- Joined
- Aug 6, 2018
So Shenmue 3 was a great game all in all, don't get me wrong. The locations Bailu and Niaowu were both huge and the atmosphere was absolutely perfect. The different colors in which Bailu and Niaowu appear, depending on the daytime, the stairway to the abandoned temple, the second Shenmue tree, Shenhua's house, the Huaxiao Temple, Blossom Road, Vendors Avenue, the Fishermen's Pier (music in those last four areas was spot-on, simply incredible). Those places give me goosebumps just thinking about them.
But several points which held it back from being the masterpiece on par with the first two games were all the more frustrating because they could have easily been done better in my opinion. Let me explain why below.
First, let me exclude the fighting system here. I understand that it takes a lot of time and money to make a great fighting system and I had accepted that S3's fighting system wouldn't be as good as the first two games', especially not without throws. This is not one of S3's issues in my opinion and S3's fighting system is still passable in its own right.
S3's weaknesses are mostly character- and story-related which makes it so much more painful, because those are the two things which Yu should have absolutely not gone wrong on, not in a million life times. And budget is no excuse here.
1) Almost nothing happens in the game
I remember Yu went on record saying the meaning behind the "He shall appear..." poem will be explained. That didn't happen. S2 literally ends with Shenhua reciting the poem and Ryo and Shenhua have hours and hours on end of dialog in S3 but they never bother discussing the Prophecy even for a minute. Instead, they decide to play rock-paper-fuckface. What in the world was Yu thinking?
I also vaguely recall Yu saying that there was going to be 4 bosses (probably the 4 regional leaders of the Chiyoumen) and that one of them would be beaten by Ryo in S3.
Seems he pulled a complete Peter Molineux/Sean Murray on us with these points.
2) Characters severely underdeveloped
Niao Sun: so let me process this. We get one of the four heavenly leaders of the Chiyoumen who has been teased to fans since 1999 as being extremely cruel and taking pleasure in "eliminating people as if they were bugs" and Ryo doesn't even learn her name? It would have made the cutscene ten seconds longer. Instead we get a comment on her tits. Are you trolling, Yu?!?
Grandmasters Feng and Sun
So Ryo has been talking about going to Bailu village since the end of disc 3 of S2 and he meets two old grandmasters who actually trained his father and Lan Di's father and all he gets out of them is "oh yeah, I can't imagine Iwao murdered Sunming but Sunming somehow died after your old man left." That's it, Yu? No dialog with those two characters about Iwao or about Sunming?
The priest of Huaxiao Temple
The priest tells Ryo that a martial artist came to the temple many years ago and donated a move book to the temple. The priest then hands Ryo a move book with the word HAZUKI written on it. Ryo makes a surprised face and that's it. Let me get this straight : we've got our game's protagonist walking up this huge stairway to a majestic Buddha temple overlooking all of Niaowu, epic "Seven Years in Tibet music" (one of the best new tracks in the game, btw) plays in the background, the priest steps forward, instantly recognizes Ryo as a martial artist and basically tells him he knew his father and... Nothing happens. Our protagonist makes a surpried face but doesn't bother to say a word about it. NOT ONE WORD. Again, I have to wonder: is Yu taking the piss?
Shenhua's father "Mr Yuan"
So Ryo, just like in S2 spends pretty much the entire game trying to find some old fuck because he knows something Ryo does not. Then, when he finally saves the old geezer, the game gives you less than 30 seconds of conversation with him. And Yuan basically goes "Yeah, good ol' Lanny Boy was raised by the Chiyoumen and he's now at some cliff temple near the Great Wall. Oh, and fuck you very much for saving me, you Japanese prick!" How does he even know Lan Di went to the temple?
Compare that to the dialog you have with Yuanda Zhu when you save him!
Yuan talks about Shenhua's destiny and finding" the prove " in his letter in S2! Ryo and Shenhua both don't even bother asking him about it! Shenhua doesn't even give enough of a fuck to even join the conversation for crying out loud! Again, like with all other characters, nothing fancy, no big cutscene or anything would have been needed. Just let Ryo sit down with those characters and TALK.
II don't want to sound disrespectful but did Yu even take 5 minutes to watch the ending of S2? Did he read the old script? I seriously doubt it.
Village elder Ye
So this old bitch vividly remembers the day an imperial official came to her village 80 years ago but can't tell Ryo jack shit about what Sunming and Iwao did in the village 20 years ago. Yeah, right.
The second Shenmue tree
So there's a Shenmue tree in front of Feng's house. Iwao practiced Elbow Assault on that tree, Shenhua was born under and named after a Shenmue tree, the game is called Shenmue for crying out loud and Ryo doesn't seem to give a fuck.
Honestly, these are only a few of the problems the game has wich could have easily been solved by a little bit of dialog.
By the time the credits rolled, with the Chawan Music (what the flying fuck?!?) I felt kinda trolled.
They would have just had to enhance the dialog with a handful of characters a little bit and it would have taken the game to a whole new level. This is such a shame!
But several points which held it back from being the masterpiece on par with the first two games were all the more frustrating because they could have easily been done better in my opinion. Let me explain why below.
First, let me exclude the fighting system here. I understand that it takes a lot of time and money to make a great fighting system and I had accepted that S3's fighting system wouldn't be as good as the first two games', especially not without throws. This is not one of S3's issues in my opinion and S3's fighting system is still passable in its own right.
S3's weaknesses are mostly character- and story-related which makes it so much more painful, because those are the two things which Yu should have absolutely not gone wrong on, not in a million life times. And budget is no excuse here.
1) Almost nothing happens in the game
I remember Yu went on record saying the meaning behind the "He shall appear..." poem will be explained. That didn't happen. S2 literally ends with Shenhua reciting the poem and Ryo and Shenhua have hours and hours on end of dialog in S3 but they never bother discussing the Prophecy even for a minute. Instead, they decide to play rock-paper-fuckface. What in the world was Yu thinking?
I also vaguely recall Yu saying that there was going to be 4 bosses (probably the 4 regional leaders of the Chiyoumen) and that one of them would be beaten by Ryo in S3.
Seems he pulled a complete Peter Molineux/Sean Murray on us with these points.
2) Characters severely underdeveloped
Niao Sun: so let me process this. We get one of the four heavenly leaders of the Chiyoumen who has been teased to fans since 1999 as being extremely cruel and taking pleasure in "eliminating people as if they were bugs" and Ryo doesn't even learn her name? It would have made the cutscene ten seconds longer. Instead we get a comment on her tits. Are you trolling, Yu?!?
Grandmasters Feng and Sun
So Ryo has been talking about going to Bailu village since the end of disc 3 of S2 and he meets two old grandmasters who actually trained his father and Lan Di's father and all he gets out of them is "oh yeah, I can't imagine Iwao murdered Sunming but Sunming somehow died after your old man left." That's it, Yu? No dialog with those two characters about Iwao or about Sunming?
The priest of Huaxiao Temple
The priest tells Ryo that a martial artist came to the temple many years ago and donated a move book to the temple. The priest then hands Ryo a move book with the word HAZUKI written on it. Ryo makes a surprised face and that's it. Let me get this straight : we've got our game's protagonist walking up this huge stairway to a majestic Buddha temple overlooking all of Niaowu, epic "Seven Years in Tibet music" (one of the best new tracks in the game, btw) plays in the background, the priest steps forward, instantly recognizes Ryo as a martial artist and basically tells him he knew his father and... Nothing happens. Our protagonist makes a surpried face but doesn't bother to say a word about it. NOT ONE WORD. Again, I have to wonder: is Yu taking the piss?
Shenhua's father "Mr Yuan"
So Ryo, just like in S2 spends pretty much the entire game trying to find some old fuck because he knows something Ryo does not. Then, when he finally saves the old geezer, the game gives you less than 30 seconds of conversation with him. And Yuan basically goes "Yeah, good ol' Lanny Boy was raised by the Chiyoumen and he's now at some cliff temple near the Great Wall. Oh, and fuck you very much for saving me, you Japanese prick!" How does he even know Lan Di went to the temple?
Compare that to the dialog you have with Yuanda Zhu when you save him!
Yuan talks about Shenhua's destiny and finding" the prove " in his letter in S2! Ryo and Shenhua both don't even bother asking him about it! Shenhua doesn't even give enough of a fuck to even join the conversation for crying out loud! Again, like with all other characters, nothing fancy, no big cutscene or anything would have been needed. Just let Ryo sit down with those characters and TALK.
II don't want to sound disrespectful but did Yu even take 5 minutes to watch the ending of S2? Did he read the old script? I seriously doubt it.
Village elder Ye
So this old bitch vividly remembers the day an imperial official came to her village 80 years ago but can't tell Ryo jack shit about what Sunming and Iwao did in the village 20 years ago. Yeah, right.
The second Shenmue tree
So there's a Shenmue tree in front of Feng's house. Iwao practiced Elbow Assault on that tree, Shenhua was born under and named after a Shenmue tree, the game is called Shenmue for crying out loud and Ryo doesn't seem to give a fuck.
Honestly, these are only a few of the problems the game has wich could have easily been solved by a little bit of dialog.
By the time the credits rolled, with the Chawan Music (what the flying fuck?!?) I felt kinda trolled.
They would have just had to enhance the dialog with a handful of characters a little bit and it would have taken the game to a whole new level. This is such a shame!
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