Shenmue 3 Demo Review

Honestly even if I was someone that wasn't a Shenmue fan it's hard to fault this demo. It literally gives you a taste of almost everything.

- Nice slice of the village area with great environments and music. Just enough to explore and feel the world out.
- A chance to learn the combat with 6 total fights, training and different sparring partners across the map. Buying moves too.
- A store with buy, sell, herb selling mechanics.
- Capsule toys and collecting things.
- Costume change mechanics with a blue tshirt to buy and wear.
- A job example with wood chopping, earning money.
- Exploration in the shop with draws, item investigation, Ryo commenting on things and showing it's worth looking at stuff.
- Day / Night cycle where it shows you things change after dark, new NPC's and conversations etc.
- NPC's with personality, different conversations and lines when speaking multiple times. Shows you that you may miss stuff on your first playthrough and it's worth exploring at different times of day and conversing with others.
- Mini games / gambling, teases fishing etc.

I dunno. I honestly don't know if they could have released a better vertical slice of the game than what they have here. The location feels perfect and they've done a great job showing the game off.
 
7/10 or more if taking into account that is not finished.
I think that for the type of game Shenmue is, they had a nice scope, little bit of NPCs, fighting, minigames, a job, training.
As a fan pretty much a 9/10. I honestly didn't think it would be this polished, even the characters that I thought before were hideous they now blend a lot more.
I had a very bad first impression having to use a keyboard and no mouse support though.
 
It's almost the perfect demo from what I have seen, but there is a problem, the 1 day timer. I know why they did this, they don't want to show off the Shenhua discussion parts, but there's a much better route they could've taken.

They could've just sent Ryo to the entrance of the village the next day instantly, thus bypassing Shenhua. Outside of that, the trial is godly.


I can tell people are going to be spending more time in Bailu then they thought they were going to, there's quite a lot of content there, then one would expect from a small mountain valley village.
 
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Rating a demo is difficult.
I'd argue as a demo, it does a fair job at presenting the gameplay mechanics. Yet it doesn't go in depth. As it is, it's not an interesting nor funny demo. But then again, if it had to be, it'd mean you'd have to spoil the full game a tiny bit. Now in term of mechanics that were shown and visuals, I'd settle for a solid 7 or 8.
 
Putting a number on it is difficult, but it's actually a pretty well bottled example of a day in Shenmue, and sort of... perfect for this type of game. Y'know?

I think it does the job of letting the player discover what the game is about far better than 'What's Shenmue?' ever did, or arguably the opening hours of the first game.
 
Putting a number on it is difficult, but it's actually a pretty well bottled example of a day in Shenmue, and sort of... perfect for this type of game. Y'know?

I think it does the job of letting the player discover what the game is about far better than 'What's Shenmue?' ever did, or arguably the opening hours of the first game.

Great comparison against "What's Shenmue."
 
Unbiased? That’s a hard question. How would I feel about this if I had never played a Shenmue game and was just coming into this as a fan of fighting games or open world action games or (for hypothetical purposes) I was a Yakuza fan who heard all about this mythical Shenmue game and decided to try it out :D

Actually that’s interesting. I’m going to treat this question as if I were a Yakuza Fan coming into Shenmue completely blind and fresh.
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Playing the role of Yakuza fan who has no past experience with Shenmue?

I think I’d be interested.

I think the few similarities they do share would interest me.

Having played a ton of Yakuza titles that are all a bit mindless in the combat area (as much as I love Yakuza, the combat is a little too easy in those games), I still think I’d see an appeal in this in the sense that it slows combat down and asks you to work out the best moves to use against your opponent. That was very appealing to me, and I think if I had no experience with Shenmue, I’d still find that very appealing.

Speaking from the hypothetical perspective of someone who had only ever played Yakuza and is getting his first taste of Shenmue? I’d probably see it as something that would interest me and compel me enough to try it based on the potential of the fighting alone. Everything else I may be a bit lost by, but Lucky Hit would remind of Pachinko and Turtle Racing would be a “okay, that’s Japanese crazy right there! Maybe this game is worth a look!”

Yeah, I think that alternate world version of me who grew up with Yakuza and no Shenmue would still be interested.

It would remind me of the first Yakuza for PS2; janky, clunky but shows real potential to be something fascinating down the line and interesting enough for me to look into.

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Now, playing the role of completely unbiased mainstream normie?

6.5 or 7 out of 10

I can’t say I care about graphics. I’m the type of dude that will play shitty looking games so long as they have something of interest going for them, so the graphics factor wouldn’t be a big deal for me personally on any game. But for other normie friends I have, I know graphics are a big deal for them. As good as this games environments look, it’s still let down by its NPCs at times.

To quote Easy Allies, it feels like it swimming in 7’s.

In comparison to other AAA games, some of its age does show. Animations are lacking. Environments are stunning but character models do look a little stiff (Ryo does sometimes look like a plank of board with arms attached from the back). The presentation does feel a bit amateurish at times (the UI is serviceable but also kind of generic in design)...if I had no interest in fighting games, I would probably find the fighting clunky, janky and ”weird” if I was just trying to mindlessly mash away at it and not truly figure out how it works. But there’d be some touches here and there that would still be interesting enough to see it not as a total write off.

So yeah, from an unbiased “had no prior experience with Shenmue” perspective...It would probably a 6.5 or 7 out of 10

But again, that’s highly dependent on the person. Maybe someone who likes relaxing games may walk into this demo and see something in it that appeals to them. Or maybe someone who likes janky games might see something that appeals to them. Or the Weebs with a fascination for everything Asian may see something in it. All dependant on the person.

But I think your average mainstream normie who likes their action quick and nonstop wouldn’t get it and wouldn’t give it the time of day.

All dependant on the person in question.

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From my OWN perspective?

So far, based on this demo? It might just well be my GOTY or even Game of the Generation and a strong 9 out of 10!

Words can’t stress how much I loved this demo as a fan. The full game might well be my GOTY. Although, Resident Evil 2 Remake also came out this year and that is a REAL strong contender for my personal GOTY.
 
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Finished it 9 or 10 times now.
Everytime something different to do and focus on.
Love the new combat (unpopular opinion);
Love the way flowers weeds and bushes recat when Ryo walks by;
Love the new eating/stamina mechanic;
Like the new herbs collecting and selling;
Like the spar and the qte's;
Like the training a lot; (can't wait to spend days maxing that shit out haha ;

I would give the demo a 9 out of 10.

What will separate this game from being great to a masterpiece is the lack of some details like animations. Eating animation and stuff.
But even that is very forgivable cause we know the context and the budgetary restrictions.

So, when the game comes out, and knowing that the map is going to be bananas big;
Knowing that there are forklifts and maybe other part time jobs;
Knowing there will be and incredible quantity of mini games, like mini-golf, wack-a-mole, astro city, and many many others.
Knowing there is a beautifull story for us to keep uncovering.
Knowing you'll beat Lan Di to his knees
Knowing the tons and tons of amazing and humurous dialogue you can hear,
And knowing the you will be able to fish and enter fishing tornaments.

this can can be a REAL 9 out of 10! Solid as a rock.

This is my unbiased opinion hahaha
 
How would you rate the demo? Try to be as unbiased as possible 1-10 scale.
Unbiased, from second 1 I saw a nice outdoors area. Grass moving, butterflies flying. Realistic looking trees. I'm no tech geek, but the locales are 10/10 for me. The NPCs, so many in the demo, not the final I hope are still with facial animation taken out. I found one with it in, then another. I found a few animations from Ryo. It was criminal to not have 100% in the demo 5 or so months from release at E3, or worse now this close to the release. So NPCs overall 6/10. With full understanding they aren't like that in the final version. The fighting, 10/10. I don't care what anyone says. If you spar, if you learn the moves, if you approach it as a new game. I can't see why you'd not like it. The mini games, 10/10 with just adding that the one inch punch is perfect, and the horse stance should have had blocks and punches added. It's boring. He freaking stands near the dummy. Horse stance 5/10. This is how we did the blocking drills, and punching drills. You never just stand there. At least in Shorin Ryu you don't. I doubt the Chinese arts are THAT different. So overall, because of the rush to release, and the horse stance, 8/10. I think in the final version it all might be fixed, minus the dumb boring stance with nothing added, I saw it at E3, I thought then, is he not pressing the buttons to do some moves? Then I get to do it. This BTW is why I didn't beat Gold Tiger till last night. Now I know. I put up with standing there till lvl 7, and the Gold Tiger went down.
 
Cant play it... But from what I saw? Unbiased its probably a 6-7.5. My hype is 11 though.
 
Cant play it... But from what I saw? Unbiased its probably a 6-7.5. My hype is 11 though.
5 being the fighting? There's no substitute to do sparring yourself, you wait. I was sad in a way beating Gold Tiger. Maxed out all arts, and stats. It was still hard. In Shenmue 1&2 it'd be easy minus the cheapo QTE at the end forcing you to redo the same 5 minute fight. Everyone is stuck on 1&2, if there isn't EXACTLY what there was, how it was. It's improved, it's very strategic. Just try the typical 1&2 stuff I used to do. They just block it. The opponents seem smarter, more realistic. You can do every move manually. You need to learn to do it. It's a shame you can't be doing it now.
 
Finished it 9 or 10 times now.
Everytime something different to do and focus on.
Love the new combat (unpopular opinion);
Love the way flowers weeds and bushes recat when Ryo walks by;
Love the new eating/stamina mechanic;
Like the new herbs collecting and selling;
Like the spar and the qte's;
Like the training a lot; (can't wait to spend days maxing that shit out haha ;

I would give the demo a 9 out of 10.

What will separate this game from being great to a masterpiece is the lack of some details like animations. Eating animation and stuff.
But even that is very forgivable cause we know the context and the budgetary restrictions.

So, when the game comes out, and knowing that the map is going to be bananas big;
Knowing that there are forklifts and maybe other part time jobs;
Knowing there will be and incredible quantity of mini games, like mini-golf, wack-a-mole, astro city, and many many others.
Knowing there is a beautifull story for us to keep uncovering.
Knowing you'll beat Lan Di to his knees
Knowing the tons and tons of amazing and humurous dialogue you can hear,
And knowing the you will be able to fish and enter fishing tornaments.

this can can be a REAL 9 out of 10! Solid as a rock.

This is my unbiased opinion hahaha
Herbs are not just for selling man, look in exchange. Too bad there aren't pawn shops in the demo... There are 3 moves to get via the herbs. New fighting will grow on them once they play some and Gold Tiger makes them seem like they know nothing. Then they'll spar, start doing the moves. Discover there's a method to the madness. I still say I haven't played something this fun that was new in years. Now if Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 could be revived and redone with today's graphics....The difference there is, they themselves have no interest. Fans have insane interest, they have zero. If you guys only knew what VPW2 was... You could play as wrestling, you could play as martial arts as in kick boxing. You could play as MMA. There were moves from every legend over many decades. Even as it exists from 2000 or whenever it came out, it's better than anything else made before or ever since for that genre. Why don't they offer them to kick start that one. It'd rock.
 
It's difficult to give a completely unbiased review, but if I imagine this isn't a Shenmue title I'd probably only give it a 5/10 (in its current state).
 
It's impossible to review something that's inherently unfinished. To any complaints about the amount of content I'd say this: we've got less than 2 months to wait. Just be patient.

One thing's for sure, if you played the demo and didn't enjoy it, you're probably not going to enjoy the final game, so be prepared :coffee:

With that said, I think the general positivity surrounding the demo speaks for itself, and it has extended beyond the most hardcore fan communities as well, which is nice to see. The demo was mentioned on The Retro Hour podcast this week, and all the articles I've read have been positive. I've struggled to find any overly-negative impressions which is kind of kind of insane given the relatively high number of $100+ backers (yes, they're mostly fans, but you'd expect some level of expectation and scrutiny).
 
rating a demo is odd, I guess a solid 6, it cleared up my concerns for the game's combat but its not like the demo is anything particularly memorable or wow worthy.
 
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