from sidequests. On my main file I got every pair of pants and shoes, and every jacket except for the Red Satin one(which is the ugliest one)-which I got on my second file that I let my daughter play.
Was there more than one Kung Fu outfit? I did spam the Reverse Hill Kick trade in at the pawn shop to get most of this stuff, because the forklift job in this game was not as good as part 1 and didn't pay well at all. I only did this after save scumming to get the 500,000 tokens from gambling-which was still incredibly hard to do even by cheating. I don't think I will ever platinum this game, because I don't feel like trying to catch 900 more fish, but if I do I won't have to worry about the gambling trophies or the money trophies.
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2018
Interesting that you liked the clothing options, because I had no desire to really change the clothes. Probably just carryover from the previous games where I now associate Ryo with his usual costume and didn't want to change it
I didn't like that the US flag on his arm got replaced with generic red and white stripes though
In future games, I would hope they can make some more fun arcade titles or just cut them. I didn't have any desire to play Highway Star or Chobu fighter more than once.
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2018
- Favourite title
- Shenmue IIx
- Currently playing
- Ghost of Tsushima
- PSN
- mjqjazzbar
Pail Toss and the golf game are total duds. :-X
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2018
Didn't even know there was a golf game.
I tried Chobu fighter once and didn't get it.
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2018
Ditto on Highway/Smart Ball. I also didn't mind Pail Toss too much, but the prizes weren't incentivizing enough for me to play it much.
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2018
- Favourite title
- Shenmue IIx
- Currently playing
- Ghost of Tsushima
- PSN
- mjqjazzbar
whack a mole and log chopping are the most satisfying mini games imo
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2020
Interesting that you liked the clothing options, because I had no desire to really change the clothes. Probably just carryover from the previous games where I now associate Ryo with his usual costume and didn't want to change it
I didn't like that the US flag on his arm got replaced with generic red and white stripes though
In future games, I would hope they can make some more fun arcade titles or just cut them. I didn't have any desire to play Highway Star or Chobu fighter more than once.
I liked it because it added to the life sim element, in that real life people change clothes daily, and I appreciated that all of the outfit changes still made sense with the time period and Ryo's style. Nothing was crazy or too garish.
I agree that the new games left a little to be desired, but they were fun for a few plays.
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2018
I have to say you are right about the clothes fitting the game. I was worried that they would put in lots of silly outfits, so I'm glad they didn't!
Truck_1_0_1_
I Don't Know, but I Have You!
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2018
- Location
- Barrie, Ontario, Canada
- Favourite title
- Shenmue II
- Currently playing
- Nothing
- PSN
- Truck_1_0_1_
- Steam
- Truck_1_0_1_
I didn't like that the US flag on his arm got replaced with generic red and white stripes though
Was never a US flag, was ALWAYS red and white stripes:
Why would a guy who's never been or has no link to the US, have a US flag? lol
Wouldn't say that; Pail Toss was satisfying and the Golf Game was challenging and made for varied gameplay (not simply tossing it in a hole, though you could do that as well); my first hole was when I threw it, landed short, but then rolled in sync with the hole and went in once it went over the edge, it was cool :)
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2018
To be fair, there are lots of people that wear stuff that they have no connection to. It's pretty easy to guess who is a tourist when wearing stuff like "I ❤ NY" lol