It's all part of one story. I don't think any one Shenmue game has a better story than another, since it's all the same narrative. When I say Shenmue 3 is better narratively, I'm referring to its forward momentum and its focus on Ryo's growth as a fighter.
I like Shenmue 3 too, I don't love it like I did 1 and 2, but I certainly see it's good qualities. I especially loved fishing and the new training system, Shenmue 3 could have done with more variety, but overall as a fan I am happy.
I'm not playing the game so much for the story the way I did for Shenmue II which is certainly a flaw, but for me, Shenmue III without a doubt has the best gameplay in the series and I can say that confidently now because 3 months in and its the only Shenmue game where I'm moseying around doing non-story related things. What helps is that a lot of the side activities are interconnected well and I have fun with the little superficial things like changing Ryo's clothes. In addition they patched up some huge things like dialogue skip so its become a remarkably more pleasant gameplay experience that's keeping me coming back for more.
Shenmue 1 wasn't a masterpiece in the storytelling department like its sequel was, but whatever the "3's story is better than the first's" crowd is smoking, I want some of it.
Thinking more on it I don't know that the story in 3 is "better" than 1 since it just mostly repeats the Bailu plot progression in Niaowu. However I do find what happens in 3 more interesting than 1 despite a lot of questions still being unanswered.
My views on the game changed while I played it. I didn't like the new combat system and leveling up through training at first but ended up liking it pretty much. It was apparent that the time I put into (pretty boring) training had a result in my combat. I became stronger and faster and could beat people that I couldn't before.
I liked Niaowu better than Bailu at first but once I realized how limited the area was and that it didn't really contain anything exciting or any exciting characters, I have to say Bailu is the better area, at least it has that coziness to it.
I hated the money grinding. I had not read a lot about the game before playing it so Rose Garden was something I stumbled upon almost. That place helped me to earn some cash, and pretty late I realized I could sell the herbs for more than I had realized. So that's on me. But the grinding was still tedious and any other game I would likely have given up on because of it.
And then there's the story that was just... bad. Badly written, far too little and with an ending that made no sense. I could have forgiven any problem in the gameplay if just the story had progressed much further.
Yu Suzuki did a good job overall. Not a bad game, not a masterpiece, most have a general consensus that S3 falls in that average to above average range. Yu is a brilliant technical visionary, engineer, programmer, but even since the first Shenmue, not sure he was really a master storyteller. Nonetheless I am currently replaying Bailu Village and see the bones and foundation of a masterpiece that suffered from constraints, backer pleasing, and poor execution on plot.
Does anyone know if this whole team only strictly worked on Shenmue 1 and 2, or did they sit down and plan ahead for future games (with the thought that at the time the series would continue?).
Certainly they must have planned ahead for more of the story, and if they did then you'd think Suzuki would have some of that planned out and ready to go.
Does anyone know if this whole team only strictly worked on Shenmue 1 and 2, or did they sit down and plan ahead for future games (with the thought that at the time the series would continue?).
Certainly they must have planned ahead for more of the story, and if they did then you'd think Suzuki would have some of that planned out and ready to go.
It’s a mystery, but I find it impossible to believe Yu didn’t have his vision of Shenmue 3 already written at least in some personal notes 18 years ago. I’m sure what we got in Shenmue 3 is at least high level what he partially envisioned but didn’t fully realize. I imagine he went through several drafts of the old story arc as well. Only way to know for sure is via interview with a staffer or Yu himself... and unfortunately Yu Suzuki interviews are not too frequent since he’s known as a private person
Does anyone know if this whole team only strictly worked on Shenmue 1 and 2, or did they sit down and plan ahead for future games (with the thought that at the time the series would continue?).
Certainly they must have planned ahead for more of the story, and if they did then you'd think Suzuki would have some of that planned out and ready to go.
It’s not really a mystery as Yu talks about it during the GDC Postmortem.
They worked on developing the whole story from start to finish and looked upon it like a novel. This is where the 11 chapters and chapter illustrations came from.
The Shenmue games have soul, and that's why Shenmue 3 is a great game for sure. The only complaints I have are that they didn't focus time and resources on progressing the story line enough, and spent time with the mini-games which could disappear altogether and not make much of a difference in the vibe Shenmue has. Other than that, I love S3! People complaining it has PS3 era graphics and that the controls are sloppy, etc don't get it. It's not about all of that, especially in the case where Shenmue looks better sticking to outdated graphics to keep the original feel, and I feel for the most part they accomplished that. Shenmue may be technically flawed but delivers on the spirit behind the message of the story. There's a lot of wisdom to be found in the franchise. For instance when I tried Call of Duty WW2 and Battlefield 1 purely to try and understand the appeal(believe me, I don't)I can see how credit would be given to the realism aspects of the game. Graphics are crisp, the guns fire like crap with sloppy accuracy much like they would in real life pre-1950's, the overall feel of being in a warzone is certainly present. So while I can totally see from a technical standpoint why those type of games would get 9 and 10 star reviews I cannot understand why anyone would want to play them. They make me ill after playing them for a few minutes, honestly. It's because the energy they carry is negative and doesn't provide anything uplifting despite the amazing graphics and realism. I'd love to see youtube reaction videos with WW2 and Vietnam veterans playing those games and see if they trigger, or better yet if they ask the people watching "As someone who lived it for real, why would anyone want to experience this?". I'm someone who loves Mortal Kombat 2011, X and 11...I enjoy GTA 5(to a much lesser degree than MK and Shenmue, I know what I'm getting with GTA5), Doom 2 is one of my favorite 90s FPS games...so its not the gore that bothers me, it's the energy and message. In GTA 5 I can choose to kill and be violent all the time, or I can drive any car I like to a beautiful California beach or into the mountains like I would do in real life when I use to live there. Mortal Kombat has a really spiritual message behind it's gore, and it's funny that it's the original "evil game" yet it couldn't be further from the truth. Corporate Governments don't profit off of fictional martial arts tournaments, but they do off of real life war so why not keep the masses plugged into trash like CoD and Battlefield.
Shenmue has a beautiful and unique message in all 3 games regardless of its flaws. My only gripe is I wish we got more in S3 with the story, but since we didn't, and since Yu Suzuki ideally wanted to do 5 games, I'm hoping Shenmue 3 serves as a bridge to 4 and 5(if needed). An attempt to give the fans something they've waited 18 years for and I'm hoping S4 pays off in the story progress the way S3 paid off on all of us just wanting more Shenmue for nearly 2 decades!
I think that simply, Shenmue 3 has much much more good things than bad, and only for that is a great game, at least that is like I always see the things in general in gaming.
A vocal minority of 10 people are always going to be more visible than a silent majority of 100, especially on the internet, where you don't exist unless you speak. Shenmue 3 was a good game and Metacritic's user score speaks louder than critics who prefer generic cookie cutter open worlds and the 10% of people who didn't like the game.
My impression of 3 is that there's ultimately more side stuff to do than in 1 and even 2, and that narratively it topped 1. I can't say it topped Shenmue 2, though, because of its huge scale and incredible narrative payoff and atmosphere, but Shenmue 2 raised the bar incredibly high for decades and few games to this day have come close. I even enjoyed the new combat system, and found that I had to do more thinking with what move to use and when, since button mashing like I did with the first two games ended up getting my ass kicked quickly. I also appreciated that the game focused more on Ryo developing his skills, doubling down on his training introduced in Shenmue 2 and actually giving him real tournaments to fight in. My only disappointment with Shenmue 2 was that most of the arena fights had some kind of theme to them, which while varied made them less straightforward, and straightforward fights were what I wanted the most. Shenmue 3 addressed that problem by giving you three organized arenas.
If I were to change anything it would be to better flesh out Niao Sun by making her character a bit more involved in the overall Niaowu plot and pad the epilogue a little more by giving Yuan a bit more to say. Even something as small as letting you wander around town to say goodbye before taking the final boat out to the Great Wall would've been a more effective close.
Ah yes, Metacritic user score. That thing that has been tempered by many people, boasting loads of 0 or 10s.
I also think it's weird to sum up critics who didn't like it as "well they only like AAA open world titles !". As if other niche titles never manage to get good scores (they do). It's almost as if... Shenmue III may not be good ?
The Metacritic average has hundreds of reviews, so does Amazon. I don’t think there are hundreds of passionate Shenmue FANBOYS working together to increase the score. It’s also obvious the Epic haters weren’t as numerous as it seemed once the game came out since the 0s weren’t as numerous as expected.
Ah yes, Metacritic user score. That thing that has been tempered by many people, boasting loads of 0 or 10s.
I also think it's weird to sum up critics who didn't like it as "well they only like AAA open world titles !". As if other niche titles never manage to get good scores (they do). It's almost as if... Shenmue III may not be good ?
People also forget the Metacritic score is weighted depending on the particular publication that writes a review. Had that not happened then it would have come in at 70 which isn't bad considering.
People also forget the Metacritic score is weighted depending on the particular publication that writes a review. Had that not happened then it would have come in at 70 which isn't bad considering.
The Metacritic average has hundreds of reviews, so does Amazon. I don’t think there are hundreds of passionate Shenmue FANBOYS working together to increase the score. It’s also obvious the Epic haters weren’t as numerous as it seemed once the game came out since the 0s weren’t as numerous as expected.
I mean, there was literally a thread on dojo asking people to give high scores. In any case, user scores on Metacritic are worthless because they're easy to tamper and they dont require a proof of purchase.
I think I'm being quite clear. Had the scores not been weighted to publications then the average score was 69.82 (rounded to 2 DP). Metacritic rounds to the nearest whole number, making it 70.
Of course it's weighted and the score was 68, so yes it cost near on 2 full points.
I think I'm being quite clear. Had the scores not been weighted to publications then the average score was 69.82 (rounded to 2 DP). Metacritic rounds to the nearest whole number, making it 70.
Of course it's weighted and the score was 68, so yes it cost near on 2 full points.
Ah I see your point. You mean that some publications score is worth higher than some others.
Well Opencritic isn't weighted and its sitting at 69 with more critics counted.
In any case, it's a game that got average to decent review. Point being, saying "the press sucks, user metascore is the only thing that matters" is dumb. And saying that the press scored the game lower cause it's not a AAA open world game is even dumber considering that many niche games manage to score high scores too. From my point of view, scoring a 5, 6 or 7 for Shenmue III isn't out of proportion.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
