Magic Monaco Press Conference March 9th Part 3 More Reaction

We should really be careful and wait and see. Japanese is very tricky language to translate. Especially the martial stuff is quite hard. What did they mean with now throws? Were they talking about literal Nage waza (throwing techniques) or about kuzishi waza (breaking the Balance of the Opponent). I am no way an expert but I am bit into japanese martial arts, so sorry for the nerd talk but it would be intersting about which word for throws the original text was refering to.

The word throw is a bit too generic consididering the vast vacabulary the japanese have for martial arts techiques. But I also do not know anything about Yu's Background in martial arts..
 
I'm glad to see the fans have loved or liked the trailer and felt the same way I did. I loved the trailer and thought it was beautiful, it was just so 'Shenmue' and hats off to Yu and his team for doing that since Shenmue 2 came out in 2001. That's seriously impressive how after all this time Shenmue has come back to life and still feels the same. I guess we need to play it for ourselves yet though.

It's good to hear about the positively of the voice acting. I like Shenhua's new voice but Ryo? Based on the trailer, he sounds pretty much exactly like he did 17 years ago. That is such a wonderful thing. I'm loving how Ryo, Shenhua and Lan Di look now, couldn't get over how good Lan Di looked the most. I do agree with others that Ryo's model in the trailer still might not have been his final one but I would be fine or happy with how he looks now.

The battle system looks promising and maybe more changeling? I hope so. What I loved the most was the story elements of the trailer, sure Ryo became like a master in Shenmue 2 but he still had ways to go to be in league with Lan Di and other masters. He's on a journey which made the training scene with the old man so emotional and good.

The scenery in the game looks outstanding and Ryo's bruises look good and detailed. We never had that in Shenmue 1 or 2 when Ryo lost or whatever. Also, did anyone notice at the start of the trailer all those guys laying on the ground behind that massive guy?

It was good to see facial expressions too, but the old man needed more work. A great trailer none the less.
 
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Rikitatsu said:
And it's nice to have in depth conversations, but wouldn't it be better to have all of them voiced, than waste money on creating lifeless eye candy? They talk about budget constraints, yet they threw money onto creating non-interactable characters.

I'd rather have more of these in-depth NPCs at the expense of hundreds of random NPCs patrolling the street. A simple 'directions' system would have sufficed at least, they even have a code for it.

I'll also claim that one of the strongest immersiveness factors in Shenmue is being able to talk with anybody, even if they have nothing worthwhile to say
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Serious question: What was the point of the endless NPCs who had nothing to say other than "talk to me later" or providing random directions in Shenmue 2? That literally is the definition of pointless eye candy and fluff and it's barely any better.

I think this is one instance where we might need to await a better translation and more details. It will be concerning if the ratio of non-communicative NPCs is high. If it's just a few minor characters that would have just said "talk to me later" anyways, I'm not personally too bothered. Yu has been open about the budget limitations and has openly stated he is not optimistic he will be able to voice all characters throughout development.
 
The Absence of super natural stuff sounds a bit weird, considering what happend in the Ending of Shenmue 2. But let's wait and see. Somehow I hope that their still will be some super mystical stuff. I want to see the powers of Shenhua again that were featured in the Project Berkley. They looked so over the top that it was almost cool again.
 
When Yu said he was still considering how to implement full voice acting (within budget), my opinion back then was to get rid of the "I'm busy" and "I'm tired" lines, so I kinda predicted it, and I'm fine with it.

Talking to every single NPC was a novel feature back in the day but it wasn't as interesting or engaging as it sounds. It becomes evident very quickly that asking "regular" NPCs for info has little value in Shenmue, and asking for directions in Shenmue II wasn't much better...unless you like slowly following people around.

I feel like having similar generic "go away" replies wouldn't go down as well with today's audience because it is a bit silly being told to go away constantly by 80% of NPCs. If Ryo can't talk to these unimportant NPCs, in my head he's simply choosing not to interrogate every rando on the street.

I wouldn't want them to cut the number of NPCs just to get these "go away" replies back, because filling out the game world with people is extremely important in creating a believable atmosphere. These environments need to feel populated to the right degree or they'll feel empty and off. They made the right choice in my opinion.

Having the names pop up on-screen...now that's something that doesn't sounds great to me. I like the minimal HUD of previous games, but it depends on how it's implemented. Either way it's not going to break the game for me.
 
I think what bothers me more so than the lack of NPC interaction is the potential lack of supernatural or mystical element.

Shenmue II teased a lot of things. The Dandelion with Shenhua. The floating sword. Not to mention that the mirrors.

Maybe it's Suzuki-san being coy and trying to avoid spoilers, but I'd be bummed if they just completely retcon the mystical element behind this game. I mean I don't need to see Ryo casting magic or shooting hadoken like fire balls, but considering what they've already teased with Shenhua and the mirrors, I would be disappointed if they retcon the idea of mysticism that this world has been teasing.

But who knows. Can't trust Google translate
 
I think those supernatural things in Shenmue 2 are not so supernatural for Suzuki. I don't remember where I read that Suzuki thinks there are some mistical powers in everything as Shenhua says. So maybe Suzuki is right and there won't be supernatural powers like hadokens and so but there will be mistical powers as we saw in Shenmue 2. Difficult to understand.
 
Verderame said:
Shenmue 3 is going to have way bigger ambitions, scope, variety, production values and budget than any Yakuza game ever.

People forget that RGG games recycle the same tiny district every single time, with very little and safe updates, and that they used to feature extremely old gen-ish flaws like robotic, voiceless npc, less than mediocre animations and invisible walls literally everywhere untill the very recent introduction of the Dragon Engine.
They have stellar facial animations during main cutscenes that rival even the best of the industry, but that's pretty much it.

I don't know if people just have bigger expectations for Shenmue, or if it's the lack of proper, professional marketing around it that make people feel safe to come up with the silliest, most irrational trolls.
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Ambition, sure, but the others? Um, hell no.

Scope is probably already on par, as there have been a ton of call backs and forwards, to past and future games, the plots have been well-though out,

Variety is a definite no, as there have been a shitload of mini-games, different things to do, etc., that Shenmue will probably never hit, IMO; Ishin! alone, has 8 or 9 minigames, that are fairly in-depth. 'mue III will only have 4 or 5 at the most.

Production values is iffy, as there is a crap-ton of polish and testing that goes into the RGG games, probably also on par with 'mue III.

Finally, budget? Um, yeah, Kimitaku was probably 3 mil US alone, just to secure him for the game; they definitely have significantly larger budgets than 'mue III.

I get it, we're all fans of 'mue first and foremost, but call a spade a spade and don't let the bias creep in.
 
Space Lion said:
Is Yakuza really AAA? The series still has ps2-isms where there's limited cutscenes that use minimal assets, every cutscene isn't voiced, and there's three different kinds of cutscenes (regular cinematic, rpg text boxed kind with lack of talking and just has voiced grunts and "hmmms", and visual novel esque scene). Yakuza is far from AAA. Are using that definition very liberally in a world where RDR2 or GTAV exist I think. In fact, I know a lot of people whose first Yakuza game was 0 who said the production values aren't what they're used to and that the game is cheap in many areas, reminding them of a ps2 game with better graphics.
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  1. No it doesn't.
  2. Every cutscene has been voiced since the very first game, in 2005. Irrefutable, as well.
  3. Yes it is.

Like my previous post; remove your bias.
 
Sorry for the TRIPLE post, but I didn't realise I was on page 7, when replying; my apologies!

So yes, for the trailer, I totally get the sentiment that it was underwhelming (as mentioned last week, the, "head vs. heart," sentiments) and that's definitely what my head is telling me.

BUT! It was awesome to watch and I held back tears a few times throughout, specifically when the Erhu hits (never fails) and when Earth Continent and Sea started playing as well; those tracks never fail to make me feel all fuzzy inside (heart).

I enjoyed the trailer and love all the picking apart that Switch has done so far too; the little bits that Yu adds into the trailers are just awesome, whether they are intentionally put there or if they're part of the game.

This is pure speculation on my part, but yeah, I think it'll be dual audio; I see no reason why they wouldn't do it for this series, as 'mue is special in terms of the localised voices and Yu realises this, amongst fans.
 
Truck_1_0_1_ said:
Variety is a definite no, as there have been a shitload of mini-games, different things to do, etc., that Shenmue will probably never hit, IMO; Ishin! alone, has 8 or 9 minigames, that are fairly in-depth. 'mue III will only have 4 or 5 at the most.
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Especially Yakuza 5. Even if Yakuza 5 wasn't my favorite of the series in terms of story, I can at least respect how much they crammed into that game. The Sensible Taxi driving mini game (one of my favorite things to do in that game, btw), Haruka's idol section, a Ramen making mini game, Hunting and so on...there was SOOOO much to do in that game that I don't even think Shenmue III could realistically match it due to both the smaller budget and the fact that they haven't had anywhere near as many years as RGG studios to build that type of stuff.

I don't necessarily need Shenmue III to be big and full of stuff to do rather I need it to be focused and narrowed in on what it is trying to do (i.e the Affinity system and so on)

Given the budget and the scope of the team, I think they're much better off focusing on quality over quantity (or as much as the budget affords)
 
Surprised, and also I guess not surprised, by some of the reactions to not every NPC being interacted with.

If that's the hill some of you want to die on, so be it, but it makes considerable sense when accounting for the budgetary restrictions. It'll help make the world feel populated, without the increased workload and financial strain interaction brings. As a compromise it's very sensible.
 
Didnt Yu Suzuki say there would be spiritual/religious elements in the game near when the game first ended its kickstarker?

For some people, spiritual, mystical and supernatural are kind of mutally exclusive. For example I consider them basically the same exact thing, but for someone who is religious or very spiritual they likely consider them completely different.

For example, I dont belive in angels, ghosts, spirits, demons, non man made disasters and tragedies, auras, ki, chi, chakra, souls, etc and consider all of them to be supernatural and not real.

Another person could belive in chakra, ki, chi, auras, (and to a further extent. Dragons, Phoenixes, enchanted animals) etc, and not consider it supernatural but spiritual and mystical.

While yet another person can believe in ghosts, angels, hauntings, possessions holy-demonic non man made disasters and tragedies, demons, spirits, heaven, hell, prophecy, purgatory, etc and consider those things as religious but not supernatural.

And there are people who believe in a mix of religious, mystical, and supernatural things.

In the end, it depends on what Yu Suzuki definition of Supernatural is.

My personal opinion is, there will probably be things like souls, and prophecy (already confirmed), and i believe there will be an actual dragon (maaaybe an actual phoenix?) and not natural destruction but nothing like actual ghosts or hauntings or possessions.
 
hard to tell. it seems like the guy who wrote the japanese IGN article wasnt a big fan
of the supernatural things of S2 or the S Online trailer so it was a personal question to Suzuki
because he was afraid that S3 will be all about flying swords, a superhero Shenhua and so on
and Suzuki told him that S3 is not about that. we dont know if this was a personal trustworthy answer
or if he had to say that because of spoilers.

did Suzuki answer that question with IGN in mind - so he lied maybe
or was this a personal answer just for this guy? then it was probably true.
 
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Spaghetti said:
Surprised, and also I guess not surprised, by some of the reactions to not every NPC being interacted with.

If that's the hill some of you want to die on, so be it, but it makes considerable sense when accounting for the budgetary restrictions. It'll help make the world feel populated, without the increased workload and financial strain interaction brings. As a compromise it's very sensible.
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Well that's the thing. After reading the other article from VG24/7...it sounds like it's gonna be Shenmue as usual to me. If I had to guess, I would say all 500 are not interactive but a handful will be. But that's my guess. The way the VG24/7 article describes it, it sounds like Shenmue of old in that you will be still talking to people and getting bread crumbs for where and what to do next.

I'm fine with that...my expectations for this game have been in check the entire time considering the budget. I really don't think Deep Silver invested all that much into it. Maybe they got them to the 10 million mark as was the needed amount on Kickstarter to make the full game he wanted to make...but I really think our funding was the primary funding. I really don't think anyone else invested anywhere near as much as we did.
 
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