Rate the Shenmue trilogy

the_phoenix_mirror

the_phoenix_mirror

10 years early.
Joined
Feb 26, 2021
Location
The good ol' US of A
Favourite title
Shenmue II
Currently playing
Daytona USA Iraq version
ITT I'm asking you to rate Shenmue I, II, and III from 0 to 10.

This is how the format should be.

Shenmue I #/10
Shenmue II #/10
Shenmue III #/10

Of course, please don't use a hashtag instead use actual numbers.
 
Shenmue 1 - 9/10
Shenmue 2 - 10/10
Shenmue 3 - 7/10
 
Shenmue - 7.5/10
Shenmue 2 - 9/10
Shenmue 3 - 8/10

Controversial? Maybe but I stand by it. I think the original games' atmosphere and setting is wonderful, but the game still feels like a glorified tutorial for what was to come. It's also just bogged down by pacing issues and the fact that there is sometimes just not enough to do in Yokosuka to keep it interesting. I mean there is no proper job system as opposed to the other two and everything feels like a glorified tutorial. I still love the original game with all my heart, but for me, it falls short compared to the other two.

Shenmue II let you off the leash by giving you a wealth of options to fill in your time. It's everything the first game was doing systems wise, but better. Story telling is the overall best the series has seen thus far. The wealth of things to see and do is vastly more interesting than the first game. There are some issues I have with it. The planks got a bit annoying and the lack of proper training system also kind of sucked. But the world itself is so much more vast and interesting to explore when not in Main Quest mode.

And as for SIII...the most controversial one. Well, I stand by the fact that I think it does the daily routine the best of the three. While it falls short in other areas, I think I had the most fun just living the daily routine in SIII out of all of them. I liked my daily training sessions. I liked my daily fishing sessions. I liked just wandering around collecting herbs. I liked wood chopping.

To me, Shenmue III refines the daily routine the best out of the three. But unfortunately it falls short in other areas compared to the other games. As much as I loved to getting to know Shenhua, the game does ultimately fall apart come the end with the rushed ending. But still, living that daily routine in SIII was a blast to me and one of the best experiences I had last gen.
 
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Shenmue I 8/10
Shenmue II 10/10
Shenmue III 6.5/10

I'd say Shenmue I's score was an average of how awesome it was when it was launched vs how I feel it hasn't aged super well today. I'd say it's in the 7 range today and was a 9 or 10 for when it first came out.

Shenmue II is my favorite game of all time and it stood the test of time for me when I did a replay before Shenmue III.

Shenmue III has its faults of course, but I was definitely happy to play it and wouldn't say I was disappointed, even though I gave it a 6.5. I won't rehash too much of the discussions we've had the past 3 years, but the pros are that it does some nice "Shenmue slice-of-life things" as @danielmann861 mentioned above, and I also really enjoyed the environments.

The cons that are tough for me to overlook are the lack of story, poor animations and main character models, fighting system, endurance meter, grind, and some inconsistent tonal shifts. My next playthrough will likely use whatever QOL mods are out there for the PC version.
 
Feels like deja vu all over again, but:

Shenmue - 8.0/10
Shenmue II - 9.5/10
Shenmue III - 8.5/10
 
Shenmue I: 9.0/10
Shenmue II: 9.5/10
Shenmue III: 7/10

It is hard to be impartial given the original two games are two of my favourite games and like most here I played them during my formative years. So while I understand the first game in particular has some archaic and questionable design choices, itโ€™s also extremely important to understand the context of when it was made and what they were able to achieve compared to its conemtporaries.

While Shenmue 2 increased the action, size and scale and was a superior experience, as I grow older my fondness of the original grows. Whether it be so many unique pieces of dialogue, the slow grounded experience or simply sense of home.

My feelings of Shenmue 3 are more complicated but as time passes the more I enjoy the experience despite the narrative shortcomings in particular. It also in many ways is a tribute to Shenmue fans, the fact we even got to play it and for that I will be forever enternally grateful even though it was never likely to live up to my decades worth of expectations.
 
Shenmue 1 10/10
Shenmue 2 10/10
Shenmue 3 9.75/10

In the bigger picture of video games as a whole I'd rank them all 10/10, but within the series or high standards for select games Shenmue 3 gets a slightly lower score due to lack of story progression, which budget was not an excuse for.
 
danielmann861 said:
And as for SIII...the most controversial one. Well, I stand by the fact that I think it does the daily routine the best of the three. While it falls short in other areas, I think I had the most fun just living the daily routine in SIII out of all of them. I liked my daily training sessions. I liked my daily fishing sessions. I liked just wandering around collecting herbs. I liked wood chopping.

To me, Shenmue III refines the daily routine the best out of the three. But unfortunately it falls short in other areas compared to the other games. As much as I loved to getting to know Shenhua, the game does ultimately fall apart come the end with the rushed ending. But still, living that daily routine in SIII was a blast to me and one of the best experiences I had last gen.
Click to expand...
Completely agree. Think some people can't quite see the woods for the trees with Shenmue III because of the areas it lacked polish, and don't really recognise that it brought back (and improved) some of the everyday life vibes of the original game that were lost in the sequel. It's Shenmue I: 2, when people expected Shenmue II: 2.
 
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