Shenmue 3 Improvements/Keeps For Shenmue 4

ShenSun

Site Staff
Joined
Jul 24, 2018
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Greetings Dojo,

I thought i'd make this thread to collect some data on Shenmue 3. I wanted to get your opinion on the good and bad elements of Shenmue 3 and what you'd improve and how. This isn't a thread for debating as we have plenty of threads for that already.

If we get enough responses, I'll tally them up and put them in the opening post. It would make a fascinating resource down the road, and give us a general picture of potential work that needs to be done and what should stay as it is.

Please follow this format in the responses

The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
(Response)

The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
(Response)

Improvements You'd Make
(Response)

Answer all of them if possible, and again, no arguing in the replies. Keep it classy.

Thanks
 
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The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
- Brilliantly detailed environments
- Fantastic diversity of Mini-games (Not being dependant on SEGA's backlog - Love that Wacka' Mole!)
- Stat upgrades by training & Sparring progression mechanics
- Having Shenhua around to follow you on certain story points was fun + interaction with her was engaging.
- The encounter with Lan Di was PERFECT! Everything I hoped for.

The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
- Story... There just needs to be a bigger focus on overarching plot - Niaowu has nothing to offer & We learnt barely anything after rescuing Shenhua's guardian (That whole subplot of rescuing him should have been finished in Baliu and he should have revealed info to bring motive to go to Niaowu).
- Ryo's Family History...Even Baliu Village should have had more detail about Iwao's time there, Like meeting Grandmaster Feng!
- Poor Development with important main NPC's.
- Poor Conflict with Antagonist (Niao Sun) - She should have been involved rather than hiding behind the scenes (easy fix, replace her with Mr. Muscles)
- Combat wasn't bad but needs a bit of work...
- Food replenishment for Staminia

Improvements You'd Make
- Don't make multiple locations, but put all the budget and effort into making Baisha memorable.
- Integrate Important NPC's into the scenario writing - Like Joy & Wong from Shenmue 2, have them re-occur and get involved. Same goes for the antagonists.
- Side quests can't be timed without any indication.
- Food replenishment for Staminia, just get rid of it, there was times I trekked far and then had minimal health to take on an encounter.
 
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The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
Environments were stunning
Most of the jobs/mini-games were fun
Being able to choose to train and fight as and when
Conversations in Bailu with Shenhua
The lore we got was awesome, meeting the Grandmaster who trained Iwao
The leaving Bailu scenes were amazing. More of those!

The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
Lack of character development
Not enough on the History of the Mirrors/Iwao etc. Maybe that will come
Not enough diversity in how the story was delivered. Needed more tasks within the main premise of the game

Improvements You'd Make
Hit detection and throws into the fighting system. I enjoyed it but there's more to come
Add in a modern gamer mode with bloody waypoints etc. Have that and a classic Shenmue mode with little/no guides.
Spend more time getting to know other characters in the game
Better variation in side quests
Not an improvement persae but a comment. Keep development under-warps, go into bunker mode and make the game and then wow us with a trailer 3-6 months from release!
 
The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
The feeling of waking up in an unknow big city that you can explore. Travel feeling.
Conversations with Shenhua.
Beautiful environments.
Training mechanics.

The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
Lack of events alternating during the main quest, like qte, chasing scenes, fightings, or just talking, or interacting with an NPC, or a scene like the bench with Nozomi.

Improvements You'd Make
I would like Shenhua to involve more on the quests, to be able to interact more with her. Not that it was bad, it was amazing, I just would like more of that.
More small scenes with unknown people, with qte or microsidequests, like stopping the soccer ball from the kids in Shenmue I.
More encounters (figths, qte or just talking) alternated during the main quest.
One big meaningful sidequest you can keep doing along the main quest, like Fangmei's Birthday.
 
The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
-Environments
-Trainings
-Minigames

The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3

-Writing:

1) Repetitive story scenario: get beaten 2 times by the same boss, earn money to learn a new move

2) Underdeveloped characters in story:

-i.e.Ren would definitely be suspicious of Niao Sun sitting on RedSnakes hideout, but simply walks away without questions.

3) Overuse of gags, i.e.
- in fortified castle enemies being struck in the head by broom girl then tossed into the river by fat guy, it happens 3 times in the same cutscene. Also no tension buildup since Lan Di bodyguards being buffons / 1 qte sequence fight.

4) Music don't loop

5) Faster fighting system and multi enemy combat, turn freely and move backwards

6) Walk away to interrupt a conversation

7) Chips -> Pawnshop -> Money

8) Stamina system

9) Afternoon transition

Improvements You'd Make

-Hire a good writer. If a good story is told bad, that makes it a bad story.

-Refine fighting mechanic to be faster, more polished especially for multi man battles.

-During raining weather, NPCs should haven an umbrella. it is very immersion-breaking to see people acting normally instead of opening an umbrella

-Customize mini map and place custom markers

-Music with seamless loops
 
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Sustainments:
Detailed, colorful environments
Varied methods of training
More combat opportunities


Improvements:
Combat has a solid foundation but can be better with some tweaking and throws

Story/character development

Consistent character design. The half normal and half caricature design needs to go. Stick with the less wacky designs

Writing/ intentionally bad voice acting. Ryo has gone from socially awkward to borderline retarded and many interactions simply dont make sense. In 2020, it detracts from the game

Less humor. The goofy and poorly implemented humor combined with cartoonish character designs, again, detract from the game. Needs to be toned down

Less mini games and activities. After such a long wait and how little the 3rd brought in terms of story, I dont care to have 3 arcades, a bunch of ball machines, fishing, etc

Tone down fan service

Better use of music and transitioning to another track

QTE improvements from reaction time to bringing back multiple outcomes

Probably have some more but off the top of the head is what is posted
 
The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
The gameplay was great.
The environments were beautiful.


The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
Story
Stamina
Food /empty restaurants with food on the table
Character Development
Dialogue
VO delivery
Localization
Desolate environments
Conflicting art styles
Lip-syncing
Pacing
Music looping and area transition

Improvements You'd Make
Include more of the story. Up the stakes.
Split the stamina system into hunger/stamina/health or remove it.
Have Ryo sit down to eat at restaurants.
Hire a better writer.
Hire a better writer.
Have somebody in the studio who can coach the actors and don’t record everything in one take.
Hire a localization team that understand the series.
Make the environments smaller or populate them better.
Aim for more consistency between outsourced character models and those developed in house.
Improve lip-syncing for cut-scenes.
Remove artificial barriers that prevent the story from progressing or find a better (more natural) way of implementing them.
Make the music loop properly and use cross fades for area transitions rather than cutting to silence.
 
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The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
- The new training systems.
- The general gameplay loop of training/combat/gambling.
- Music/ audio (personal opinion, never saw the big problem with this aspect).
- The new movement systems (Dual analog camera, removal of tank controls).
- Herbs they feel quite immersive and allow you to explore the environments.
- Fishing relaxing and immersive minigame, this should have been in 1 and 2.
- Bailu Chan and Chobu Chan.

The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
Combat - (Reduce input lag, improve animations, improve hit detection)
Trophies/Achievements - Less grindy, more unique/interesting.
Sidequests - Less fetch quests, more unique quests and events like fishing tourneys and such.
Story - Overall needs works, more writers and more voice acting.
In game animations - (Walking and facial animations especially)
 
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Good things

Music

Environments

Atmosphere

Training system

Minigames

Bad things

No story progression (almost)

Bad character development

Translation errors

Bad storytelling

Plot holes

The game clearly focuses on "outward development" in spite of Yu promising the exact opposite.


Things I would improve

Hire someone who can actually write a story and develop characters. It doesn't take a second Goethe, just someone with basic storytelling skills would be a huge step up.


Don't use old music tracks in totally odd places and tone down the recycling of previously used tracks in general. If there really are hundreds of unused Shenmue tracks in Sega's archives, fucking use em for crying out loud. Yuan chainsaw music in the Niaowu Castle? Are you kidding?

Get a "lore expert", some Shenmue fan who makes sure the lore stays intact and plot holes like Ryo being surprised about Lan Di's real identity don't happen anymore.

Don't make the world too big again. If a location is not relevant to the story, don't bother to make it. Yes, I'm looking at Niaowu.

And most importantly, progress! the! fucking! plot!

If we get throws and counters, it could be a masterpiece like S2, but I'd even take the combat system as is. It's not really good or anything but somehow I have an odd fascination with S3's free battle system, somehow I had a lot of fun with it.
 
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The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
  1. The detailed world - This game’s world features the exact level of detail from Shenmue Chapter One: Yokosuka which gives the world its life.
  2. Environments - The environments (especially Bailu Village) were colorful, vibrant, and full of life.
  3. Conversations with Shenhua - I thoroughly enjoyed my time talking with Shenhua and getting to know her better. She has become a much more fully fleshed-out character since the first game. Every time I come back home I feel as though Ryo is coming home to his loving wife.
  4. Fan Service - While I feel some of the fan-service was excessive, I enjoyed all the loving throwbacks to not just the original games, but to Virtua Fighter as well. I found it extremely heartwarming to catch up with the original characters all over again and learn what has transpired since Ryo left Yokosuka. For anyone who says Yu Suzuki does not care about the fans needs to simply take a look at the Save Shenmue building in Niaowu to show that is not true.
  5. Ambiance/Spirituality - The emphasis on this aspect is still strong in Shenmue III. I remember during my entire time in Bailu Village turning off the music while training so I could simply hear the sounds of nature. I also enjoyed walking down into the village from Shenhua’s house every morning. Also, the emphasis on martial arts training is still retained at the forefront which I enjoy.
  6. Mini-Games - Though I did not enjoy all the mini-games introduced, I have to admit the sheer variety was nice. Also, the switch to electromechanical is a great way to distinguish itself from the Ryu Ga Gotoku series.
  7. The Market Economy - I like the idea of everything in the game feeling interconnected and how you approach this system is fun and interesting.
The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
  1. Technical Issues - I do not know if this was due to budget but the strict timing of Quick Time Events, the transitioning to black during certain cutscenes, the lousy implementation for item organization, along with an uncapped frame rate broke my immersion.
  2. Weird Implementation Of Background Music - With the entire library of music at his disposal, it's odd where some of the music was used. Such as using Fangmei’s theme in a shoe store. The reason this is an issue for me is that in the first two games the music fit the tone and mood of the game at the time. Here it just seems lazily done.
  3. Story - This point has been done to death, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is true. I do not believe that Yu Suzuki is a bad storyteller since the story has been fleshed out and from what we have seen from the first two games, there’s no doubt that it's a masterful story. However, the story in Shenmue III feels rushed and empty. In Bailu for example, I wanted to learn more about the mirrors, the prophecy, and Iwao’s history with Master Feng and Zhao Sunming. Sadly we didn’t get any of that and the characters didn’t grow in any meaningful way.
  4. Missing Content - I miss the promised Siege mini-game and affinity system.
  5. Fan Service/Side Quests - While I originally put this down as a positive, I thought the fan service/side quests got to the point of being excessive when time could be better spent on character development. Or fleshing out the lore within the Shenmue verse.
  6. Combat - While I understand Y’s Net was on a budget, I did not enjoy the combat as much as I hoped I would in comparison to the first two games. In part, it was held back by the animations and lack of depth. I think the new system has potential, it just needs to be fleshed out more with things like parries, throws, and more fluid animations.
  7. Unfulfilled Potential - I think Shenmue III has a lot of great ideas, but sadly due to budget constraints, I don’t think they were able to be fully realized. Take fishing, for example, I like the idea because it seems in the spirit of Shenmue. I like the idea of fishing contests and prizes, however, in comparison to the system implemented in Final Fantasy XV, it seems very bare bones.
Improvements You'd Make:
  1. Improve the Combat System - The combat in Shenmue is one of its core components and needs to be fleshed out more. If they are not going back to the Virtua Fighter system, then I hope they would flesh out the combat system they have. First, I would add in throws, parries, counters, move properties, and improved animations. Second, I would organize the system similar to Shenmue II so you could choose which attack comes out if the moves have the same inputs. Also, the ability to do combos is crucial since it's always been apart of the series.
  2. Tone Down The Side Quests - While I think side quests are an important part of Shenmue, I think they played too important of a role in Shenmue III. So much so those other aspects of the game (like the main story) were compromised. There needs to be a balance between the two or to have the side quests dovetail more neatly with the main story (Fangmei’s side quest for example).
  3. Fix any Technical Issues - I do not know if it was due to budget constraints or management issues, but the Quick Time Events should have more lenient timing. The frame rate should have been capped at thirty solid on PlayStation 4 and sixty on PC. At an item shop, I would make it known whether or not you purchased a previous item. In the item menu, I would provide a way for users to organize their collectibles.
  4. Implement the Background Music- I would make sure to use the entirety of the Shenmue musical library to fit the mood of the scene. Something I felt was not done well in Shenmue III.
  5. Story - Finally I would expand on the lore, add character development, and try to create more memorable characters outside of the core cast.
 
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What a great thread! Feel like it would take a while for me to come up with my general ideas on improvements. I'll have a think and post back :D
The frame rate should have been capped at thirty solid on PlayStation 4 and sixty on PC.
Bit of a side note but PC users do not want the game (or any game for that matter lol) capped at 60, seeing as a lot of players will have monitors >60hz. It doesn't need a hard lock on PC, as we can 1- Cap it with V-Sync, 2- Use other software to cap it, and 3 - Might not really want it capped anyway. The PC version of Shenmue III is (despite the lack of an advanced graphics GUI) actually very well optimised with great frame pacing, which combined with V-Sync is fine.

I do however agree with the frame cap on PS4. Having a locked 30 would make a great difference.
 
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The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
- I`m happy with all less the points of below.

The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
- It could have more story.
- Mix of serious moments and comical moments. I think there are moments for comical and moments for seriousness but i don't like it have them mixed.
- Lack of supernatural elements. I want the story as planned in the beginning.

Improvements You'd Make
- Camera in fights like in Shenmue I and II or at least an option.
- Normal camera like in Shenmue I and II or at least an option.
 
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Good things

Music

Environments

Atmosphere

Training system

Minigames

Bad things

No story progression (almost)

Bad character development

Translation errors

Bad storytelling

Plot holes

The game clearly focuses on "outward development" in spite of Yu promising the exact opposite.


Things I would improve

Hire someone who can actually write a story and develop characters. It doesn't take a second Goethe, just someone with basic storytelling skills would be a huge step up.


Don't use old music tracks in totally odd places and tone down the recycling of previously used tracks in general. If there really are hundreds of unused Shenmue tracks in Sega's archives, fucking use em for crying out loud. Yuan chainsaw music in the Niaowu Castle? Are you kidding?

Get a "lore expert", some Shenmue fan who makes sure the lore stays intact and plot holes like Ryo being surprised about Lan Di's real identity don't happen anymore.

Don't make the world too big again. If a location is not relevant to the story, don't bother to make it. Yes, I'm looking at Niaowu.

And most importantly, progress! the! fucking! plot!

If we get throws and counters, it could be a masterpiece like S2, but I'd even take the combat system as is. It's not really good or anything but somehow I have an odd fascination with S3's free battle system, somehow I had a lot of fun with it.
I actually liked the use of the Yuan chainsaw music for the castle storm, as one of my few exceptions. Had they completely cut the humor and goofy character models, the tension of the situation could've rivaled that harbor battle and yellow head rescue imo. Given all the recycled tracks though, earth and sea could've easily been thrown in there.
 
The Good Elements of Shenmue.

The Graphics. Vast improvement over the original two.

The Ai. It is still intereseting to to the characters carry out their daily routines. If you return to Shenhua's hous around 6pm, you will find her milking the goats.

If you walk by Shenhua or Ren in Niaowu, they will wavevat you.

The voice acting. Shenmue is a playable Anime, and the voice actors in Shenmue III clearly have anime roots. If you are a complete weabo and dont like American voice acting, play it in Japanese with subtitles.

The culture and people in this game are Asian , and all of the dialog reflects Asian culture. Some peole want the voice acting to be more Americanized, but the setting is not America. It wouldnt fit.

The stamina system. It is better to have the stamina system , it forces you to engage in the system and get a job to earn cash to replenish your stamina. It stimulates the economy. All second life games, Destiny, Monster Hunter, Everquest , Final Fantasy 14, have economies that encourage you to engage in the different gameplay systems and modes. Its called great game design. People bemoaning the token system are just frustrated that they can game the system and exploit it further. I feel people are looking at exploiting the currency system in the interest of speed-running the game and dont appreciate the splendor of the game or its activities. It also blocks people from stamming the combat challenges indefinitely, and ignoring the rest of the minigames altogther. It is better than the cheesy regenerative health of Shenmue 1 and 2. The stamina system also encourages players to train and raise their stamina. Once you are level 8 or higher in endurance, you stamina dropping is no longer a significant issue.

The greatest part of Shenmue 3 is the dialog system and the relationship between Ryo and Shenhua. People have been knocking and bashing Shenmue 3 for not progressing the story. False. The story and the plot progresses in depth. The depth is the connection between Shenhua and Ryo. If you go home before or at 9pm. There are several opportunities to talk to Shenhua and learn more about her. In return she asks you several personal questions about yourself. You have three choices, and you can only answer one of them in each conversation . Her reactions and interesting. You will have to play through the game again to answer her questions differently. She only asks one ser of questions per day, and doesnt repeat them in a single playthrough. THAT is the real story of Shenmue3, and that is what the Shenmue series is all about: people and their relationships and connections. Ryo fighting Lan Di is the ultimate goal, but this game and all its previous entries have always been a human interest story. Just because the plot didn't progress in a direction YOU wanted it to doesnt mean there was no plot progression. Just because the story doesnt answer questions you contrived in your head over the years doesnt mean there is no story. In Shenmue 2 , Ryo arrived in Hong Kong to speak to Zhu Yunda. It took three discs worth of gameplay to actually find and talk to Zhu Yunda, and his answers were brief, somewhat vague. You never confront Lan Di in Shenmue 2, you just have a staredown on a roof before he flies away on a helicopter. Are you going to say Shenmue2 had no story? Of course not because you would get facepalmed.

These millenials who have taken up Shenmue by pirating the game on emulators don't get the true spirit of Shenmue. If you just want to speedrun through a game and bash enemies and fight a boss, you should be playing sonething else, not Shenmue.

A lot of people here completely missed the point. I can't believe Yu Suzuki conceded to the ingrate complainers who whined about not beibg able to skip dialog the first tine its being spoken. Look, the game is about Asian culture. Even if an NPC is not talking about something that directly advances the plot, they are often giving you insight on Asian culture and their day to day experience in there environments.

Its sone entitled dude-bro mentality that makes people want to just speedrun to the end of the game.

Things that were bad about Shenmue 3:

1)The omission of throws. This hurt the game drastically. The tragedy is it was done to simplify the combat for unskilled casual scrubs. The gesture went completely unappreciated and the casual scrubs whined about bad dialog and Shenmue 3 not being reworked into an Assasins Creed or Yakuza clone with the Shenmue brand pasted on it.

I missed alot of the old throws in tge game and if they were present it would have added extra dimension to the combat.
2) The lock-on system in combat. This was somewhat broken and adversely affected the outcome of some fights. There were times when fighting multiple opponents tgat I would wall-splat a guy and not being able to add bone crushing follow up damage because the lock-on system locked me on to a new opponent. Either give the player FULL control of the lock on system, make it only lock on to the closest opponent, or turn it off all together. It makes no sense to give the player the ability to focus on one opponent if the cpu is going to shift that focus to another opponent arbitrarily.

Things I'd want for Shenmue 4:

A bigger budget.

I'd want Yu Suzuki to do as great a job with Shenmue 4 as he did with Shenmue 3 . I want Yu Suzuki to completely stick to his original vision for Shenmue 4, and not kowtow to the whims and whines of ingrateful ingenious "fans" who didn't contribute to the Kickstarter, borrowed an Epic Game store log in from a friend and leveled complaints based on comparisions of Shenmue to Grand Theft Auto 5.
 
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The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
- Better controls
- Good looking environnement

The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
- The character developpement (or the lack off)
- The cutscene direction (or the lack off)
- The combat system (even if you don't factor the lack of throws... the hit detection, the physic and more importantly the input system is bad. Like... it's a bad design. It's shocking coming from Yu Suzuki. Like, it's an amateurish design)
- The soundtrack usage (it's a good soundtrack, you just hear some tracks where you shouldn't hear them)
- The lack of big set pieces
- The map design (Bailu being influenced by the will to include a gameplay loop and mini games)

Improvements You'd Make
- Focus on one environnement to make a more self contained game
- Focus on the core character cast if you cant make new characters, but make it worthwile and deep
- Change the way special techniques are done. It shouldn't be a string of buttons, which introduce an input lag, but a combination of buttons (like some special techniques in the game works, like you hold LT + Input a string of buttons)
- Design your map not for the gameplay but for the universe cohesion.
 
I want them to keep the stamina system (controversial, I know), but tone it down massively. I would have it as a seperate globe system that goes around the health bar and I'd like to see the system improved.

I'd like to add restaurants too, which would not only completely restore stamina and health, but would also develop character interactions, by adding optional characters Ryo can discover and develop friendships with. These would then unlock side activities, stories and quests with both optional, new characters as well as existing characters. I'd also like it if having meals with characters or meeting people in restaurants enrichens the experience by offering dialogue trees like Shenmue 3 has with Shenhua.
 
I want them to keep the stamina system (controversial, I know), but tone it down massively. I would have it as a seperate globe system that goes around the health bar and I'd like to see the system improved.

I'd like to add restaurants too, which would not only completely restore stamina and health, but would also develop character interactions, by adding optional characters Ryo can discover and develop friendships with. These would then unlock side activities, stories and quests with both optional, new characters as well as existing characters. I'd also like it if having meals with characters or meeting people in restaurants enrichens the experience by offering dialogue trees like Shenmue 3 has with Shenhua.
I'm with you, I feel the stamina system actually DOES get toned down over the course of the game. The higher you build your endurance, the less you have to worry about your stamina running down if you run across town. It reduces drastically when you reach the mid to high levels of endurance. Again, Shenmue is a hybrid rpg. It is suppised to have stats that you have to maintain. People need to get on board with that, or there is always Pokemon.
 
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I'm with you, I feel the stamina system actually DOES get toned down over the course of the game. The higher you build your endurance, the less you have to worry about your stamina running down if you run across town. It reduces drastically when you reach the mid to high levels of endurance. Again, Shenmue is a hybrid rpg. It is suppised to have dtats that you have to maintain. People need to get on board with that, or there is always Pokemon.

Oh yeah, definitely. I actually enjoyed building training into my daily routine and improving Ryo's stats. I would like to see the system improved though. Perhaps with a separate bar that only starts to depreciate health once the stamina is depleted. I'd also like for the stamina/health not to deplete whilst Ryo is stood still.
 
Oh yeah, definitely. I actually enjoyed building training into my daily routine and improving Ryo's stats. I would like to see the system improved though. Perhaps with a separate bar that only starts to depreciate health once the stamina is depleted. I'd also like for the stamina/health not to deplete whilst Ryo is stood still.
Sure, but just like the game employs the system of time, Suzuki wanted to work in the hunger factor. If you stood still for too long, your controller would turn it off anyway, so why do it? Shenhua's house, and Nioawu hotel give you free pieces of food every day. You can min-max , and buy black garlic that gives you great health replenishment, and find a vendor that sells it for the cheapest price. It was hardly an issue for me at all. Unless you really hate fishing , wood chopping or anything that earns you cash. I on the otherhand enjoyed those activities.
 
I will try to put them in order of importance:

The Good Elements Of Shenmue 3
- Existing (getting out of that damn cave :D )
- Gorgeous environments
- Great amounts of wonderful music
- Sense of "presence" and travelling through some "alive" places
- Great character models (for main characters)
- Being based in China (super interesting setting not explored in many games/media)
- The night conversations with Shenhua
- The phone calls to previous characters
- Pretty good controls
- The herb collecting system
- Chobu-chan (and Bailu-chan DLC)
- The training minigames and sparring
- Street tournaments
- Whack-a-mole and Smart Ball
- The integration of Kickstarter references (with some exceptions)

The Bad Elements Of Shenmue 3
- Bad writing (the ideas are good but their execution is lacking)
- Scarce dialogue in the key events (Ren encounter, Ren and Shenhua meeting, Yuan conversation, etc.)
- Heavy underdevelopment of secondary characters
- Repetition of the same exact story pattern in both locations
- Out of tone elements and events in the ending scenario (pawnshop sidequest, comedic scenes, Kickstarter content)
- Out of place elements in Bailu (arcade, pawnshop, gambling, Lucky Hit)
- The stamina system goes against exploring
- QTE time windows are nearly impossible
- The first person focus and interacting controls (drawers and such) being too slow and requiring too many button presses.
- The UI for shopping/selling and inventory management is impractical.
- Scarcity of people in Niaowu streets.
- Weird fades to black
- Lack of tutorial for combat
- Ugly UI and main menu
- Reuse of some music tracks that were too attached to previous games key moments (Shenmue II intro, Fangmei theme).
- Inconsistency because of not reusing some other obvious music tracks (Chawan sign, Lucky hit, main menu)
- Bad implementation of music (no looping, random silent moments, some places having night variations while others don't).

Improvements You'd Make
- Correct most of the bad things I mentioned in the above section
- Drop the English language track, or even drop the full voicing of the game if that means getting a richer and denser script.
- HDR support to make those gorgeous scenarios even more pretty.
 
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