Reality vs Expectations (warning: spoilers within)

[Amir]

And from a September 2015 Famitsu interview:

Q: So Bailu village will feature in the story as somewhere to enjoy the scenery, while Choubu will be where you can enjoy open-world gameplay like in the previous game?

YS: Yes, although the word "open-world" may lead to misunderstanding as there are now many great open world games around…. Choubu is a place with "Shenmue-like" gameplay - what I called FREE for the earlier Shenmue games. I consider Bailu village to be a place where you can enjoy spending time with Shenhua. And for Baisha, I'm planning to make it a place where you can play in completely different way from the earlier Shenmue games. It's the place I want to focus on most.

Q: Could you give a little more detail about Baisha?

YS: It has several enemy hideouts, and you can enjoy the situation of infiltrating one; protecting your friends from external attack as you battle with enemies to take it over. You will not simply be fighting, but will make full use of war tactics that resemble famous tactics from China's Three Kingdoms period, such as the Water Attack or the Fire Attack, as you fight. This may sound very difficult, but I plan to make it straight-forward when you try playing, so please don't worry about that.

Q: In a previous interview, you mentioned being able to change your player character during these operations, didn't you?

YS: That would be the stretch goal that was successfully reached during the Kickstarter, called the Character Perspective system. I'd like to allow you to be able to play not just as Ryo, but also as others like Shenhua and Ren, and clearly portray the characteristics of each of the characters. For example… Shenhua, a girl, wouldn't do something like suddenly hit someone else.

Q: She doesn't seem like the type to do that, does she.

YS: And so, if you have selected Shenhua, you won't have the option to hit. However, if it is Ren, he may well suddenly strike out (laughs). In this way, depending on the character the things you can do differ, and depending on your choice the outcome will change. I'd also like to portray the differences between men and women.

Q: Between men and women?

YS: In the places where Character Perspective occurs, there are events where you advance as a pair. At that time, if you are controlling Ren then he'll be like "Hey, I'm so cool" and try to put on an act, whereas if you control Shenhua she'll look at his posing and think "What an idiot…" - that kind of thing (laughs).

It's something that happens in real life too, right? It is said that if you talk to two people that have had an argument, they will give you completely different stories about it, although they have experienced the same thing. I'd like to express the difference in values between men and women, as well as the kind of everyday life situations that everyone can relate to. I don't think many games have delved into this kind of thing deeply, so I think it will be an attractive new aspect of Shenmue which sets it apart from other games, as well as from the previous chapters.

Q: Are you able to give more details about the parameters for Shenhua at this point?

YS: I haven't finalised them yet, but I'm thinking of setting up around 3 parameters like level of trust, level of intimacy, friendliness toward you… something like these would be the top contenders. With a high level of friendliness, cooperation with Shenhua will go smoothly, that sort of thing. With the Character Perspective which will feature in the latter half of the game, if you choose to play as Shenhua, her true feelings will be revealed, and you may be in for a shock - "So that's what she thinks of me…!" That's something I'd like to try to do. (laughs)

 

[Niaxi]

100% agreed. From a lot of the reactions on here, I feel like 99% of people just bolted through the game at lightning speed, barely saw anything and didn't really experience the game properly. I honestly didn't expect that from Shenmue fans, I thought it'd be the complete opposite. I felt like I was going too fast, and it took me a good 35-40 hours on my first go through.

I think this is probably a fair assessment. When I got the warning in Bailu, I had already collected all the capsule toys I could and obtained a fair number of the move scrolls. I'd also trained horse stance and one-inch punch to something like level 6 and mastered most of the moves I had. At that point I knew there was still sidequests I'd probably missed, but the 18 year wait got the better of me and I wanted to find out what was going to happen in the main story. This was similar to the drive I'd felt in Shenmue 2. While I explored Chubou a bit, by the time I got the second warning, I was so caught up in the main events I couldn't wait. I think this may be what happened to a lot of people. Now that I know what happens, I can slow things right down on my second playthrough and try and find everything. However, if it's like either of it's predecessors, I probably wont. I hope to still find out something new or interesting on playthrough 3 and 4, regardless of how small.

 

[DoubleO_Ren]

Nozomi Japanese actress sounded WAY better in III. WAY closer to Nozomi.

Guixang (spelling) sounded terrible too, sounded nothing like him, and worse of all acted nothing like him, it's OK to sound different from the previous voice actor but when your personality changes too that's terrible.

In my opinion here's the returning voices that worked and the ones that didn't.

Worked
Corey Marshall as Ryo obviously
Shenhuas new actress was good.
Chai was good
Nozomi ironically actually worked for me, she sounded different but I thought her personality was still intact for the most part.
Tom was good he actually sounds like a black Jamaican now not a guy pretending to be lol
Fuku San sounds different but his personality is most definitely intact lol
Fangmei sounds OK mainly cos I can't remeber her voice right now.
Joy I swear must be just lisle Wilkerson again? Sounds like an older Joy
Ine San sounds just like her, voice and personality.
Ren sounds different but his new voice is good and personality is intact but I do miss Eric Kelso's Ren

Now for the bad
LAN DI is just terrible he sounds like a posh kid, his cold chilling voice is gone.
Guixang sounds and acts nothing like Shenmue 1 Guixang

And from a September 2015 Famitsu interview:

Q: So Bailu village will feature in the story as somewhere to enjoy the scenery, while Choubu will be where you can enjoy open-world gameplay like in the previous game?

YS: Yes, although the word "open-world" may lead to misunderstanding as there are now many great open world games around…. Choubu is a place with "Shenmue-like" gameplay - what I called FREE for the earlier Shenmue games. I consider Bailu village to be a place where you can enjoy spending time with Shenhua. And for Baisha, I'm planning to make it a place where you can play in completely different way from the earlier Shenmue games. It's the place I want to focus on most.

Q: Could you give a little more detail about Baisha?

YS: It has several enemy hideouts, and you can enjoy the situation of infiltrating one; protecting your friends from external attack as you battle with enemies to take it over. You will not simply be fighting, but will make full use of war tactics that resemble famous tactics from China's Three Kingdoms period, such as the Water Attack or the Fire Attack, as you fight. This may sound very difficult, but I plan to make it straight-forward when you try playing, so please don't worry about that.

Q: In a previous interview, you mentioned being able to change your player character during these operations, didn't you?

YS: That would be the stretch goal that was successfully reached during the Kickstarter, called the Character Perspective system. I'd like to allow you to be able to play not just as Ryo, but also as others like Shenhua and Ren, and clearly portray the characteristics of each of the characters. For example… Shenhua, a girl, wouldn't do something like suddenly hit someone else.

Q: She doesn't seem like the type to do that, does she.

YS: And so, if you have selected Shenhua, you won't have the option to hit. However, if it is Ren, he may well suddenly strike out (laughs). In this way, depending on the character the things you can do differ, and depending on your choice the outcome will change. I'd also like to portray the differences between men and women.

Q: Between men and women?

YS: In the places where Character Perspective occurs, there are events where you advance as a pair. At that time, if you are controlling Ren then he'll be like "Hey, I'm so cool" and try to put on an act, whereas if you control Shenhua she'll look at his posing and think "What an idiot…" - that kind of thing (laughs).

It's something that happens in real life too, right? It is said that if you talk to two people that have had an argument, they will give you completely different stories about it, although they have experienced the same thing. I'd like to express the difference in values between men and women, as well as the kind of everyday life situations that everyone can relate to. I don't think many games have delved into this kind of thing deeply, so I think it will be an attractive new aspect of Shenmue which sets it apart from other games, as well as from the previous chapters.

Q: Are you able to give more details about the parameters for Shenhua at this point?

YS: I haven't finalised them yet, but I'm thinking of setting up around 3 parameters like level of trust, level of intimacy, friendliness toward you… something like these would be the top contenders. With a high level of friendliness, cooperation with Shenhua will go smoothly, that sort of thing. With the Character Perspective which will feature in the latter half of the game, if you choose to play as Shenhua, her true feelings will be revealed, and you may be in for a shock - "So that's what she thinks of me…!" That's something I'd like to try to do. (laughs)

Man reading this I know if Yu had the budget and freedom he'd have made another revolutionary game, what it sounds like to me now is not so much bad writing but maybe he planned on having the shenmue 2 esque action and set pieces in baisha so he didn't want to focus on chobu too hard but then the budget and or time got in the way, chose to remove baisha and didn't have time to pad chobu with more story and set piece action so now the middle to 3rd act feels hollow. To be honest though theres still no excuse for Ryo not to find more information about his dad in bailu, that's defo bad writing

 

[Amir]

Taken from this video:


Via this post where Spaghetti helpfully collated all the Tulou/Baisha info:

https://shenmuedojo.com/forum/index.php?threads/random-shenmue-iii-thoughts.23/page-86#post-31186

I'm finding it harder and harder to not get disappointed that all of this was cut.

 

[Try Asking Sumiya San]

Taken from this video:


Via this post where Spaghetti helpfully collated all the Tulou/Baisha info:

https://shenmuedojo.com/forum/index.php?threads/random-shenmue-iii-thoughts.23/page-86#post-31186

I'm finding it harder and harder to not get disappointed that all of this was cut.

I know baisha is all you keep going on about. Just relax it’s not in the game for a reason. I imagine it will be in shenmue 4 or the whole concept just didn’t work.

 

[Amir]

If I were to guess, I would say the decision to cut Baisha was between late 2016, when we last saw footage/art of it, and August 2017, when it was absent from the 1st Teaser and Suzuki seemed to want to dodge questions about it in the Famitsu interview.

 

[Amir]

I know baisha is all you keep going on about. Just relax it’s not in the game for a reason. I imagine it will be in shenmue 4 or the whole concept just didn’t work.

I mean, it was supposed to be the main focus of part III, so I think I'm justified in being upset at its removal.

 

[Rikitatsu]

It sucks that we were misled throughout the development period, but I think we should rate the game for what it is, not what it could've been. No doubt both Shenmue 1 and 2 had a tonne of cut content as well, but we didn't know about it.

 

[Try Asking Sumiya San]

I mean, it was supposed to be the main focus of part III, so I think I'm justified in being upset at its removal.

We have known baisha wasn’t to be in the game for ages. Games change all the time during development period so why not appreciate the game for what it is. Your just creating negativity about a game with 2 perfectly good areas in it...

 

[kaliskonig91]

All of the gameplay and graphical issues I could look past. its the story and lack of character development and rushed/chopped up ending that's the major issue for me. These are the things that should have been given priority one. not side games and gambling. Bailu was ALMOST perfect. Feng should have been given more relevance and the villains should have been more interesting. Also needed a real fight with Chai before the chapter came to a close.

Niaowu needed better villain arcs all around and it shouldn't have repeated the same damn story beats ass Bailu (Ryo gets his ass kicked, trains to learn new move, rematch). shrine girl and fat guy not getting any develo[pment was a huge misstep. When they showed up for the final assault it was like "whatever" unlike when Guizhang had your back in the 70-man battle. The ending segment is the BIGGEST let down here. Nowhere near on the scale that was promised, Niao sun is under utilized and just there, lan-Di's moment is the most forgettable appearance he has ever had...we get to fight him and there is still absolutely no tension. How in the hell was a scene with him staring at us from a helicopter more intense than the actual battle with him? lol. and let me not get started on his guards again.

the actual ending scene with them on the bridge was also just lame to me. Felt slapped together.

 

[Amir]

It sucks that we were misled throughout the development period, but I think we should rate the game for what it is, not what it could've been. No doubt both Shenmue 1 and 2 had a tonne of cut content as well, but we didn't know about it.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this as well, but I feel like knowing about what was cut helps explain why some parts of the game fall flat. Like the lack of interactivity with Shenhua once you leave Bailu, we can infer from that Famitsu interview was because you were supposed to play as her in that section of game. Once that is cut, you're left with an oddly stilted relationship in a game that was supposed to be all about the rapport between characters.

We have known baisha wasn’t to be in the game for ages. Games change all the time during development period so why not appreciate the game for what it is. Your just creating negativity about a game with 2 perfectly good areas in it...

I like Bailu, but Niaowu to me was such an odd area. I didn't really understand why the characters had to go there. I understand that's where the Red Snakes hideout was, but the Red Snakes were such a non-entity that it felt pointless to me. While I liked the village feel of Bailu, Niaowu never really felt like a living city to me.

I don't want to be negative, and I'm trying to look back on the parts of the game I enjoyed, which were mostly in Bailu, but Niaowu and the ending in particular left me feeling so underwhelmed.

 

[Try Asking Sumiya San]

Yeah, I've been thinking about this as well, but I feel like knowing about what was cut helps explain why some parts of the game fall flat. Like the lack of interactivity with Shenhua once you leave Bailu, we can infer from that Famitsu interview was because you were supposed to play as her in that section of game. Once that is cut, you're left with an oddly stilted relationship in a game that was supposed to be all about the rapport between characters.



I like Bailu, but Niaowu to me was such an odd area. I didn't really understand why the characters had to go there. I understand that's where the Red Snakes hideout was, but the Red Snakes were such a non-entity that it felt pointless to me. While I liked the village feel of Bailu, Niaowu never really felt like a living city to me.

I don't want to be negative, and I'm trying to look back on the parts of the game I enjoyed, which were mostly in Bailu, but Niaowu and the ending in particular left me feeling so underwhelmed.

The treasure map leads to niaowu and yuan is there I think that’s a good enough reason to go there.... I can understand if your underwhelmed from the ending perhaps that is because it’s uncertain if there will be a shenmue 4. If there’s a shenmue 4 I think you might feel differently.

 

[kaliskonig91]

We have known baisha wasn’t to be in the game for ages. Games change all the time during development period so why not appreciate the game for what it is. Your just creating negativity about a game with 2 perfectly good areas in it...

Baisha being cut is one thing but the castle siege was crap all around. So not only do we not get that chapter fully realized, what we got was the worse thing about this game arguably. 18 years for such a weak climax is problematic.

 

[kaliskonig91]

Sure thing. So this is the line that stuck out to me like a sore thumb.

View attachment 5907

That’s the line that threw me for a loop when I first read it. That line, in regards to the temple, makes it read and sound like they found the scroll at said temple. Which we all know didn’t happen. They found the scroll at Bailu.

But the above is NOT what Ryo said in Japanese. I went back and relistened to it without reading the subs (because its hard to process both at the same time)

This is what he said in Japanese

“Maki o mi ni atta tera ga...”


Japanese is backwards so let’s break it down and in the case of grammar it sounds more like this.

Tera = Temple
mi ni atta = seen on
Maki = scroll

Put it all together and the translation should read more like this

“That’s the Temple we saw on the scroll.”

Which makes complete and utter sense given that they did see the treasure on said scroll.

Now how the fuck do they get:

”That’s where we found the scroll” from what he actually said in the dialog?

I’m an amateur at this language and even I picked it out after listening to it.

Makes me wonder how many more translations like this went through? I noticed little liberties here and there, like they took liberties with the repeated use of “Sou Ka” (I see), but this was the first big one I noticed that actually sat wrong with me.

Sorry, that annoyed me.

Yeah I always figured it was a translation error which is why I let it go. The game had quite a few of those.

 

[code l name]

I personally was relieved the character perspective system was axed. For me Shenmue games have always been about Ryo’s adventure and inhabiting and living in his shoes. Unless it’s DLC I never wanted the main game to stray from playing as Ryo.

 

[Amir]

I personally was relieved the character perspective system was axed. For me Shenmue games have always been about Ryo’s adventure and inhabiting and living in his shoes. Unless it’s DLC I never wanted the main game to stray from playing as Ryo.

I can see that perspective (hah ) but in its place, we should have spent more time with Shenhua in Niaowu. And maybe some more time with Ren, beside his side quest.

 

[Forklift No. 4]

Thoughts are all over the place now that I’ve finished the game. I was overwhelmed with the size/atmosphere of Bailu and Niaowu...but after that final area, it’s almost like the ending segment was sacrificed in order to add to the size of those two areas. This was easily feeling like my game of the year/generation, but nothing stings more than when a game doesn’t stick the landing.

You combine that with the music being an afterthought and the second arc being a damn recolor of the first arc...and now I’m not sure what to think.

This game pleasantly surprised me in ways I thought it couldn’t and severely disappointed me in ways I thought it wouldn’t. The only part I expected to suck was the combat, and it still was no good outside of a couple cool looking moves.

Worst part is this game didn’t leave me hungry for Shenmue IV, it made me eager for a remake (Persona Golden/Royal style) of Shenmue III.

 

[DoubleO_Ren]

Nozomi Japanese actress sounded WAY better in III. WAY closer to Nozomi.

Guixang (spelling) sounded terrible too, sounded nothing like him, and worse of all acted nothing like him, it's OK to sound different from the previous voice actor but when your personality changes too that's terrible.

In my opinion here's the returning voices that worked and the ones that didn't.

Worked
Corey Marshall as Ryo obviously
Shenhuas new actress was good.
Chai was good
Nozomi ironically actually worked for me, she sounded different but I thought her personality was still intact for the most part.
Tom was good he actually sounds like a black Jamaican now not a guy pretending to be lol
Fuku San sounds different but his personality is most definitely intact lol
Fangmei sounds OK mainly cos I can't remeber her voice right now.
Joy I swear must be just lisle Wilkerson again? Sounds like an older Joy
Ine San sounds just like her, voice and personality.
Ren sounds different but his new voice is good and personality is intact but I do miss Eric Kelso's Ren

Now for the bad
LAN DI is just terrible he sounds like a posh kid, his cold chilling voice is gone.
Guixang sounds and acts nothing like Shenmue 1 Guixang

And from a September 2015 Famitsu interview:

Q: So Bailu village will feature in the story as somewhere to enjoy the scenery, while Choubu will be where you can enjoy open-world gameplay like in the previous game?

YS: Yes, although the word "open-world" may lead to misunderstanding as there are now many great open world games around…. Choubu is a place with "Shenmue-like" gameplay - what I called FREE for the earlier Shenmue games. I consider Bailu village to be a place where you can enjoy spending time with Shenhua. And for Baisha, I'm planning to make it a place where you can play in completely different way from the earlier Shenmue games. It's the place I want to focus on most.

Q: Could you give a little more detail about Baisha?

YS: It has several enemy hideouts, and you can enjoy the situation of infiltrating one; protecting your friends from external attack as you battle with enemies to take it over. You will not simply be fighting, but will make full use of war tactics that resemble famous tactics from China's Three Kingdoms period, such as the Water Attack or the Fire Attack, as you fight. This may sound very difficult, but I plan to make it straight-forward when you try playing, so please don't worry about that.

Q: In a previous interview, you mentioned being able to change your player character during these operations, didn't you?

YS: That would be the stretch goal that was successfully reached during the Kickstarter, called the Character Perspective system. I'd like to allow you to be able to play not just as Ryo, but also as others like Shenhua and Ren, and clearly portray the characteristics of each of the characters. For example… Shenhua, a girl, wouldn't do something like suddenly hit someone else.

Q: She doesn't seem like the type to do that, does she.

YS: And so, if you have selected Shenhua, you won't have the option to hit. However, if it is Ren, he may well suddenly strike out (laughs). In this way, depending on the character the things you can do differ, and depending on your choice the outcome will change. I'd also like to portray the differences between men and women.

Q: Between men and women?

YS: In the places where Character Perspective occurs, there are events where you advance as a pair. At that time, if you are controlling Ren then he'll be like "Hey, I'm so cool" and try to put on an act, whereas if you control Shenhua she'll look at his posing and think "What an idiot…" - that kind of thing (laughs).

It's something that happens in real life too, right? It is said that if you talk to two people that have had an argument, they will give you completely different stories about it, although they have experienced the same thing. I'd like to express the difference in values between men and women, as well as the kind of everyday life situations that everyone can relate to. I don't think many games have delved into this kind of thing deeply, so I think it will be an attractive new aspect of Shenmue which sets it apart from other games, as well as from the previous chapters.

Q: Are you able to give more details about the parameters for Shenhua at this point?

YS: I haven't finalised them yet, but I'm thinking of setting up around 3 parameters like level of trust, level of intimacy, friendliness toward you… something like these would be the top contenders. With a high level of friendliness, cooperation with Shenhua will go smoothly, that sort of thing. With the Character Perspective which will feature in the latter half of the game, if you choose to play as Shenhua, her true feelings will be revealed, and you may be in for a shock - "So that's what she thinks of me…!" That's something I'd like to try to do. (laughs)

Man reading this I know if Yu had the budget and freedom he'd have made another revolutionary game, what it sounds like to me now is not so much bad writing but maybe he planned on having the shenmue 2 esque action and set pieces in baisha so he didn't want to focus on chobu too hard but then the budget and or time got in the way, chose to remove baisha and didn't have time to pad chobu with more story and set piece action so now the middle to 3rd act feels hollow. To be honest though theres still no excuse for Ryo not to find more information about his dad in bailu, that's defo bad writing

I can see that perspective (hah ) but in its place, we should have spent more time with Shenhua in Niaowu. And maybe some more time with Ren, beside his side quest.

There should've been a few missions with ren like taking out a few red snake hideouts even if it's just fighting sections, and a few Co op moments with Shenhua, maybe see her weird unexplained power again.

 

[I Got Sriracha In My DNA]

Game was much better than I thought. Frankly expected tragic execution despite commendable effort and instead I got something very true to the spirit of the series.

Worst thing I could say about it is the execution of the story in Niaowu was not as good as I expected but at the same time it really is no worse than Shenmue 1's either.

I'm very relieved and happy with the game

 

[Amir]

As negative as I've been about the game, there is still a part of me that wants to replay it. At least, when they finally sort out my backer reward so I can get that nifty jacket and the phone card, and with the knowledge that I completely missed out on all those Shenhua conversations in Bailu, I have greater reason to revisit the game.

I really did like how the gameplay systems were integrated and interconnected, even if I was too thick to pick up on some of them (like how the forklift job unlocked games in the arcade, I just thought, "oh neat, didn't notice that golf game before" ). But I think I'll just tune out during anything to do with the main plot.