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You do have a point even thought I didnt take it as badly. Also, I wouldn't call him a "fan" necessarily. He just happened to enjoy the game in the same way you enjoy a rental.
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NEW YU SUZUKI INTERVIEW WITH THE DOJO AND PRS LIVE! READ IT HERE!
IGN Discusses why Shenmue 3’s ending is a big disappointment
- Thread starter mjqjazzbar
- Start date
You do have a point even thought I didnt take it as badly. Also, I wouldn't call him a "fan" necessarily. He just happened to enjoy the game in the same way you enjoy a rental.
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I mean, IGN gave Death Stranding a 6.8 right? Which caused a lot of fuss. Where's the immediate follow up articles by IGN after its review, explaining further why its a disappointment with spoilery bait titles?
Also the reason I said that about him being a fan is because I saw several people on the net use that as a defense excuse for him and this article.
I also find it curious how the IGN review thumbnail for this game used an old in-progress pic of Ryo instead of the finished product. Its like they really want to emphasis how 'bad' it is by showing non release footage as its header. Seems a bit vindictive and disingenuous if you will.
FYI, you quoted me but I didn't say that.But it hasn't been and everyone criticizing my comment has seemed to forget that.
Each Shenmue game moved the plot forward by [introducing new plot threads] and [providing fresh information].
☑ Shenmue 1 - [introduced] Lan Di, the mirrors, Chi You Men [provided info on] Chi You Men's goal
☑Shenmue 2 - [introduced] Shenhua (prophecy), Guilin [provided info on] Mirrors as map&key, Guilin as home of mirrors, Iwao&Sunming's friendship, Lan Di's name&relation to Sunming.
THESE ARE NOT BREADCRUMBS
This is breadcumbs..
Shenmue 3 - [introduced] Niao Sun(???) [provided info on] Lan Di raised by Chi You Men, mirrors represent royalty(???), Sunming entrusted to protect mirrors(???)
(???) Niao Sun has no tangible effect on plot, Yuanda Zhu already told us that mirrors related to Qing Dynasty and that Sunming had both mirrors. So 2 of those points are redundant while 1 could easily be removed.
for what it's worth I agree with you
This is not exactly accurate. He stated that in 2010 at the GDC postmortem he gave but those slides referred to the original VFRPG which was decided in 1996 (says on the slide). Originally (very, very early on) it was supposed to be 11 chapters and one 45 hour game.
This interview seems to show that the scope for Shenmue was always expanding. Nagoshi states that the 16 chapter thing came about during development of Shenmue 1 but it may have erroneously been attributed to Suzuki as he claims that he has always maintained that Shenmue was supposed to be 11 chapters long.
This has been expanding from the beginning. This interview says that during Saturn development he wanted it to be two games: Shenmue volume1 and 2, but when development shifted to Dreamcast things got expanded again.
With Corey Marshall now saying he's heard rumours of Shenmue 6, I worry that Suzuki just doesn't know how to condense his story down into a reasonable number of games.
I've always felt the whole chapter thing is a moot point now. It seems that he is willing to change things around and move plot elements from chapter to chapter as well as remove entire locations. I would say it's impossible to know how many 'chapter's' are really left and the best indication is Suzuki's claim that we are roughly 40% through the story; if that can trusted.
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When's Yu Suzuki doing another Reddit AMA? The fans have questions!
gladias9
The Anime Is Better...
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lmao, I don't even know how that happened
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I agree
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I haven't followed ign for almost 15 years so I didn't even know what they gave death standing or their company practices for the most part. And honestly, I didn't even know Kyle was affiliated with ign until this article. I just knew that he left game informer recently to start a new gaming company with some of his old GI friends.
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I dont think you need to as it was plastered all over the internet (DS review). You didnt need to actually GO to IGN's website to hear about its DS score.
Even Kojima himself was salty about it. Called Americans basically 'not smart enough to appreciate the game'
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I did see the comment on hideo taking shots at Americans. He was outta line for that one.I dont think you need to as it was plastered all over the internet (DS review). You didnt need to actually GO to IGN's website to hear about its DS score.
Even Kojima himself was salty about it. Called Americans basically 'not smart enough to appreciate the game'
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Someone in another thread linked a Nagoshi interview where he stated the 16 chapter thing was always misinterpreted and it was always Yu's intention for it to be 11 chapters. There was also someone linking and talking about the GDC postmordem in which this was further emphasized
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But it hasn't been and everyone criticizing my comment has seemed to forget that.
Each Shenmue game moved the plot forward by [introducing new plot threads] and [providing fresh information].
☑ Shenmue 1 - [introduced] Lan Di, the mirrors, Chi You Men [provided info on] Chi You Men's goal
☑Shenmue 2 - [introduced] Shenhua (prophecy), Guilin [provided info on] Mirrors as map&key, Guilin as home of mirrors, Iwao&Sunming's friendship, Lan Di's name&relation to Sunming.
THESE ARE NOT BREADCRUMBS
This is breadcumbs..
(???) Niao Sun has no tangible effect on plot, Yuanda Zhu already told us that mirrors related to Qing Dynasty and that Sunming had both mirrors. So 2 of those points are redundant while 1 could easily be removed.
Sounds like you described about as much information as we got from 1 and 2 combined...but you know, 1 and 2 weren't bread crumbs...at all.
Btw, the prophecy? That's been there since the first game...and I still have no clue what it means three games in...but this whole series hasn't been bread crumbs? I've only heard the prophecy through three games and still have no clue what it adds up to. But this isn't bread crumbs at all apparently.
I have my disappointments with three, I thought three was going to be the game where answers were going to come from the bread crumbs laid out in the previous games...to some extent there were (the history of the mirrors and who they were made for, Sunming wanting to protect the mirrors from outside sources is new info, the Chi You Men raising Lan Di and possibly manipulating this whole sad state of affairs from the beginning) but I'm still as much as in the dark as I was from day 1. I've already said elsewhere the game is more filler than killer and that is a problem considering the story hasn't moved us forward all that much.
But looking at every scrap of info we have received so far and I fail to see how it all isn't just bread crumbs or pieces of a larger puzzle that still hasn't revealed itself.
Master Chen told us that Yuanda Zhu said it was about resurrecting some mythical beast named Chi You.
Yet Yuanda Zhu told us it was about treasure to revive the Qing Dynasty...so either Yu has been retconning this since II or is everything we've been told just unreliable bread crumbs? Or it's a bad translation...if in that case then what exactly did we find out new from Yuanda Zhu that we didn't know from Chen? (the mirrors were a key to something hidden away)
I have no idea since this journey is still far from over. But I fail to see how anything mentioned from I and II isn't just bread crumbs. It's ALL bread crumbs coming from either unreliable sources who are theorizing what their intentions are or what the mirrors actually do. Almost like the detective game it is.
In the first game, we were told that the mirrors combined were a key to resurrecting some mythical beast as foretold by Yuanda Zhu. Then the second game had Yuanda Zhu tell us they were both a key and a map to some form of treasure (so much for the mythical beast, right?). The third game told us the history of who and when they were made for and seemed to further imply it's a key to treasure.
We're three games in and we're still mostly on bread crumbs.
Trust me, I have my disappointments. I thought by now we'd get solid answers to the old questions and have some new ones to propel us forward. To some degree, I guess we did. We now have the new question of who is Niao Sun and why does she want control of the Chi You Men?...but i'm still as clueless as I was from Day 1 as to what it all means and adds up to.
Because either Yu can't decide what it all means or he is purposely giving us a whole bunch of unreliable info waiting for the big picture to reveal itself. Because only he knows the true ending to this whole journey.
I just find it funny that people act like 1 and 2 had solid answers when the reality is they mostly didn't. Outside of the Sunming and Iwao relationship which is the one solid consistent piece of information we have...I still don't know what the Chi You Men's intentions actually are three games in outside of what Master Chen theorized. I still don't know what the mirrors actually do (is it a key to treasure or is it a key to resurrecting a mythical beast? II and III seem to imply its treasure...but is it all just a red herring? Will the mirrors combined bring about some terrible fate? Do the mirrors actually hold some mythical power to corrupt like the first game almost jokingly hinted at? Fucked if I know...all these bread crumbs still unanswered.)
I still don't know what the prophecy is all about (even though I've heard it ever since the first game). The only thing I know about that were the bread crumbs laid out during the nightly conversations (that there is something off about Shenhua that still remains unanswered to even her by her own father)...that to me is the true disappointment of III...that they didn't even pay off on having Yuan explain the prophecy to us both.
To me, everything given so far is mostly bread crumbs with only a little bit of solid info in between. I gather it's the journey we're on. It's all puzzle pieces that will eventually reveal itself and make sense. (shrugs) Or, maybe, Yu just can't make sense of what this story actually is. I don't know because we're still so far from it even ending.
I do get the disappointment with three because by now, I thought those previously laid bread crumbs would start giving revealing themselves as solid info...I thought III would be the turning point where everything would start to make sense, but I'm still as mostly clueless as I have been since the beginning.
We still ain't at our destination of it all making sense. Everything before now has been bread crumbs in the long path of retracing Iwao's steps though...there's only a few solid pieces of info we have but everything else has mostly been hearsay.
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Really enjoying reading this thread, haha
gladias9
The Anime Is Better...
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I'll make it clear that it does not matter if we get concrete answers or not.
The reason I state that Shenmue 3 gives us breadcrumbs is because it tells us that Sunming protected the mirrors, it tells us that Lan Di was raised by Chi You Men BUT it in no way alters or advances the story.. heck, even Ryo's growth as a martial artist has regressed.
Shenmue 1 introduced a great deal of the concepts we know moving forward to a sequel giving us reason to push on.
Shenmue 2 (as a sequel) increased Ryo's knowledge as a martial artist that reflects in the story and also joins Ryo with Shenhua in Guilin properly introducing the prophecy and laying the foundation for the sequel.
These are changes, these are advances that make these games necessary.
The only advance that is clear within Shenmue 3 is that the Niao Sun stole the mirror. That's the only piece of info you require moving on to Shenmue 4. Lan Di being raised by Chi You is nice but Shenmue 3 itself doesn't even care about this information because Ryo never acknowledges this even when face to face with Lan Di. Sunming protected the mirrors, cool. What does that do for me aside from add a breadcrumb of context?
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In what way has Ryo's growth as a martial artist regressed by the way? I would say at the end of SII (and SIII for that matter) that it continues to prove that what Xiuying said about him was 100% true....he only has two of the WUDE (Gon and Yi)...judging by the fact that he was still adament about pursuing vengeance at the end of II and then almost blindly ran to his near death in III says to me that what Xiuying said about him is 100% right on the money...he hasn't progressed, he's actually been rather stagnent throughout...blindly obsessed with a need for vengeance...he's learning a whole bunch of techniques, but has he really let the philosophy of the WUDE truly sink in? No, hell no...even at the end of II that was clear as day to me.
Ryo even says it to Ren at one point in III when Ren brings up Zhu...he says something like "I don't care about any of that!" Showing just how short sighted Ryo really is in his absolute need for vengeance.
So I don't really get how he has regressed in that form in III. He's as incredibly short sighted as he ever has been. In fact that's my disappointment with III. I expected III to be the moment where he gets his ass kicked by Lan Di, comes close to death and maybe afterwards has a moment of realization of just how close to death he came and wisens the fuck up that this is bigger than his petty need for vengeance...but no, he's just merrily on his way to puruse Lan Di again apparently.
But anyways. I will agree Shenmue laid the foundation. II gave you seeds. In fact, I remember lurking these forums and reading people have the exact same disappointment that II gave them the bare minimum in detail. III is largely filler. I think we do agree more than we disagree. Don't get me wrong, I have my disappointments with III but its not from the story department...it's from the character development department. The fact that we just don't find out enough about anyone to make the ending land is the problem more so for me. Even Shenhua. We get a bunch of hints, but we still don't know anything concrete about her.
The story side of things? I think it's no different to the previous game. It's drip feeding us the same amount that we've always had. Always giving us a vital clue or reason to keep us moving to the next destination. But at the end of the day, everything we hear along the way is all hear say.
Trust me I have my disappointments with III, I'm not blindly defending it or looking for arguements for the sake of it...I just don't see how it hasn't all been bread crumbs so far. It's bread crumbs that just constantly leads you to another destination to find more pieces of the puzzle. The bigger picture has yet to be revealed and instead all we have are pieces of the puzzle. And those pieces of the puzzle always lead us to the next destination...that seems to be the Shenmue formula to me. For better or worse that seems to be the formula of what Yu is doing.
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I would say that Ryo hasn't regressed in his martial arts. Some people complained that he took out Chai way too easily, but I just considered that as Ryo getting stronger and Chai is old news
SledgeNE
Joined: October 2013
I like the End of Shenmue 3. We know that Lan Di has his own villain in form of Niao Sun, she was never named in the game so i don't know how her name is spoken. I like in the game where Ryo saw her and she was a different personal, a normal women, and in one scene i thought that women was a spy from the Chi Yu Men but to see that it was all the time Niao Sun makes the game cool. The villain was all the time there. The scenes with Lan Di were very epic.
What i don't understand, i was playing for 32 hours. I wonder me how many fans who are purchased early copies had beaten the game in just two days. ^^ Shenmue 3 is very huge.
What i don't understand, i was playing for 32 hours. I wonder me how many fans who are purchased early copies had beaten the game in just two days. ^^ Shenmue 3 is very huge.
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That was my thought too...he's faced Chai before. He knows Chai's weakness. Not a threat anymore.
HazukiFCBR
"You don't play Shenmue....you live Shenmue!"
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Cmon dude. There's nothing to do with this. They (dev team) didn't think that way. Chai's a fan service. But it's dull they did all the battle be summarized on 3 qte. One of the best moments in Shenmue 1, was beating Chai at the arcade. If you bring that back, lots of nostalgia and good vibes would be all over the place. A fan would love it. I agree on the matter of Ryo has regressed on his martial arts skills. He beats Chai, Yuan, Baihu, black suits and Don Niu. Mastered predictive explosion. Narratively, would be better have him beating those thugs, then losing for Mr Muscles by design. Then he would realize he needs more practice. I don't buy Ryo losing to ordinary thugs, just to be forced a do some training minigames. For coherence, that would need to happen when facing Mr Muscles, not the thugs. That would make sense.
