Is Yu Suzuki out of touch with gaming standards?

[Sh3ppy]

I guess you’re right, but many ideas have been incorporated from the Shenmue days and either been improved or adjusted in other games. I think the map marker thing comes down to preference. I prefer the Shenmue style, though I found the side tasks a bit difficult in Shenmue 3 without map markers, mostly because I got side tracked with the main game and earning money. That’s my own problem of course.

Many adventure games and RPGs feature full VO (and have for years before Shenmue). The lack of map markers is something that used to be a technical limitation but is now sometimes provided as an option (BotW and Deus Ex come to mind) for players who want a more "immersive" experience. I'm of the mind that Shenmue wasn't really doing anything super different on the gameplay front (much less inventing a new genre), its main advancements were in the size/scope/detail of its world, characters and story, which were orders of magnitude better than its contemporaries even on PC. I would argue its combat system was the only real gameplay innovation; it's crazy deep but ultimately not a huge part of the game and for some reason something that is/was heavily criticized even at the time.

It’s not so much the existence of map markers, but how the player progresses the plot. I just started playing BotW and the map at least seems to be essential to the progression (I could be wrong I’m still very early in the game). Shenmue has always been about talking to people and being pointed in the right direction as if it were ‘real’ life before mobiles and google maps. I’m not a huge gamer anymore and might be totally wrong but I was under the impression most games don’t work this way. Whether adventure or RPG’s or anywhere in the middle. Again, I might be wrong.

 

[Dehone]

The question isn't is Yu Suzuki out of touch with gaming standards. The question is are you out of touch of what the Shenmue is. Its F.R.E.E. a genre of games unto itself. If you can't wrap your head around that, perhaps you are better off playing Call of Duty , or unoriginal uninspired games like Assasins Creed that get reproduced every single year with no innovation. What baffles me is these hipporcrites that level complaints against Shenmue III, saying it has not matched modern game advancedments. Lol, what advancements ? The only thing that has improved over the years is online service, which doesnt fit Shenmue, and graphics. Shenmue III has beautifully rendered graphics. Anytime there is a slight advancement in modern gameplay, it is rolled back because hard headed slacker casual gamers find them too difficult. Motion controls on the PS3 sixaxis and Dual shock 4 for example. The Kinect was completely removed from the Xbone package. Environmental destruction is drastically reduced in Battlefield 4 from Battlefield 3 to the point of being non-existent. All braindead casuals want to do is button mash badly against ai opponents, fail upwards with regenerating health, and be treated to a cutscene while they drool on their controller. If that is the formula you want forced into Shenmue 4, please, go play something else. Fornite , most likely.

The use of conversations to advance the story is Shenmue's signature, thats why it is retained in Shenmue III. The game is at its core, a detective mystery game. A F.R.E.E. which is a hybrid of many genres. Please get a clue, or a degree from a reputable university in Digital Entertainment Development before you start leveling complaints about Virtua Fighter's developer being bad at game design.

If we're going by your definition of FREE, tons of games are FREE as they are a hybrid of genres. And to imply that people who don't like shenmue are braindead or people who like CoD are braindead make the fanbase look elitist and lame as hell with complaints about "casuals". Apparently, there are two types of gamers. Those who like shenmue and those who like CoD. No in between. No other existing genres.

 

[Dehone]

I'm pretty sure that this is inaccurate. Or at least, no game that did feature full VO had anywhere near the sheer amount of dialogue present in Shenmue. A lot of games had silent protagonists too. Can you give me examples of games before Shenmue that had a comparable amount of dialogue and were fully voiced (including both the protagonist and any NPC that can be spoken to)?

Yes, there are some these days. But I think that Mass Effect (which was released in 2007) was the first game that could really be compared to Shenmue in both the total number of recorded lines of dialogue and the fact that literally every line of dialogue in the game was voice acted.

Metal gear had a bunch of dialogue pre shenmue. More than shenmue? Not sure, but a very large amount.

Also, the GTA games have an insane amount of dialogue that probably rivals Shenmue and came before Mass Effect, especially San Andreas. CJ has like 12 minutes of lines alone that are triggered when he is in fights/shootouts/stealing a car/picking up money. Add the radio station DJs and you've got a whole separate chunk of dialogue that could fill another game itself. I dont think there is any text only dialogue in there.

 

[iknifaugood]

Can you give me examples of games before Shenmue that had a comparable amount of dialogue and were fully voiced (including both the protagonist and any NPC that can be spoken to)?

There were many Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games that featured full voice acting as far back as 1992, though obviously not as many characters as Shenmue, Metal Gear Solid didn’t have many characters but definitely had a huge script that was fully voice acted, and Ultima 9 and Deus Ex had full voice acting in RPGs around the same time. Half-Life and other shooters had it as well. It must be said that while Shenmue definitely had a large quantity of voice acting, the quality definitely left something to be desired both in terms of the English dub as well as the stilted implementation. I would gladly take unvoiced NPCs to save money.

Yes, there are some these days. But I think that Mass Effect (which was released in 2007) was the first game that could really be compared to Shenmue in both the total number of recorded lines of dialogue and the fact that literally every line of dialogue in the game was voice acted.

Depends. Most NPCs in Shenmue have nothing to say and a lot of ways to say it but it definitely became the standard for all games around that time.

It’s not so much the existence of map markers, but how the player progresses the plot. I just started playing BotW and the map at least seems to be essential to the progression (I could be wrong I’m still very early in the game).

It’s possible to complete BotW and Deus Ex without the aid of the HUD. Many games are made now where you can only follow dialogue hints and explore the world without the aid of markers which seems to be more of a novelty than anything else. As I said the lack of objective markers was more of a technical limitation (the N64 Zelda titles lacked them for instance) and their inclusion is to broaden appeal. It wouldn’t bother me if they were included in Shenmue.

 

[iknifaugood]

I don't know if it's fair to do that. The game pretty much came up with QTEs

Technically Dragon’s Lair had QTEs back in the 80s but Shenmue definitely popularized their implementation in the 2000s.

Not only that, the original games implement systems which directly correlate with the "FREE" definition. For example, the simulation of wind and humidity for the seeding and calculation of PRNG when it comes to Lucky Hit, or the telephone wires moving as the wind speed increases/decreases etc.

To my knowledge FREE stands for full reactive eyes entertainment, which is as close to meaningless as a definition gets. I’m sure Lucky Hit has a lot of calculations running but humidity? That seems unlikely and as far as I can remember the phone lines in Shenmue are static. There are only a few dynamic objects (mostly hair but still impressive).

For me, Shenmue is a mix of an 80s detective/martial arts movie, in game format, before this sort of thing was ever really done, at least not to the scale of the original Shenmue games. It is purely an art of eastern culture and an experience to lose yourself in, rather than having everything laid out for you by way of waypoints, map markers and checkpoints.

For me Shenmue is whatever it needs to be to tell the story effectively while being an homage to gaming’s past (with arcade games and mini games) and gesturing to its future (with high production values and immersion). It’s kind of like a Tarantino movie where it’s more of a remix of things that already existed but presented in a compelling and new way.

 

[LemonHaze]

Technically Dragon’s Lair had QTEs back in the 80s but Shenmue definitely popularized their implementation in the 2000s.

Eh, I don't know if they're really both the same thing. But yes.

To my knowledge FREE stands for full reactive eyes entertainment, which is as close to meaningless as a definition gets. I’m sure Lucky Hit has a lot of calculations running but humidity? That seems unlikely and as far as I can remember the phone lines in Shenmue are static. There are only a few dynamic objects (mostly hair but still impressive).

I wouldn't say it's meaningless, it just maybe is a bit dated, which is perhaps why you're having trouble understanding it.

I have reversed the games and can confirm this is legitimate.

 

[Dehone]

If FREE is simply details like humidity, temp and seeing telephone wires sway in the wind, that's not a genre so much as it is extreme attention to detail. It's like saying "this isnt a game. It's an experience." At the end of the day, it's a game, made for game consoles, marketed as a game, aimed at gamers and promoted on gaming outlets.


Also, Die Hard Arcade had QTEs in the mid 90s

 

[kpcart]

I cant be bothered reading all the pages of this thread, there are some small minded people posting that need to get over themselves. I would understand the nitpicking if they donated $100,000 to the kickstarter campaign, apart from that it seems like some people log onto the internet to be jerks.

 

[Ren]

Technically Dragon’s Lair had QTEs back in the 80s but Shenmue definitely popularized their implementation in the 2000s.



To my knowledge FREE stands for full reactive eyes entertainment, which is as close to meaningless as a definition gets. I’m sure Lucky Hit has a lot of calculations running but humidity? That seems unlikely and as far as I can remember the phone lines in Shenmue are static. There are only a few dynamic objects (mostly hair but still impressive).


For me Shenmue is whatever it needs to be to tell the story effectively while being an homage to gaming’s past (with arcade games and mini games) and gesturing to its future (with high production values and immersion). It’s kind of like a Tarantino movie where it’s more of a remix of things that already existed but presented in a compelling and new way.

FREE was not a Marketing stunt.
Shenmue FREE was the system where you could hold items in Ryo hand and move it around, as well interact with objects.
They used Motion Capture back then to do this, with a globe, to make the movement realistic. As well locking on items in FPS view and interacting with them. Which was very impressive during that time.
Also about voice Acting, a few weeks ago I saw youtube video were a SNES game had voice acting, it was very impressive, since I didn't knew SNES was capable of playing games with voice acting.

 

[Sh3ppy]

It’s possible to complete BotW and Deus Ex without the aid of the HUD. Many games are made now where you can only follow dialogue hints and explore the world without the aid of markers which seems to be more of a novelty than anything else. As I said the lack of objective markers was more of a technical limitation (the N64 Zelda titles lacked them for instance) and their inclusion is to broaden appeal. It wouldn’t bother me if they were included in Shenmue.

I think you’re kind of missing my point. That’s fair enough that you can complete BotW and Deus Ex (never played it), without the need of the HUD, but I can bet most people use the HUD at least in BotW. Just by going through the tutorial on the plateau it’s made clear that map markers are very much part of the intended progression system. so while it may be possible to complete them without the aid of them, the game was designed to make use of the markers to progress. It’s set up right there in the tutorial as a significant tool.

Shenmue was specifically built without the HUD and markers because Suzuki didn’t want that kind of system. He wanted to keep the systems as “realistic” as possible. In Shenmue’s case it wasn’t due to technical limitations as there were plenty of games that featured maps and markers at the time. Personally, it would bother me if suddenly map markers were implemented into shenmue as THE means of progression. it would render the dialogue system we’ve experienced so far kind of redundant.

I used to love the early Sierra games back in the day and I have many fond memories of playing them as a kid. I must have not played them by the time they got to fully voiced characters though. which ones had fully voiced characters out of curiosity?

 

[Sh3ppy]

I wouldn't say it's meaningless, it just maybe is a bit dated, which is perhaps why you're having trouble understanding it.

I have reversed the games and can confirm this is legitimate.

View attachment 7407

That’s awesome.

 

[GhostTrick]

I think you’re kind of missing my point. That’s fair enough that you can complete BotW and Deus Ex (never played it), without the need of the HUD, but I can bet most people use the HUD at least in BotW. Just by going through the tutorial on the plateau it’s made clear that map markers are very much part of the intended progression system. so while it may be possible to complete them without the aid of them, the game was designed to make use of the markers to progress. It’s set up right there in the tutorial as a significant tool.

Shenmue was specifically built without the HUD and markers because Suzuki didn’t want that kind of system. He wanted to keep the systems as “realistic” as possible. In Shenmue’s case it wasn’t due to technical limitations as there were plenty of games that featured maps and markers at the time. Personally, it would bother me if suddenly map markers were implemented into shenmue as THE means of progression. it would render the dialogue system we’ve experienced so far kind of redundant.

I used to love the early Sierra games back in the day and I have many fond memories of playing them as a kid. I must have not played them by the time they got to fully voiced characters though. which ones had fully voiced characters out of curiosity?

Not really. Hence why the game has two HUD modes. One for beginners/casuals and one as intented to be played, which is without map on screen. There are markers indeed, that you can place, not that the game place. And those are pretty useful considering how huge the map is and how difficult it can be to reach a place. Those markers basically appears when you shift in the goggles mode to see far away but don't appear on the HUD.

 

[Sh3ppy]

Not really. Hence why the game has two HUD modes. One for beginners/casuals and one as intented to be played, which is without map on screen. There are markers indeed, that you can place, not that the game place. And those are pretty useful considering how huge the map is and how difficult it can be to reach a place. Those markers basically appears when you shift in the goggles mode to see far away but don't appear on the HUD.

Exactly, you’re proving my point. The markers that are there, regardless if they’re preplaced or placed by the player, are there to help the player progress. I don’t see how this goes against anything I’ve already said.

 

[Sh3ppy]

Not really. Hence why the game has two HUD modes. One for beginners/casuals and one as intented to be played, which is without map on screen. There are markers indeed, that you can place, not that the game place. And those are pretty useful considering how huge the map is and how difficult it can be to reach a place. Those markers basically appears when you shift in the goggles mode to see far away but don't appear on the HUD.

And one also needs to climb the towers to get the maps in the system. I think you’re both kind of missing the point. It’s not only about the markers and the map, but about how the games are designed. You guys seem to be focusing on the details instead of looking at the bigger picture.

One cannot look at BotW and say it is constructed like, or comparable to shenmue.

 

[LemonHaze]

If FREE is simply details like humidity, temp and seeing telephone wires sway in the wind, that's not a genre so much as it is extreme attention to detail. It's like saying "this isnt a game. It's an experience." At the end of the day, it's a game, made for game consoles, marketed as a game, aimed at gamers and promoted on gaming outlets.


Also, Die Hard Arcade had QTEs in the mid 90s

FREE isn't just those aspects, it's also about how the gameplay loop is designed.

And those QTEs still aren't comparable to Shenmue QTEs.

 

[shredingskin]

There are some games that have similar aspects to shenmue, mizzurna falls (that didn't leave jp), omikron, outcast (that had the whole asking for directions stuff), the grabbing and rotating stuff was common for fp adventures (with no hands tho).
I'm not sure where the line between a new genre starts and where super AAA budget for the time starts.
Shenmue gameloop is quite unique though.

 

[iknifaugood]

I think you’re kind of missing my point. That’s fair enough that you can complete BotW and Deus Ex (never played it), without the need of the HUD, but I can bet most people use the HUD at least in BotW. Just by going through the tutorial on the plateau it’s made clear that map markers are very much part of the intended progression system. so while it may be possible to complete them without the aid of them, the game was designed to make use of the markers to progress. It’s set up right there in the tutorial as a significant tool.

Yes the great plateau is a tutorial so it's designed to teach you all the mechanics of the game (something Shenmue is very bad at imo), you never need to use it after that point. It's definitely part of the game design but a much bigger part is simply exploring the world and following clues that NPCs tell you. S2 lets you purchase minimaps and place markers but I don't think that fundamentally changes the progression of the game. But as you say, the two aren't really comparable.

(EDIT) Shenmue, especially S2, is about finding specific people in large urban environments with very few clues to lead you. This helps make Ryo feel in over his head and reckless but in S2 most of the NPCs will guide you to where you need to go or outright take you there. In Zelda, you have no way of locating the shrines without seeing them and physically travelling to them, so the map markers are more essential for things like that. The map also only fills in when you've discovered new areas and regions. It's designed to give the feeling of discovery and being on a huge adventure.

Shenmue was specifically built without the HUD and markers because Suzuki didn’t want that kind of system. He wanted to keep the systems as “realistic” as possible. In Shenmue’s case it wasn’t due to technical limitations as there were plenty of games that featured maps and markers at the time.

This is true, messing with the game design has a huge butterfly effect but it really comes down to how valuable talking to random NPCs, most of whom can't help you (at least in S1 and S3), is. I always thought Shenmue was designed like this as a relic of its age (it was still around the time where selling walkthroughs was a thing) so that's why there are so many easily miss-able things and empty journal pages if you don't talk to the right person at the right time etc.

I used to love the early Sierra games back in the day and I have many fond memories of playing them as a kid. I must have not played them by the time they got to fully voiced characters though. which ones had fully voiced characters out of curiosity?

I was more of a Lucasarts kid but the Sierra games I played, Gabriel Knight 1-3 and Kings Quest 6, had full VO (and pretty damn good VO imo, Gabriel Knight was voiced by Tim Curry).

FREE was not a Marketing stunt.
Shenmue FREE was the system where you could hold items in Ryo hand and move it around, as well interact with objects.
They used Motion Capture back then to do this, with a globe, to make the movement realistic. As well locking on items in FPS view and interacting with them. Which was very impressive during that time.

It definitely wasn't a new genre and "full reactive eyes entertainment" doesn't mean anything. I actually think the marketing team's obsession with pitching Shenmue as a new thing you've never seen before (they deliberately say "it's not an RPG" in one of the trailers) was one of the main reasons people didn't gravitate to Shenmue as much. When companies claim to be doing something brand new it tends to backfire, especially because Shenmue is so slow paced.

(EDIT) Also, the notion that in Shenmue you could "open any cabinet and interact with any object" is very quickly debunked as the only area this applies to in the first game is the Hazuki residence. It's definitely not a big part of the game.

 

[iknifaugood]

Eh, I don't know if they're really both the same thing. But yes.



I wouldn't say it's meaningless, it just maybe is a bit dated, which is perhaps why you're having trouble understanding it.

I have reversed the games and can confirm this is legitimate.

View attachment 7407

That's absolutely insane! I wonder what dictates the humidity since that's not a variable that's noticeably present in the game apart from when it rains. I assume this is from S2, right?

 

[Peter]

I cant be bothered reading all the pages of this thread, there are some small minded people posting that need to get over themselves. I would understand the nitpicking if they donated $100,000 to the kickstarter campaign, apart from that it seems like some people log onto the internet to be jerks.

Yep. It's amazing how some people believe their opinions to be fact, with no possibility that they could be wrong. The arrogance descended into laughable territory a long while back.

 

[Dehone]

FREE isn't just those aspects, it's also about how the gameplay loop is designed.

And those QTEs still aren't comparable to Shenmue QTEs.

Yes, but its gameplay loop doesn't make it a genre of it's own. It just makes it a unique experience within a genre.

Also, QTEs are still QTEs. Of course Shenmue is going to do it a bit differently than a game that came before it, but now every game has QTEs. So much that it's looked at as a crutch nowadays. And even then, QTEs in Shenmue arent that different from most other QTEs past or present. The only thing to distinguish them is how fun they are and how frequently they are used.