Is Yu Suzuki out of touch with gaming standards?

The music integration as it relates to looping & randomly cutting out is really puzzling. Like I pointed out in that other thread, the people in charge of sound design are very capable and experienced. They were hardly neophytes. I'd love to get the story on what happened there (I know we won't). I think that they definitely started to run out of time and were probably pressured by Deep Silver to release the game. Yes, that seems ridiculous considering we waited four years, but consider the difficulty of setting up a brand new studio with new employees and the scope of a typical Shenmue game.

I agree with this, in Shenmue I & II everything blended a lot better. But I guess this is another example as to why it's hard to do this kinda thing, no matter how much money you have.
 
In just 1 day without checking the forums and here we have 6 pages of people that will probably never find a common ground.

With this and the Baldurs Gate 3 drama I kinda exhausted all the popcorn. 🍿

But now seriously the opic has derailed massively or it is just my personal imperssion?
 
We meet master Feng and learn about Iwao visiting the village.

The fact Master Feng was given barley any characterization and we didn’t get a more in depth conversation about Iwao and his time in Bailu was criminal. I mean here is a man that trained your father and Sunming Zhao and we got practically no insight from the guy.

This type of shallow characterization effected the entire cast of Shenmue 3, outside arguably Shenhua but it still hurts.

But now seriously the topic has derailed massively or it is just my personal imperssion?

While there’s been some curt messages I actually think it’s fostered someone excellent discussions. Not everyone has to be an agreement to have a interesting or productive discourse.
 
This is why, just think and look at Yu past games, last decent game Yu touched was Sega Race TV and after that all he did work on for over a decade was shitty mobile games.
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He hasn’t been in the biz in years. Of course he’s rusty. It’s not a lack of talent, though. Most of his former Sega peers had similar career trajectories and havent recovered. Heard from Yuji Naka lately?

By the way, the hell is Bullet Pirates? First I’ve heard of it.
 
This is why, just think and look at Yu past games, last decent game Yu touched was Sega Race TV and after that all he did work on for over a decade was shitty mobile games.
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It's like David Fincher won two Oscars in a row, disappeared then came back to record a series of advertising for Frosties.

(On a very personal note, I would love a hollywood biopic on Yu. He would be the old mafia guy who's just released from prison, realized that the world turned mad over his absence and dramatically feels he's forced to make Shenmue a more fast paced game as he admits himself in an interview)
 
The thing missed from the list is Shenmue Online, which Yu Worked from 2004 to 2007
Then went to work on Sega Race TV after he went to work for his own company making mobile games and that seems to not go well either. It's sad to what Yu fell too, even though big reason is Sega Merge with Sammy.
Personally, Yu biggest mistake Ever was Shenmue Online then Shenmue City. I know he tried to revive franchise but that was not the way, so much money and time wasted. But probably Sammy was the reason they probably didn't want to fund Shemue 3
After the merge SegaSammy had a very tight budget and they cut done multiple games and closed down multiple studios/offices and lay off a lot of employees.
Another huge mistake was Shenmue on Xbox, that was the most idiotic idea ever that killed the franchise by giving it a bad reputation, but it was not game fault but XBOX was not the right market for it, if Shenmue was ported to PS2 we would had Shenmue V by now.
 
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.
 
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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 match modern game advancedments. Lol, what advancements ? The only thing that has inmproved 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 fo 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 at game design.

Finally! Some common sense!
 
There are a lot of FREE-style games nowadays, most notably something like RDR2. It’s hard not to compare Shenmue to something like that even though it’s an extremely unfair comparison. You are expecting people to to grade Shenmue 3 on a handicap. Most people won’t go into Shenmue 3 considering what a legend Yu Suzuki is or how much the first two games advanced video gaming, unfortunately.
 
The mobile game argument is dumb, those games are challenging to make like any other game. Making any game is still practice in making games.
 
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.
 
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.

The dialogue system is one of the biggest components of FREE, and to this day it’s rare to see such hugely scripted and VO’d games, again with the dialogue system being the main mode of discovery and progression (not map markers). So in my opinion the Shenmue ‘formula’ is still very unique in most ways that matter.
 
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.
I used to largely agree with this sentiment but now I just find it out of touch. Shenmue didn't usher in a new genre for games and those games that cater to a large audience are not doing anything wrong or failing to innovate. Shenmue tried to cater to a large audience and failed: that's not the audience's fault. Games like Call of Duty are almost always going to outsell slower paced games but usually their budgets reflect that: Shenmue simply costs too much compared to its audience size (something Suzuki had the benefit of knowing for certain before starting development on S3) so the only options are to reduce the budget/scope, or attempt to morph Shenmue into something that caters to modern audiences.

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.
FREE isn't a genre, it was a marketing tool. Shenmue is essentially an adventure game/RPG with a very complex fighting system.

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.
Expertise is not a requisite for criticism, particularly of the designer who combined health and stamina into the same resource.
 
FREE isn't a genre, it was a marketing tool. Shenmue is essentially an adventure game/RPG with a very complex fighting system.

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

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.
 
The dialogue system is one of the biggest components of FREE, and to this day it’s rare to see such hugely scripted and VO’d games, again with the dialogue system being the main mode of discovery and progression (not map markers). So in my opinion the Shenmue ‘formula’ is still very unique in most ways that matter.
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.
 
Many adventure games and RPGs feature full VO (and have for years before Shenmue).
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.
 
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