PSU-Opinion: Shenmue 3 Looks Dated, And At E3 2019 That’s A Good Thing – Here’s Why

This is the type of impression that I hoped for, both in hands-on and reviews to come.

Shenmue will never, ever be mainstream. It was said all along to be for the fans. It was going to be a continuation of a series that had a serious fanbase for a niche franchise. Many will like it, most will appreciate it and many will just not be a fan

It plays archaically and that is how it should be. If they can improve the facial animations, smooth out the fighting and work on textures for Ryo(his jacket looks too blurry to me), it'll be fine.
 
You know maybe I'm becoming a cranky old man but what does "dated" mean? I can't be the only one who hates how homogenous current game design for AAA titles has become, right? There's nothing wrong in diverting from a well established design school, that's what makes the Shenmue series and many other pre-PS3 games, especially japanese ones, so beautiful and unique.

Also I think I don't have to even mention the question of graphics -- Nintendo's current and past consoles are proof that not having cutting edge graphics is not the end of the world.
 
You and me both @Shenmue.old and cranky to the end. I can't stand that the next generation of consoles are coming.

it's the lingo these days and the kids need that ultra high graphic fidelity.
 
The "dated" discussion reminds me of the situation in movies. "Good on those snobby little artistic films that people watch in France, but I need my Marvel movies with explosions and enough CGI to make Gary Busey look like a living human being!" etc.
If anything, the growth of indie gaming has lead to a renaissance of "dated" becoming more of the norm.

Alas, I'm glad this was written, as it includes a morsel that mirrors what most of us say, but may more easily reach outsider minds:

"There’s a distinct cohesion in the look, feel, and sound of everything we’ve seen; the design link between the original games and its sequel is palpable, which is crucial. Shenmue 3 doesn’t need to blow you away with scrumptiously-detailed landscapes and nuanced facial animations; it just needs to be honest with itself, to deliver something that fans recognize as a Shenmue game."
 
Shenmue said:
You know maybe I'm becoming a cranky old man but what does "dated" mean? I can't be the only one who hates how homogenous current game design for AAA titles has become, right? There's nothing wrong in diverting from a well established design school, that's what makes the Shenmue series and many other pre-PS3 games, especially japanese ones, so beautiful and unique.

Also I think I don't have to even mention the question of graphics -- Nintendo's current and past consoles are proof that not having cutting edge graphics is not the end of the world.
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Nah, I'm with you. I think "dated" is kind of a cheap criticism at times.

I feel the same when people use it towards films. "Oh it's so dated!" or "it hasn't aged well"....well yeah, considering it reflects the time period it was made in I wouldn't expect it to age well considering we as a species are constantly striving for change. It can't possibly change to reflect where we are now in our culture since it is a static piece of art.

That 80's film with the big hair do, or 80's fashion, or a different taste in humor is, of course, not going to be reflective of where we are today in our culture. Unlike us, it's not a living breathing organism and is incapable of change. It is nothing more than a static reflection of the time it was created in.

Look at Doom 2016. It's whole design philosophy is echoing design choices made in the original 1993 Doom. It's a complete deviation away from what has become the norm for First Person Shooters (i.e linear corridor shooters popularized by the likes of COD4)

Yet everyone ate that shit up. No one uses the term dated for Doom 2016 even though by all means it isn't what the current day norm dictates an FPS to be.

Sometimes I feel it is a very lazy and cheap criticism that is a bit overused to simply say "I don't like it."
 
I think the real issue comes down to this particular style. When a developer makes a 2d game using sprites and pixel art it’s very easy for people to see the style that they were going for and to make a judgement as to whether or not they did a good job achieving it.

What Yu and the team seem to be attempting is to match and refine the style of the previous games in the series and so fans that are familiar with that style can see that they are doing a pretty good job in that regard (for the most part, at least).

For people that never played the original game however, I can see how it might appear that they are attempting to create a game to modern standards and have failed to match them (particularly in the character model department). The fact that the environments are so good in comparison really doesn’t help.
 
danielmann861 said:
Sometimes I feel it is a very lazy and cheap criticism that is a bit overused to simply say "I don't like it."
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Spot on.

I sometimes wonder if the same would be said if the exact same game was produced with a new IP, by a new dev team. I get the vibe a lot of confirmation bias rises to the surface when an old IP or developer is dusted off to take another shot.

My own personal opinion of what we've seen so far is Shenmue III is quite modern, from a methodology standpoint at least. The "quality of life" improvements have been piled on, Yu Suzuki is indulging in chain reactions of systems bouncing off each other, RPG elements are now right on the surface, etc. But it doesn't conform to the mushy AAA idea of "modern" gameplay, so...?
 
Shenmue said:
You know maybe I'm becoming a cranky old man but what does "dated" mean? I can't be the only one who hates how homogenous current game design for AAA titles has become, right? There's nothing wrong in diverting from a well established design school, that's what makes the Shenmue series and many other pre-PS3 games, especially japanese ones, so beautiful and unique.

Also I think I don't have to even mention the question of graphics -- Nintendo's current and past consoles are proof that not having cutting edge graphics is not the end of the world.
Click to expand...

I am also not a fan of the blanket term dated. What is that supposed to mean? And although I am old and cannot say I am free of any nostalgia I think that the design of Shenmue 3 looks better than ever. It looks like Video games should look.

Unique colours and character design that makes the game unique. In the old days every Video game had it's distinct art design and character design. You could really see and feel that different People were working on it.

Today it seems that today all games are made by the same People. They look so generic and boring. The aim for hyper realism and are not still there yet. So it just looks weird most of the time.
 
9dragons said:
I am also not a fan of the blanket term dated. What is that supposed to mean? And although I am old and cannot say I am free of any nostalgia I think that the design of Shenmue 3 looks better than ever. It looks like Video games should look.

Unique colours and character design that makes the game unique. In the old days every Video game had it's distinct art design and character design. You could really see and feel that different People were working on it.

Today it seems that today all games are made by the same People. They look so generic and boring. The aim for hyper realism and are not still there yet. So it just looks weird most of the time.
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It depends how they are defining "dated". Does it look like your typical 2019 video game. Nope but that is a good thing. It is harking back on an era where games had a vibrency about them in terms of the colours and look. We don't see that in many 3d games if any these days. Even Horizon, which was very nice looking didn't have the range of colour that Shnemue 3 does.

It looks different and that sets it apart. This is a definate good thing.
 
The Problem is that there is no ulimative Standard for modern games. We have the AAA games that look all the same and some Indie games with a more distinct art style. Changing the art style to be different is not a bad Thing. And should not be dismissed with the term dated. Dated implies that these changes in graphics have no place in the modern world and that there is only one rule without a expecition how make a game.

And that is not the case. Tastes are different. There are lots of People, that fund 2d looking games, with graphics Standards that were dated in the ps1 era already. And yet People want these games and are willing to pay for it. So term dated should not be used.

There is not only one way to make a game. Tastes in gaming are vast. Too vast to declare any design philosphy really obsolete.
 
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spud1897 said:
It depends how they are defining "dated". Does it look like your typical 2019 video game. Nope but that is a good thing. It is harking back on an era where games had a vibrency about them in terms of the colours and look. We don't see that in many 3d games if any these days. Even Horizon, which was very nice looking didn't have the range of colour that Shnemue 3 does.

It looks different and that sets it apart. This is a definate good thing.
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I actually think it does look like your average 2019 AA video game. The problem is that there's still some jankiness. But otherwise it's mostly fine.
 
It doesn't look dated; it looks stylised. Going for "realism" doesn't age well, because what looks realistic now just looks crap in five years time, and that makes it look dated.

Stylised graphics, on the other hand, still look good for a long time after their release. It's the reason JSRF still looks amazing in spite of being an early Xbox game.
 
DigitalDuck said:
It doesn't look dated; it looks stylised. Going for "realism" doesn't age well, because what looks realistic now just looks crap in five years time, and that makes it look dated.

Stylised graphics, on the other hand, still look good for a long time after their release. It's the reason JSRF still looks amazing in spite of being an early Xbox game.
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Yeah, exactly. I think the things that looks wrong about Shenmue III aren't about the visual itself, but some jankiness. The E3 trailer looked janky because of the bad (imo) voice acting that wasn't helped by the bad lipsync.
 
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