I think the answer is to improve the quality of the game, some of my suggestions on this were the writing/dialogue and presentation. Shenmue was never going to be CoD popular but it could have been as popular as the leading RPG's. However, I think to some extent, that ship has sailed. There will be limited options to attracting new fans especially since S3 was the best opportunity to do that and it seemed to have failed. Best bet IMO is improve the game quality the best the budget will allow and look for quick wins and hope word of mouth and good reviews carries it the rest of the way.These are fantastic ideas to improve the game in general, but if changing the formula won't attract new fans, what will? Is it possible for this series to survive on core fans alone?
I'm fine to see the series end in the anime or a book or something else if all else fails. I'd definitely prefer that to it dying in limbo.Ultimately this leads to the uncomfortable question of (and this is for everyone) - Is fundamentally changing the game worse than not finishing the series? Would you rather finish the series through the anime or a manga? Personally, I'm of the opinion that you do whatever it takes to get the game over the line, but that's just me.
As for your fundamental question "Is fundamentally changing the game worse than not finishing the series" I found this video recently which talks about the balancing act of updating series design vs fan expectations.
It touches on the challenges of weighing fan expectations against new design choices, especially if those choices don't necessarily lead to a bad game but fundamentally alter what fans liked about the originals. I think YSNet is going to have to weigh those decisions and the cost of alienating some of the existing fanbase, those who won't tolerate any change, to add new things that will bring in new players.
It seems Suzuki wanted to do this already with S3 but Cedric talked him down from it. It's interesting because S3 already did this by adding a lot of new gameplay ideas that weren't in the original. It's weird for me because so many people on this forum say that S3 felt like Shenmue to them but it only felt 50% like Shenmue to me. I wasn't a fan of many of the new additions and changes to the formula. Not because I'm a purist, I'd welcome changes if they made the game better, but I found that they didn't. So I'd rather they keep things the same (more or less) and up the quality of the storytelling, combat etc. and QoL adjustments that are optional to improve the game feel than add radical new and experimental gameplay ideas on the 4th entry of the series.
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