General Impressions

I couldn't find a general 'impressions' thread here that was stickied or anything, but wanted to give my immediate thoughts after finishing the game last night.
Would love to hear your thoughts and what you agree/disagree with.

Okay, just finished Shenmue III here are my thoughts overall. I want to talk about the ending first, I’ll try to keep it vague, but there might be some spoilers here;

I really enjoyed the message at the end of the credits, felt very genuinue and heartfelt from Yu Suzuki. I really do hope that he gets to make Shenmue IV and that he can build on the base created by III. I can tell he had to sacrifice things to fit them into this game’s budget and other constraints and I’d love to see him secure some funding and maybe more dev time for a sequel.

So let’s break this up into the good and bad things I took away from this game.

THE GOOD:
Music - The music is as great as ever for Shenmue, in fact this is the aspect I think held up to the standards of the old games. Very beautiful score and I love that each area would have different music as you walked around the game world. Nice to see some returning tracks as well. Overall probably the best aspect of the game!

Atmosphere/Setting - The atmosphere is so close to perfection, the small town of Bailu and the relatively busy city of Niaowu were great. I loved the locations and the scenery, loved the characters going about their daily lives and the day/night cycle returning! It was still fun to explore the town and see all the detail that exists in the locales. I will give it a slight negative for some really out of place feeling areas, like the arcades and very western ice cream stores in Niaowu. It did detract a lot from the enjoyment for me, and I don’t think the intention was to make the place feel like a tacky theme park, but that’s the impression I got for some places. Others, like the shrines and water-front were perfect.

Supernatural elements - I did enjoy that they kept some hints at supernatural elements, displayed at points with Shenhua. It does make me wonder why other supernatural elements seem to be glossed over or abandoned though. I liked some unexplained phenomena here.

Story & World Building - I did like that we got some small, but important plot progression, seeing the link of Bailu village and Iwao was great. Even though that’s about all the plot we get, it’s very compelling and felt like a big deal. I also want to point out I like how the enemies progress as a threat. Chai is now not as big a deal as when Ryo was green in Shenmue 1, and even though he could fight Dio Niu in Shenmue 2, he wasn’t a martial arts master so much as he was just a huge guy. Now Ryo has to fight large enemies that also know martial arts, or masters, the key becomes finding a weakness in their style. Again this is rather shallow, probably due to budget and time (it basically boils down to doing one ‘silver bullet’ move), but a good way to explain enemies being stronger.

Characters - Returning characters like Shenhua and Ren are welcome, but new characters like the grandmasters of kung fu that we meet, Shiling and Shu for example are all great. I only wish we could have spent more time with them, but again this might be a budget restraint as it felt like we barely got to know them compared to the characters in the previous games. Incidental characters and cameos were great too, especially Delin Hong’s brother!


THE BAD

Combat - No way around this, the combat plain sucks. This game has bad combat not only by Shenmue standards (which admittedly is a tough bar to clear for a low budget game), but even by industry standards. Jank animations, shitty collision detection, horrible inputs that don’t have any relevance (press AAB to do an elbow for example has no correlation to the move itself) and even a poorly implemented lock on system (which you would think wouldn’t be required if they took out directional inputs.
The old system was far more intuitive and fun, with moves that developed as you mastered them and better collision with far more defensive options too. Dodging by double tapping an analogue stick is awkward and the block isn’t as active or as fun as the parry. Enemy attacks are inconsistent to avoid and sometimes the answer is just blocking and trying to learn an attack pattern, but even that isn’t a guarantee they won’t block your counter strike. Without throws, the enemy blocking your counter attacks means a long and drawn out stalemate. The combat being so poor really affected the end game in a negative way.

QTEs - I don’t know how a series with such good QTEs ended up like this. Instant-fail states rather than branching scenarios I can understand (partly) due to a restrictive budget, but the buttons have no correlation to the actions anymore, making them feel so arbitrary. The timing is also much stricter than the previous games from what I can tell, making the whole process tedious for me. I don’t know who missed the point of the QTE so hard that they screwed it up so badly with 3, one of the most disappointing aspects of the game.

Story - *SPOILERS*I had this in both good and bad. While i liked they kept some supernatural elements, did Suzuki get scared by fans complaining about the mythic side of things? We learn in part 2 that the mirrors are a key to a catastrophic event or the end of the world, but this is seemingly ignored in 3 in favour of ‘lost treasure’ which is just not as interesting to me, and removes an aspect of Shenmue I really wanted to see more of. 2 had a lot of hints towards the supernatural and spiritual side of things coming forth, but might have been dumped? It would be a crying shame if it was. Even the sword from part 2 floating is seemingly forgotten about!

Stamina/Health - Like combat, there’s no real positive aspect to this, the health system is just pointless busy-work and not fun or interesting. I can understand why they implemented it, maybe to give shops more relevance and more incentive to browse stores or use vending machines, but it’s just slowing down the game and progress. Energy drinks during fights are another weirdly out of place feature for the game that’s meant to be grounded in reality and kung-fu. I can’t imagine Ryo slamming a Monster Energy Drink to regain health mid fight in 1980’s china. It doesn’t fit the time, locations or the game, and it just feels tacky and lazy.

Atmosphere/World - Similar to the energy drinks, some aspects of the towns felt really out of place. The giant bustling arcades in Niaowu right next to old buildings just felt weird. It felt like a tacky theme park location and took me out of the immersion. Ditto the burger shops and ice-cream stores. Bailu had less of this issue but still suffered a bit with the arcade and energy drinks for sale. I will also say that the backer characters in a key fight during the game was lol-worthy because they looked so obviously out of place and bizarre. That could have been implemented a lot better, ditto the big ‘Save Shenmue’ temple, but at least you can just walk past that and choose not to interact with it.

Last Act/Story Pacing - *SPOILERS*The last act felt like I should have enjoyed it, but there was a lot of problems. First and most obvious being, why do they make you do a pointless fetch-quest as soon as you land in the abandoned castle? Related to my last point, why the fuck is there a pawn shop in the castle too!? It just ruined the build up for me. The characters again were fun, but we didn’t spend much time with Shu and Shiling so I was questioning why they were even joining us, especially as they don’t do anything of consequence. In the final battle, three martial artists appear and are disposed of that we never saw previously. Again, completely inconsequential and something I feel was cut due to budget/time which is a shame.

Side Quests - These felt so out of place in Shenmue, with Ryo doing random good deeds for complete strangers. It really didn’t have a place in this game and most were not particularly interesting or fun, or straight bugged and didn’t work (Ren disappearing when I need to find him for example).

Railroading - The game would force me to solve problems in a very particular way, unlike previous games where you could talk to so many people and get pieces of information, or even use logic to find alternative routes. The worse offender is a character actually straight up being removed from the game world so I could follow the pre-determined path before talking to him, even though I’d already realised he was the key to the solution. Very weak design and really disappointing for a series that had such an excellent progression system before. One of the most disappointing aspects for sure.

Voice Acting - Yes, English VA was always bad, but this felt like they were often trying to be bad on purpose which just makes it tedious rather than charming sometimes.


OVERALL:
Overall, I'm really happy this game exists. I backed it and we got the sequel and some story progression, and a really unique and remarkable moment in gaming. I won't lie and say it lived up to all my hopes, but it probably landed around my expectations. I really, really do hope we get a Shenmue IV that they can build on, and hopefully go back to some ideas they had in the previous games.

I do think it's well worth playing, but I'd never recommend going straight to this game first over the first two.
 
MJC The Great said:
I'll have to check it out, I just assumed those would be the same as the end-game credits. I should be listed as Matthew J Clark or something similar :D
Click to expand...
Yup to click on credits in main menu and select the backer version and confirm your backer code 👍🏼

I would've preferred that they included in the credits at the end of the game also though...
 
MadeMan said:
I couldn't find a general 'impressions' thread here that was stickied or anything, but wanted to give my immediate thoughts after finishing the game last night.
Would love to hear your thoughts and what you agree/disagree with.

Okay, just finished Shenmue III here are my thoughts overall. I want to talk about the ending first, I’ll try to keep it vague, but there might be some spoilers here;

I really enjoyed the message at the end of the credits, felt very genuinue and heartfelt from Yu Suzuki. I really do hope that he gets to make Shenmue IV and that he can build on the base created by III. I can tell he had to sacrifice things to fit them into this game’s budget and other constraints and I’d love to see him secure some funding and maybe more dev time for a sequel.

So let’s break this up into the good and bad things I took away from this game.

THE GOOD:
Music - The music is as great as ever for Shenmue, in fact this is the aspect I think held up to the standards of the old games. Very beautiful score and I love that each area would have different music as you walked around the game world. Nice to see some returning tracks as well. Overall probably the best aspect of the game!

Atmosphere/Setting - The atmosphere is so close to perfection, the small town of Bailu and the relatively busy city of Niaowu were great. I loved the locations and the scenery, loved the characters going about their daily lives and the day/night cycle returning! It was still fun to explore the town and see all the detail that exists in the locales. I will give it a slight negative for some really out of place feeling areas, like the arcades and very western ice cream stores in Niaowu. It did detract a lot from the enjoyment for me, and I don’t think the intention was to make the place feel like a tacky theme park, but that’s the impression I got for some places. Others, like the shrines and water-front were perfect.

Supernatural elements - I did enjoy that they kept some hints at supernatural elements, displayed at points with Shenhua. It does make me wonder why other supernatural elements seem to be glossed over or abandoned though. I liked some unexplained phenomena here.

Story & World Building - I did like that we got some small, but important plot progression, seeing the link of Bailu village and Iwao was great. Even though that’s about all the plot we get, it’s very compelling and felt like a big deal. I also want to point out I like how the enemies progress as a threat. Chai is now not as big a deal as when Ryo was green in Shenmue 1, and even though he could fight Dio Niu in Shenmue 2, he wasn’t a martial arts master so much as he was just a huge guy. Now Ryo has to fight large enemies that also know martial arts, or masters, the key becomes finding a weakness in their style. Again this is rather shallow, probably due to budget and time (it basically boils down to doing one ‘silver bullet’ move), but a good way to explain enemies being stronger.

Characters - Returning characters like Shenhua and Ren are welcome, but new characters like the grandmasters of kung fu that we meet, Shiling and Shu for example are all great. I only wish we could have spent more time with them, but again this might be a budget restraint as it felt like we barely got to know them compared to the characters in the previous games. Incidental characters and cameos were great too, especially Delin Hong’s brother!


THE BAD

Combat - No way around this, the combat plain sucks. This game has bad combat not only by Shenmue standards (which admittedly is a tough bar to clear for a low budget game), but even by industry standards. Jank animations, shitty collision detection, horrible inputs that don’t have any relevance (press AAB to do an elbow for example has no correlation to the move itself) and even a poorly implemented lock on system (which you would think wouldn’t be required if they took out directional inputs.
The old system was far more intuitive and fun, with moves that developed as you mastered them and better collision with far more defensive options too. Dodging by double tapping an analogue stick is awkward and the block isn’t as active or as fun as the parry. Enemy attacks are inconsistent to avoid and sometimes the answer is just blocking and trying to learn an attack pattern, but even that isn’t a guarantee they won’t block your counter strike. Without throws, the enemy blocking your counter attacks means a long and drawn out stalemate. The combat being so poor really affected the end game in a negative way.

QTEs - I don’t know how a series with such good QTEs ended up like this. Instant-fail states rather than branching scenarios I can understand (partly) due to a restrictive budget, but the buttons have no correlation to the actions anymore, making them feel so arbitrary. The timing is also much stricter than the previous games from what I can tell, making the whole process tedious for me. I don’t know who missed the point of the QTE so hard that they screwed it up so badly with 3, one of the most disappointing aspects of the game.

Story - *SPOILERS*I had this in both good and bad. While i liked they kept some supernatural elements, did Suzuki get scared by fans complaining about the mythic side of things? We learn in part 2 that the mirrors are a key to a catastrophic event or the end of the world, but this is seemingly ignored in 3 in favour of ‘lost treasure’ which is just not as interesting to me, and removes an aspect of Shenmue I really wanted to see more of. 2 had a lot of hints towards the supernatural and spiritual side of things coming forth, but might have been dumped? It would be a crying shame if it was. Even the sword from part 2 floating is seemingly forgotten about!

Stamina/Health - Like combat, there’s no real positive aspect to this, the health system is just pointless busy-work and not fun or interesting. I can understand why they implemented it, maybe to give shops more relevance and more incentive to browse stores or use vending machines, but it’s just slowing down the game and progress. Energy drinks during fights are another weirdly out of place feature for the game that’s meant to be grounded in reality and kung-fu. I can’t imagine Ryo slamming a Monster Energy Drink to regain health mid fight in 1980’s china. It doesn’t fit the time, locations or the game, and it just feels tacky and lazy.

Atmosphere/World - Similar to the energy drinks, some aspects of the towns felt really out of place. The giant bustling arcades in Niaowu right next to old buildings just felt weird. It felt like a tacky theme park location and took me out of the immersion. Ditto the burger shops and ice-cream stores. Bailu had less of this issue but still suffered a bit with the arcade and energy drinks for sale. I will also say that the backer characters in a key fight during the game was lol-worthy because they looked so obviously out of place and bizarre. That could have been implemented a lot better, ditto the big ‘Save Shenmue’ temple, but at least you can just walk past that and choose not to interact with it.

Last Act/Story Pacing - *SPOILERS*The last act felt like I should have enjoyed it, but there was a lot of problems. First and most obvious being, why do they make you do a pointless fetch-quest as soon as you land in the abandoned castle? Related to my last point, why the fuck is there a pawn shop in the castle too!? It just ruined the build up for me. The characters again were fun, but we didn’t spend much time with Shu and Shiling so I was questioning why they were even joining us, especially as they don’t do anything of consequence. In the final battle, three martial artists appear and are disposed of that we never saw previously. Again, completely inconsequential and something I feel was cut due to budget/time which is a shame.

Side Quests - These felt so out of place in Shenmue, with Ryo doing random good deeds for complete strangers. It really didn’t have a place in this game and most were not particularly interesting or fun, or straight bugged and didn’t work (Ren disappearing when I need to find him for example).

Railroading - The game would force me to solve problems in a very particular way, unlike previous games where you could talk to so many people and get pieces of information, or even use logic to find alternative routes. The worse offender is a character actually straight up being removed from the game world so I could follow the pre-determined path before talking to him, even though I’d already realised he was the key to the solution. Very weak design and really disappointing for a series that had such an excellent progression system before. One of the most disappointing aspects for sure.

Voice Acting - Yes, English VA was always bad, but this felt like they were often trying to be bad on purpose which just makes it tedious rather than charming sometimes.


OVERALL:
Overall, I'm really happy this game exists. I backed it and we got the sequel and some story progression, and a really unique and remarkable moment in gaming. I won't lie and say it lived up to all my hopes, but it probably landed around my expectations. I really, really do hope we get a Shenmue IV that they can build on, and hopefully go back to some ideas they had in the previous games.

I do think it's well worth playing, but I'd never recommend going straight to this game first over the first two.
Click to expand...
Hey, I think a lot of people will or have echoed much of what you say (including me on my own post).

Few things-
I thought all the music was reused tbh. If there's original agree that it fits as nothing was jarring....

The catastrophe (or Armageddon as I called it in my post) is only referenced in S1 by Chen isn't it? I thought Zhu in S2 only referred to treasure and the mirrors being the map to them...

The pawnshop at the castle is just a tool to allow you to get more money, moves and items before the end battle basically. Although artwork clearly shows the castle area was likely to be a free play area with NPC's
 
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Hello all. I've made this thread for any further general impressions.

Please post here as the topic duplication is becoming out of control. All other impressions topics have been locked.

I'll work out copying some of the more recent stuff here asap.
 
Joka said:
Hey, I think slot of people will or have echoed much of what you say (including me on my own post).

Few things-
I thought all the music was reused tbh. If there's original agree that it fits as nothing was jarring....

The catastrophe (or Armageddon as I called it in my post) is only referenced in S1 but Chen isn't it? I thought Zhu in S2 only referred to treasure and the mirrors being the map to them...

The pawnshop at the castle is just a tool to allow you to get more money, moves and items before the end battle basically. Although artwork clearly shows the castle area was likely to be a free play area with NPC's
Click to expand...

I figured it was a way to get more items if you need it, but it was so clumsy in its implementation I really didn't like it. It would have been better if there was a mechanic for Ren or someone to say they would 'run an errand' back to Niaowu to get anything you urgently needed rather than the shop IMO. Not to mention the quest was just boring and momentum killing.
 
I agree with most of your points. I think they tried their best to deliver an authentic Shenmue experience on a budget, but there just wasn't enough money/resources to deliver on all aspects of the formula -- the most obvious being the story. Things like the railroading you mentioned and the lack of character interaction, they all feel like symptoms of a lack of resources.

You could argue they were maybe too ambitious and should've stripped it right back -- a more linear path through smaller environments -- then maybe they wouldn't have had to make so many cuts. But I'm not sure it'd feel like Shenmue anymore without a real world to explore, things to do etc. I'm not sure it would've been worth bringing Shenmue back after all this time for something like that. It'd be almost betraying the spirit of the thing.

It's a credit to YS Net that the world and atmosphere are so strong that they make up for a lot of the game's shortcomings. For all its faults, Shenmue III still feels like a Shenmue game.

I liked the combat more than you but there's no denying the limited nature of it. I think building a fighting engine from scratch (along with everything else), with a brand new team who haven't worked together before...and a limited budget, was a big, big ask.

I disagree on the sidequests, though. I think Ryo is definitely the type of person to help out randoms. He's done it in previous games, too, Shenmue III just makes them "official". They're not all of great quality but some of them are pretty cool.
 
orient said:
I agree with most of your points. I think they tried their best to deliver an authentic Shenmue experience on a budget, but there just wasn't enough money/resources to deliver on all aspects of the formula -- the most obvious being the story. Things like the railroading you mentioned and the lack of character interaction, they all feel like symptoms of a lack of resources.

You could argue they were maybe too ambitious and should've stripped it right back -- a more linear path through smaller environments -- then maybe they wouldn't have had to make so many cuts. But I'm not sure it'd feel like Shenmue anymore without a real world to explore, things to do etc. I'm not sure it would've been worth bringing Shenmue back after all this time for something like that. It'd be almost betraying the spirit of the thing.

It's a credit to YS Net that the world and atmosphere are so strong that they make up for a lot of the game's shortcomings. For all its faults, Shenmue III still feels like a Shenmue game.

I liked the combat more than you but there's no denying the limited nature of it. I think building a fighting engine from scratch (along with everything else), with a brand new team who haven't worked together before...and a limited budget, was a big, big ask.

I disagree on the sidequests, though. I think Ryo is definitely the type of person to help out randoms. He's done it in previous games, too, Shenmue III just makes them "official". They're not all of great quality but some of them are pretty cool.
Click to expand...

Yep, I concede that some things are budget constraints, but they're still issues I wanted to address. I figure if they had to railroad you so hard, they could and should have done it in a better way. Rather than make master Bei literally and mysteriously disappear from the world, why not just have Ryo state he'll go ask him directly? Avoid the pointless confusion of asking random fishermen when you know they can't help you? Poorly designed, but it's probably case of running out of time and cutting things at the last minute.

As for betraying the spirit of the thing, I feel like that was one of the most important factors of Shenmue to me, the living and authentic feeling world. By railroading you like that, you lose a lot of what I really enjoyed. Again, it was probably budget, but it's still an issue.

RE: Sidequest; I know that Ryo would be the one to help, but when I say it doesn't feel authentic, it's not like these are characters we're introduced to and interact with and then help out. These are just random NPCs giving Ryo bizarre 'video game' quests that don't fit the game or style IMO.
 
MadeMan said:
Yep, I concede that some things are budget constraints, but they're still issues I wanted to address. I figure if they had to railroad you so hard, they could and should have done it in a better way. Rather than make master Bei literally and mysteriously disappear from the world, why not just have Ryo state he'll go ask him directly? Avoid the pointless confusion of asking random fishermen when you know they can't help you? Poorly designed, but it's probably case of running out of time and cutting things at the last minute.

As for betraying the spirit of the thing, I feel like that was one of the most important factors of Shenmue to me, the living and authentic feeling world. By railroading you like that, you lose a lot of what I really enjoyed. Again, it was probably budget, but it's still an issue.

RE: Sidequest; I know that Ryo would be the one to help, but when I say it doesn't feel authentic, it's not like these are characters we're introduced to and interact with and then help out. These are just random NPCs giving Ryo bizarre 'video game' quests that don't fit the game or style IMO.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there are some issues with the authenticity of the world, but in general I thought they did a great job with the feel and atmosphere. They definitely chose to take a more "gamey" approach this time round. In a recent interview, Suzuki admitted that he cared less about realism this time in favour of putting fun things in there, like arcades etc. I just came to accept those aspects and the locations still felt convincing to me.

I think it's fair to criticise and/or be disappointed with aspects of the game that were restricted by budget. I think your post is a good example of how to be critical while also being respectful. We, the fans, are really the only ones batting for this series to continue -- if we can't even be understanding and respectful of the team who made it then what hope do we have?
 
I enjoyed the game very much as a big Shenmue fan. Loved the locations, the early interactions with Shenhua, and seeing Ren. I am extremely happy that Yu was able to finally make a third game. I look forward the next one which we will hopefully shortly hear some hints that it is a go before the full announcement.

As others have stated, my biggest disappointment was that we didn't get a lot of advancement of the story, but, in retrospect, Yu was pretty clear that this only gets us through 40%. Bring on Shenmue IV.
 
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So, I beat/platinumed it yesterday morning (FINALLY; didn't have to keep going back to old saves and redoing things for trophies; luckily, the final key in the last capsule machine came out 9th lol) and I loved the last bit of game to pieces.

I want to start out by saying yes, I absolutely, 100% get what people said about the ending and how they felt about.

But it being objectively bad storytelling/writing/etc., you guys are letting emotions get the best of you and that is clouding your judgement.

There wasn't a single thing OBJECTIVELY wrong with the entirety of the Old Castle, from a plot standpoint; there are a few niggling things (such as Niao Sun's introduction; a few things are a bit weirdly-written, but nothing bad in the slightest), but that last sequence, between her reveal, Lan Di, the fights, etc., all set up the next game, by raising a few questions that will remain unanswered until said next game.

It isn't brilliant, but it is far from bad and just leaves me wanting a sequel even more at this point; in my book, they 100% satisfied in getting a sequel hook for this game.

Bailu was alright; didn't dislike it at all and like almost everyone, the feeling from it was nice and pleasant, but for favourite locations in the series, it's not even top 5 for me.

Niaowu on the other hand, is definitely one of my favourite places in the series and all of us and their mother knows that with a better budget/more resources, this would've been used to its full potential.

That being said, I absolutely agree that it is a bit of wasted potential, but I had a ton of fun running around the place; just hated the temple/shrine thing in the middle (where the light store was) that forced you to walk.

The gameplay was the strongest suit of this game; between minigames, fighting, traversing and everything in-between, they definitely devoted their polish to this, first and foremost and it shows. While I'm not a fan of the fighting (it grew on me a bit, but still prefer VF), it is absolutely a rock-solid system, however it requires a bit of tweaking. Still, it works more than well enough.

I went into the game with 0 expectations story-wise, thus I am not disappointed at all about it; we got a great videogame story that lagged a bit with exposition (both for and against) and left a few too many questions, but it didn't absolutely retcon the death out of things and everything fell into place in the end.

Graphically, it is a wonderful title, albeit not up to AAA level (which we all knew). I have 0 issues with it and the animations are not nearly as bad as everyone claimed them to be (found it a bit ridiculous and silly, TBH). I found no massive faults with the graphics, though they obviously can be better.

Soundtrack recycling wasn't too bad (if Niaowu was like Bailu, then yes), but the music is top-notch stuff anyways, so no biggie there. Voice acting is done superbly (played in Japanese) and Haruka Teruhi (sp?) did a phenomenal job as Shenhua; I really liked the previous incarnation/VA for her, but I am super content with the changes they made; they made her much prettier, without making her an absolute beauty and the voice fits her perfectly.

It took me around 70+ hours to platinum the game (again, had to go back and redo a bunch of things and the last herb in Niaowu literally took me 3 hours to find), so there is a ton of meat on the bones to be played.

Overall, this was a phenomenally-enjoyable experience, of course enhanced because I'm a hardcore fan. The game is not perfect and it does seem like Suzuki was getting a bit ridiculous again (the quick nature of the Old Castle being one example) in terms of taking a long time to complete the game, but the final product is just fantastic. I am super-excited to see 'mue IV come out as I feel a massive chunk of story will be revealed in it. The people who think its done poorly/bad, sorry, you just had expectations and weren't happy because YOUR expectations weren't met. Plain and simple.

9/10

I will review it on Gfaqs and hopefully it'll be posted next week, if ANYBODY cares.

PS: Niao Sun is badass, sexy and she best give what she took, back... somehow.
PPS; Lan Di is ridiculously-awesome.
 
Still really early having come back from vacation, and I'm taking my sweet time with it, having just gotten to a point where I can unlock Face Off with Shenhua and fish around Bailu Village. I'm really enjoying Shenmue 3 more with its life sim elements, which I felt were kind of lacking in 1/2 with not much interesting content and the food feeling more like props that didn't exactly do anything.
 
orient said:
Yeah, there are some issues with the authenticity of the world, but in general I thought they did a great job with the feel and atmosphere. They definitely chose to take a more "gamey" approach this time round. In a recent interview, Suzuki admitted that he cared less about realism this time in favour of putting fun things in there, like arcades etc. I just came to accept those aspects and the locations still felt convincing to me.

I think it's fair to criticise and/or be disappointed with aspects of the game that were restricted by budget. I think your post is a good example of how to be critical while also being respectful. We, the fans, are really the only ones batting for this series to continue -- if we can't even be understanding and respectful of the team who made it then what hope do we have?
Click to expand...

Thanks for being polite and having a conversation about it too. I do try to be balanced about my impressions, but will try to give fair criticism and articulate what I do/don't like about the game.

Overall I think the game forms a base for a sequel that could be as good as the originals.

Interesting that he said he wanted more fun stuff in the game, that explains some bizarre locations in Niaowu. Disappointing he couldn't implement it in a more subtle way. The Afterburner Machine in Shenmue 2 comes to mind as an example of something silly that didn't take you out of the immersion during the main story.

Truck_1_0_1_ said:
So, I beat/platinumed it yesterday morning (FINALLY; didn't have to keep going back to old saves and redoing things for trophies; luckily, the final key in the last capsule machine came out 9th lol) and I loved the last bit of game to pieces.

I want to start out by saying yes, I absolutely, 100% get what people said about the ending and how they felt about.

But it being objectively bad storytelling/writing/etc., you guys are letting emotions get the best of you and that is clouding your judgement.

There wasn't a single thing OBJECTIVELY wrong with the entirety of the Old Castle, from a plot standpoint; there are a few niggling things (such as Niao Sun's introduction; a few things are a bit weirdly-written, but nothing bad in the slightest), but that last sequence, between her reveal, Lan Di, the fights, etc., all set up the next game, by raising a few questions that will remain unanswered until said next game.

It isn't brilliant, but it is far from bad and just leaves me wanting a sequel even more at this point; in my book, they 100% satisfied in getting a sequel hook for this game.

Bailu was alright; didn't dislike it at all and like almost everyone, the feeling from it was nice and pleasant, but for favourite locations in the series, it's not even top 5 for me.

Niaowu on the other hand, is definitely one of my favourite places in the series and all of us and their mother knows that with a better budget/more resources, this would've been used to its full potential.

That being said, I absolutely agree that it is a bit of wasted potential, but I had a ton of fun running around the place; just hated the temple/shrine thing in the middle (where the light store was) that forced you to walk.

The gameplay was the strongest suit of this game; between minigames, fighting, traversing and everything in-between, they definitely devoted their polish to this, first and foremost and it shows. While I'm not a fan of the fighting (it grew on me a bit, but still prefer VF), it is absolutely a rock-solid system, however it requires a bit of tweaking. Still, it works more than well enough.

I went into the game with 0 expectations story-wise, thus I am not disappointed at all about it; we got a great videogame story that lagged a bit with exposition (both for and against) and left a few too many questions, but it didn't absolutely retcon the death out of things and everything fell into place in the end.

Graphically, it is a wonderful title, albeit not up to AAA level (which we all knew). I have 0 issues with it and the animations are not nearly as bad as everyone claimed them to be (found it a bit ridiculous and silly, TBH). I found no massive faults with the graphics, though they obviously can be better.

Soundtrack recycling wasn't too bad (if Niaowu was like Bailu, then yes), but the music is top-notch stuff anyways, so no biggie there. Voice acting is done superbly (played in Japanese) and Haruka Teruhi (sp?) did a phenomenal job as Shenhua; I really liked the previous incarnation/VA for her, but I am super content with the changes they made; they made her much prettier, without making her an absolute beauty and the voice fits her perfectly.

It took me around 70+ hours to platinum the game (again, had to go back and redo a bunch of things and the last herb in Niaowu literally took me 3 hours to find), so there is a ton of meat on the bones to be played.

Overall, this was a phenomenally-enjoyable experience, of course enhanced because I'm a hardcore fan. The game is not perfect and it does seem like Suzuki was getting a bit ridiculous again (the quick nature of the Old Castle being one example) in terms of taking a long time to complete the game, but the final product is just fantastic. I am super-excited to see 'mue IV come out as I feel a massive chunk of story will be revealed in it. The people who think its done poorly/bad, sorry, you just had expectations and weren't happy because YOUR expectations weren't met. Plain and simple.

9/10

I will review it on Gfaqs and hopefully it'll be posted next week, if ANYBODY cares.

PS: Niao Sun is badass, sexy and she best give what she took, back... somehow.
PPS; Lan Di is ridiculously-awesome.
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I would say there were a few things that could be argued were objectively poor writing in the ending, for example introducing the three martial artists as part of Lan Di's crew that are dispatched of immediately and really have no consequence to the story or events. I'd also argue the pawn shop at the beginning of that section is really poorly implemented and objectively bad.

These are relatively minor complaints in the grand scheme of things, but they did really affect me enjoyment.

That's one thing I should point out, I finished Shenmue not feeling particularly happy or excited, but very mixed. I think the closing chapter was the weakest in the game for me unfortunately. Probably because the aspects I felt were the worst of the game (combat and QTEs) were really prevalent, along with smaller complaints that compounded.
 
Ryo is stronger than three baddies...how is that bad writing? The only argument I've seen for that is that they looked too detailed to be so easily defeated. Okay...? So either there should've been more fighting with them, or they should've looked more plain or less detailed? How is that bad writing? I interpreted it as them wanting to set the player up into thinking Ryo had a chance of winning against Lan Di before being absolutely destroyed. I know that's what I was thinking (I didn't think he was, and was actually hoping they weren't going to have an even face off against Lan Di).

The pawn shop...eh. Didn't think anything of it. Took like five minutes out of the play time. Didn't feel any weirder to me than Afterburner as you mentioned, or especially Hang - On. You're telling me people are going to flock to the Yellow Head Building to play that game? Or climb the Ghost Hall Building to get to the AM2 capsule toy machine?
 
24Nathan said:
Ryo is stronger than three baddies...how is that bad writing? The only argument I've seen for that is that they looked too detailed to be so easily defeated. Okay...? So either there should've been more fighting with them, or they should've looked more plain or less detailed? How is that bad writing? I interpreted it as them wanting to set the player up into thinking Ryo had a chance of winning against Lan Di before being absolutely destroyed. I know that's what I was thinking (I didn't think he was, and was actually hoping they weren't going to have an even face off against Lan Di).

The pawn shop...eh. Didn't think anything of it. Took like five minutes out of the play time. Didn't feel any weirder to me than Afterburner as you mentioned, or especially Hang - On. You're telling me people are going to flock to the Yellow Head Building to play that game? Or climb the Ghost Hall Building to get to the AM2 capsule toy machine?
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I found the three baddies to be bad writing because they introduced three new characters at the very end of the game with no build up and no consequence. We already had Ryo beating up Mr Muscles and countless goons (including the weirdly out of place Kickstarter Backers, another problem I had). There really didn't seem any reason to have those three at the end. If anything it just had me thinking 'why are these guys here?' rather than being interested in them. I can only think that Suzuki intended for them to have a much bigger role that was scrapped due to time and money constraints.
I do think you have a valid point about Ryo beating them being a way to show his power level increasing, but I also think it could and should have been implemented better or scrapped entirely.

The difference between what you mentioned and pawn shop is that the pawn shop really kills the momentum and immersion. You're forced to stop the story progress and do a really slow and dull fetch quest with no consequence or bearing on the story. Not to mention the immersion killing of being told how dangerous and abandoned this place is, and then finding a shop immediately?

If it were a shop that was hidden away like an easter-egg to find then that would be different.
 
Could've been Niao Sun's doing if that place normally has tourists or whoever in it. Chi You Men chased them all out? Who knows. But I can give you that.

I know the long haired chicken noise guy (that was my biggest gripe) looks like one of the characters from the chapter four GDC tiles, but aside from that, they could just be well designed NPCs. I didn't think much of them, except for more obstacles in the way of Lan Di. Like his black suits in Shenmue I's opening. Just henchmen. I think some people are wanting there to be depth behind their backstories that just...isn't. And was possibly never intended to be.
 
I think it's more that those 3 weren't a bigger challenge... I mean they're either guarding Lan Di or senior enough to be in his presence. The whole section is rushed so it's reasonable to believe their fights were going to be expanded at least, if not stories...

And I maybe reaching here but I think the last 'henchman' is or was originally conceived to be Don Niu. Albeit a toned down remodelling... He used the same bear hug move, has similar attire and has some type of bull markings on his face...
 
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24Nathan said:
Could've been Niao Sun's doing if that place normally has tourists or whoever in it. Chi You Men chased them all out? Who knows. But I can give you that.

I know the long haired chicken noise guy (that was my biggest gripe) looks like one of the characters from the chapter four GDC tiles, but aside from that, they could just be well designed NPCs. I didn't think much of them, except for more obstacles in the way of Lan Di. Like his black suits in Shenmue I's opening. Just henchmen. I think some people are wanting there to be depth behind their backstories that just...isn't. And was possibly never intended to be.
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Joka said:
I think it's more that those 3 weren't a bigger challenge... I mean they're either guarding Lan Di or senior enough to be in his presence. The whole section is rushed so it's reasonable to believe their fights were going to be expanded at least, if not stories...

And I maybe reaching here but I think the last 'henchman' is or was originally conceived to be Don Niu. Albeit a toned down remodelling... He used the same bear hug move, has similar attire and has some type of bull markings on his face...
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I agree with Joka for the most part. The Dou Niu connection is interesting, I thought I saw a resemblance, but didn't think he was meant to be Dou Niu! I doubt he was, maybe they just wanted a similar big guy?
And @Nathan you could be right in that they never intended to have a back-story, but i do wonder why they were included at all then?
Also the chicken-noise guy seemed to be a parody of Bruce Lee, which I found kind of strange. I'm guessing it was just a throwaway joke rather than anything deeper, and I did like seeing Ren do something cool again! The line 'Why are we even friends?' was nice too.
 
My short impressions below now that I've finished the game, will write a longer one in due course (playing the PC version):

Pros:

Landscape and environment - probably one of the best looking games in that respect, clearly much time and effort was dedicated to this. Also was good that Bailu and Niaowu were quite different, and to me they wanted Bailu to feel homely like in S1, while Niaowu was similar to parts of Hong Kong in S2. Neither were huge but the density and details were well thought out with different shops, vegetation, fishing and herb placements.

Music - music choices, although some were repeats and some technical issues, were generally solid. Ok most of them were probably made prior to 3 but still is a plus point to the game

Gameplay integration - I felt pretty much all aspects of the gameplay were fun, including training, exploration and mini-games. The fact that I was aiming to collect all Skill Books made me try out most of the elements, and I would keep coming back for more afterward. Doing things other than story progression doesn't feel like a chore, unlike sometimes what I feel in Shenmue 1.

Shenhua and Ryo's relationship - the conversations in Bailu is a nice aspect, it's a bit of a shame it mostly stopped after they traveled to Niaowu.

Bailu pacing - felt natural and fitted with what Yu Suzuki said previously as gentle and leisurely, story was quite interesting.

Cons:

Character development - would like to see other major characters (Ren, Shiling, Bei etc.) have more scenes and interaction with Ryo. This was perhaps left out due to time and resource restraints.

Niaowu pacing - story seemed too rushed to me, although the myriad of side quests and challenges filled in the gaps. Again I suspect a lack of time, and hopefully future patches will improve on this.

Kung Fu training - the training and fighting in themselves were good, its just Ryo's stats needed to increase more gradually. At Max levels the fights became too easy and short. I'll try replaying on hard/hardest to see what's the best level to get more fulfillment

Overall I felt it was a good addition to the series, although not as well executed as S1 or S2. It certainly captures the essence of what Shenmue has always been, and does well to introduce new players to the series. Also despite all the issues, you have to take into account the fact that making a game like this in 4 years from scratch is no mean feat, and you have to appreciate the effort that everyone's put in to get this out in the first place. Onwards and upwards hopefully!
 
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