In response to JSH...I can't say I ever personally felt attachment to the locations within II. Sure, I loved Hong Kong, I loved exploring Kowloon...but to me, I never had that much attachment to either location. I had attachment to Xiuying, but I didn't have attachment to Abeerdeen. The only place I've ever felt true attachment to was Yokosuka and its because they do such a damn good job of making it feel like home that you kind of just have that warm embrace. But Abeerdeen and Kowloon were always Alien to me. That's kind of what made Shenmue special for me. The fact that it really nailed that feeling of venturing from your home town into the big bad scary world on your own quest.
For me, Shenmue III continued that feeling to some degree. The feeling of embarking on an epic journey across China was still there for me. What wasn't there for me was the characters. There was no one master that lived up to Xiuying or even Master Chen to a lesser extent. The closest we got were Master Feng and Sun. But Feng was sadly under developed and Sun, while awesome, didn't really impart too much in the way of anything new about Iwao.
To me, that's the thing that lacks the most in III. There isn't a moment of learning the WUDE or a moment of gravitas that Xiuying brought to the table in terms of the pointlessness of seeking vengeance.
That to me was the biggest difference. That the characters just didn't have the same gravitas as the ones we've known from the previous two games. They're just kind of there.
But the sense of adventure was still here for me.
At this point, I really don't consider III to be a sequel. I still think of this whole series as one complete game that we just haven't seen the end to yet. We're still stuck in the first half and the lack of significant plot development was maybe what hurt Shenmue III. After 18 years, it would be hard not to be disappointed no matter what he gave us (I think)...for me, Shenmue III is a game that is almost trying to do too much at once instead of focusing on the vital things it probably needed to focus on. It tried to deliver a wider scope than its budget really allowed for. On the one hand, I applaud them for delivering a game of such ambition for a meagre budget. But in other ways, I think I almost would have preferred them to go smaller in scope but be more focused in terms of story, character and systems.
The biggest disappointment of III for me is not necessarily the story, rather the fact that some of the proposed ideas (Affinity System) didn't really seem to make the cut or didn't get realized to its fullest vision. I would have preferred the game narrowed its scope and focused in on building out its ideas, characters and story over trying to cram more in for the sake of it.
But I don't know, I think the game was always destined for backlash no matter what they did (if I have to be honest)....I truly do believe it was always destined for backlash no matter its quality or shortcomings.
But I don't know. I still love the game we got and to me (in many ways) it still feels like a continuation. It feels like Shenmue...just on a shoestring budget. The budget is what hurts it the most, I think. It's trying to do too much on so little.
