Random Shenmue III Thoughts

They think it's so simple for a studio to just pick up a new engine they've never worked with, too. What makes them think the Dragon Engine is any more capable of what Ys Net is trying to accomplish anyway? I think the scope of Shenmue's worlds far exceeds whatever the Dragon Engine is capable of as well considering how small Yakuza games really are.
Because they can't get past the misguided mindset that Yakuza is just a better Shenmue. They don't care about what Ys Net is trying to accomplish. They literally think it would be better if Shenmue III was a Yakuza clone, or if it didn't exist at all and everybody just played Yakuza instead. 🤦🏻‍♂️
 
And that's what's so annoying to me. Why can't they enjoy the two or three Yakuza games they get to play every year and stop worrying about Shenmue?
I wish that all non-fans would just stop worrying about Shenmue already. They can enjoy what they enjoy and we can enjoy what we enjoy. But for some reason, Shenmue has always been the target of trolls (and that includes certain so-called "journalists" who are basically professional trolls).

There are countless game franchises that I don't like, but I haven't been going on the Internet for the past 20 years making fun of them and their fanbase. It's almost as if some of the haters are as obsessed with Shenmue as we are.
 
Kinda in the same boat. I have Death Stranding waiting, but I just can't do it. I really can't be assed to play that game. I have NFS The Heat waiting, but again can't be assed to get back to it. I have to finish off Control at some point; again, can't be bothered. Instead, I keep finding myself going back to things like Virtua Fighter 2 or Virtua Fighter 5 Showdown on PS3...or lately going through Yakuza 3 again. I've been playing Nights Into Dreams on the PS3. I've been flirting with playing Resident Evil Code Veronica on the Dreamcast (never finished it before and am kinda curious to finally see it through before RE3 Remake.)

Lately I'm even feeling the itch to go back to Persona 4 for what would seem to be the sixth or seventh time...even though I have the Japanese copy of Persona 5 The Royal waiting to be played.

And I know at some point I want to go back and platinum Shenmue III (took a break from it just because I didn't want to immediately platinum it...I want to have a reason to come back to it)

As of right now, nothing is floating my boat though and I'm finding myself going back to older games more and more. So I hear you...I have a whole bunch of new games from 2019 waiting to be either started or finished...but not a single one of them appeals to me.

That's basically where I'm at for the moment to be honest. I actually have Virtua Fighter 5 coming in the post hopefully tomorrow, as I've never owned or played it much. I'll probably pick up Final Showdown too once I've played through the original release. It just seemed crazy that I've played the hell out of Virtua Fighter 1-4 (and even kids) both on consoles and in the arcade, but never touched much of 5, because it came out at a time when I wasn't playing a lot of video games.

Nights is one of the most addictive games I've ever played. I forgot it was on the PS3 to be honest. How does it play with the dualshock controller? It's one of those games I can't imagine playing on anything other than the Saturn's 3D pad. That said, they really need to bundle it with Christmas Nights and re-release it on modern platforms. I'd love a Switch release. The Sega Ages stuff on Switch is great, but I can't believe they haven't given us Nights, Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally or Daytona USA yet.

Persona 4 is one of the greatest RPGs of all time. To be honest, I've been meaning to play through it again some time too. It's way better than Persona 5 too... I appreciate what they did with the dungeon designs (taken mostly from Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE), but the game just got so bloated and I didn't find a lot of the characters particularly likeable. I much preferred the story and characters in 4.
 
@Reprise , have you played any Yakuza games? They're actually pretty old school in many ways + you can play VF4/5 in a couple of the games (tons of Sega fan service). Don't let the trolls scare you away from those games. They're just misguided. Nagoshi rocks & very obviously learned a lot under Yu Suzuki.
 
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Yeah. I was just arguing with some guy on Reddit who thinks Shenmue needs to be developed by RGG so it's more like Yakuza. Fuck that. There are a zillion Yakuzas and three Shenmue games. For better or worse, I prefer Shenmue to maintain its own identity.
that is so correct.
all the game needs is a bigger budget.
That would mean, better motion capture, facial features and presantation overall.
That's the only thin I can point out.
The game's identity was allways its greatest strenght in my eyes. Shenmue is Shenmue, not Yakuza.

PS. Fuck Yakuza and its fans.

PS nº2. Just joking haha
 
@Reprise , have you played any Yakuza games? They're actually pretty old school in many ways + you can play VF4/5 in a couple of the games (tons of Sega fan service). Don't let the trolls scare you away from those games. They're just misguided. Nagoshi rocks & very obviously learned a lot under Yu Suzuki.

Yeah, I own all the Yakuza games, I've been a fan since the very first game came out on PS2 and during the dark days when Sega seemingly gave up releasing the games in the West, even going as far as importing the Japanese version of 0 when it looked like it was never going to get localised. I do enjoy them, but what puts me off them a bit is how samey they all feel. I do really enjoy the games, but I do often find myself kinda begrudging them... thinking "it should be the other way around dammit; there should be 6 Shenmue games, a prequel, remakes of 1 and 2, countless spin offs. And Yakuza should just have 3 games." Not that it's an either or situation of course. They both have their own styles and cater to slightly different audiences.

I have to be honest, I don't think I have even played Yakuza 6 or Judgement yet. They're probably still shrink wrapped in my cupboard. I just got a bit overwhelmed when we got 5, 0, Kiwami 1 and 2, then 6 and Judgement all within just a few years.
 
Nights is one of the most addictive games I've ever played. I forgot it was on the PS3 to be honest. How does it play with the dualshock controller? It's one of those games I can't imagine playing on anything other than the Saturn's 3D pad. That said, they really need to bundle it with Christmas Nights and re-release it on modern platforms. I'd love a Switch release. The Sega Ages stuff on Switch is great, but I can't believe they haven't given us Nights, Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally or Daytona USA yet.

Persona 4 is one of the greatest RPGs of all time. To be honest, I've been meaning to play through it again some time too. It's way better than Persona 5 too... I appreciate what they did with the dungeon designs (taken mostly from Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE), but the game just got so bloated and I didn't find a lot of the characters particularly likeable. I much preferred the story and characters in 4.

It's okay. I would have been playing it on my Saturn but my Saturn's CD drive is dying and I'm desperately waiting for either a cheap ODE Rhea replacement or that Satiator (if it ever comes to retail) to replace the dying laser in my Saturn. So I have to make do with the PS3 version. It's solid, but given the choice? I'd rather be playing on my Saturn if only the drive wasn't dying.

I like P5's story, but its the characters of P4 that get me every time. There is something about that group of rag tags that is just downright endearing to me. More so than the cast of P5. Also, I think I almost prefer the small town vibes of Inaba over Tokyo.
 
I like P5's story, but its the characters of P4 that get me every time. There is something about that group of rag tags that is just downright endearing to me. More so than the cast of P5. Also, I think I almost prefer the small town vibes of Inaba over Tokyo.
Yeah. It is the only downside of P5 eince they tried to adapt the cast to the themes of opression and such they do not have the vibes and chemistry the P4 cast had 3ven if P5 as a game and plot is better IMHO.

Heck to even highlight those themes they actually make the events of summer festival and school trip sad unmemorable experiences...
 
It's okay. I would have been playing it on my Saturn but my Saturn's CD drive is dying and I'm desperately waiting for either a cheap ODE Rhea replacement or that Satiator (if it ever comes to retail) to replace the dying laser in my Saturn. So I have to make do with the PS3 version. It's solid, but given the choice? I'd rather be playing on my Saturn if only the drive wasn't dying.

I like P5's story, but its the characters of P4 that get me every time. There is something about that group of rag tags that is just downright endearing to me. More so than the cast of P5. Also, I think I almost prefer the small town vibes of Inaba over Tokyo.

That's a shame, I've already had my original Saturn die on me, but my replacement seems to be doing ok for now. Worrying about my old consoles dying and it getting harder to find decent replacements at a decent price kinda stresses me out, so I'd love to go down one of those routes eventually too. Same with the Dreamcast, I need to get a GD Emu or similar mod done some time.

That said, that's why I really wish publishers like Sega put as much effort as possible into porting their old games to modern systems. It's a pipe dream, but I hope we get a Saturn mini and Dreamcast mini sometime.
 
I see that argument come up so many times in the facebook groups.

It's either: "They should have developed it with the Yakuza engine" -- since Sega had no interest in giving them much support let alone the Dragon Engine -- that wasn't happening.

Or "they should look at Yakuza and take notes" -- Yes and No. In terms of game design, I would rather Shenmue be Shenmue and Yakuza be Yakuza. The only notes I would maybe want Shenmue to take from Yakuza is in the writing department (if I had to be 100% honest) but other than that, in game design? They are both they're own distinct things and I would rather they be their own things. Shenmue has its own distinct feel. As too does Yakuza. Let 'em both be their own thing.

It does get boring to hear that argument though

I'm personally irked(I'd admit) when people make these comparison while Am2 is still around with lots of Vets being underutilized. RGG is not even needed, just let Am2 vets off the leash and work with YS Net and we'd be golden if we're talking about dream team scenario. Sega can pass off those cash grab games to another division to maintain easily & let the creative giants work on heavy hitting projects to bring proper prestige back to their brand name.
 
People claiming "they should've used the dragon engine !" as if it would've made a difference. The game textures, models and animations would still look the same. The difference is that as opposed to Unreal Engine, SEGA doesn't have a dedicated team for support. Epic Games has dedicated teams working on Unreal Engine 4 Support for questions and such. Because their job is to sell an engine.
Agreed, but I wanna add one tidbit.

If Suzuki has a personalized full custom engine, Shenmue can be tweak to the minutiae and deliver an even higher experience. The Black box obstacle of middle-ware did frustrated YS(hinted in interviews) and it shows in S3 with a lot of ideas being shafted/scaled down because the time needed to figure out the logistic using middle-ware is more burdensome than without those contents in the race against time.

OFC, This is not a knock against UE4. The cost-efficiency & dedicated support team did help deliver an authentic expierence in the end.
 
People claiming "they should've used the dragon engine !" as if it would've made a difference. The game textures, models and animations would still look the same. The difference is that as opposed to Unreal Engine, SEGA doesn't have a dedicated team for support. Epic Games has dedicated teams working on Unreal Engine 4 Support for questions and such. Because their job is to sell an engine.
People do not have memory. I still remember the backlash of Yakuza6 when they switched engines and had to "remove" a lot of the iterated features like multiple brawling styles and certain framerate issues at some points.
It required something like 3 games to redeem itself in the eyes of the fans...
 
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