The game barely has a story, and it's poorly developed.
85% percent of the game is "looking for thugs" and the thugs are as uninteresting as they sound (hell, the first guy just describes himself as a random thug), and they do it twice with the same story beats.
They were just props to make Ryo train, but the training was also undercooked. Ryo's training doesn't develop him as a character (compare it with her training with Xiuying about learning the wude, clearing his mind and calming himself). Sun was a cool character, but Ryo catches the chickens well enough the first time, and continues to do so (you could argue that he learned to move in another way), but that's not character development and it's not seen through gameplay either. The fisherman is even worse "ok buy this scroll, that is basically the same move you learned before", not even a hint of actual character development there.
The plot only advances in a rushed ending with an exposition dump.
There's basically 0 character development except for the relationship between Ryo and Shenhua, and it's mostly about background information, I wouldn't even say there's much characterization or character driven narrative development.
It makes it even worse that the game throws all these unnecesary chejov guns everywhere, that's just bad writing.
Both times I was prompted to leave Bailu and Niaowu I was shocked, what was the point of having the master of both Iwao and Zhao ? Why does Yuan knows more about Lan Di than the guy who trained them ? What was the point of the monk telling you "yeah someone from japan left this here" ? When did fat guy and broom girl became such friends that are willing to risk their lives for Ryo ? The scroll is meant to be treated as this sort of ancient map, but it's just full of redundant information, treasure, mountain where Yuan told you to go and Niaowu where the thug told you to go. What was so important in Niaowu that was on the scroll ? Why was Niao Sun in the boat with Ryo ? Was she in Bailu ? Did she know about Ryo ? What was the purpose of Shenhua using her "weird magic" to then be a damsel in distress later on ? Was it really worth to amp up the tension kidnapping Shenhua when they already had kidnapped Yuan even if it deters from her development a few hours before ? Was it worth it to be chasing thugs the whole game only to have the story going because Niao Sun was tired and kidnapped Shenhua and told him where to go ?
Why not use the "thugs" and make them a proxy for info about the Chiyoumen or Niao Sun ? The same with Iwao's master about info about Iwao, the same with Yuan and the mirrors (dude you got the creator of them and don't even call out the weird "map" the mirrors made ?).
They just dropped the ball hard in the story and narrative, it's sad because all the elements were there, instead we focus the whole game chasing some random nobodies that no one cares about.
Shenmue 3 - [introduced] Niao Sun(???) [provided info on] Lan Di raised by Chi You Men, mirrors represent royalty(???), Sunming entrusted to protect mirrors(???)
