SHENMUE III - REVIEW ROUNDUP

OZoran Tsubasa said:
Probably one of the most well written and fair article about Shenmue III that I read since its launch. If you understand French language, you gonna be blow-minded. Enjoy, Shen-folks. 😉

labo.fnac.com

L'après-Shenmue III : Pourquoi les fans en veulent encore

Précieuse parenthèse d'espoir dans l'histoire de la saga, Shenmue III n'a peut-être pas la consistance attendue de la part d'un épisode phagocytant à ce
labo.fnac.com labo.fnac.com
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For the record, Shenmue II is in her top 5 of best games ever made.
 
A new review dropped a few days ago. From Cubed3, a 50/100. It's a miracle the average didn't go down to 67.


Bullshit.

A quote from the review to hammer home the point that it's bullshit:

After 18 years, Yu Susuzki has the audacity to drag this story out, and not bring it to a close, and is so presumptuous that there will be a fourth Shenmue.
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Pfft. I really hate when people say this. Shenmue III would have SUCKED if it ended here.
 
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Real1 said:
A new review dropped a few days ago. From Cubed3, a 50/100. It's a miracle the average didn't go down to 67.


Bullshit.

A quote from the review to hammer home the point that it's bullshit:



Pfft. I really hate when people say this. Shenmue III would have SUCKED if it ended here.
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Would it? I've started to question what's left in the story, myself. How many more games will end with seeing Landi just narrowly escape Ryo? It's not like S3 had much story at all and what we learned in Bailu was disappointingly minimal and barebones.

Another approach on how to deliver the series may need to be considered. Maybe S4 should skip ahead and tell the conclusion. And then if there's the chance to make more games, they could fill in the chapters that were skipped.

I accepted S2 as being the end from 2002 onward. But if we come to this point where we got to see S3 made, and maybe even S4 but no real progression takes place then for me, that's a wasted opportunity. I already tbink S3 was a massively wasted opportunity. Don't waste it again with S4.
 
Canard PC, a French magazine I view in very high regard only gave 5/10. The review was not as interesting as I expected since the arguments are mostly politically correct (pro-nostalgia, old game design, etc.).

Some other reviews I randomly found through the web:

France:
Japanpop.fr : 6/10 (78 users give it an average score of 3.8/10)
Playscope : 6.7/10
Jeuxvideo24.com : 6/10
new-game-plus.fr : 7/10
lageekroom.com : no rate, very positive
gamehope.com 6/10 interest, 4/10 design
thepixelpost.com : no rate, very negative (note: Epic gave the reviewer the key)

Netherlands:
Avomagazine.nl : 85/100

English:
Novagames : no rate, very positive
 
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Real1 said:
A new review dropped a few days ago. From Cubed3, a 50/100. It's a miracle the average didn't go down to 67.


Bullshit.

A quote from the review to hammer home the point that it's bullshit:



Pfft. I really hate when people say this. Shenmue III would have SUCKED if it ended here.
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Shenmue III wouldn't have been a worse game. What would suck is Shenmue's story as a whole. The fact that Shenmue III isnt a conclusion means, as average as Shenmue III can be, there's still hope for the overall story to be better.

And while I disagree with their point that Shenmue III should've been a conclusion... I totally agree that Shenmue III feels like a filler material. I dont mind slow stories when it means a good build up. The problem is that Shenmue III isn't only dragging its feet, it provides not much interesting elements to the tables and fail to introduce any meaningful character in that story so far.
 
Yokosuka said:
Canard PC, a French magazine I view in very high regard only gave 5/10. The review was not as interesting as I expected since the arguments are mostly politically correct (pro-nostalgia, old game design, etc.).

Some other reviews I randomly found through the web:

France:
Japanpop.fr : 6/10 (78 users give it an average score of 3.8/10)
Playscope : 6.7/10
Jeuxvideo24.com : 6/10
new-game-plus.fr : 7/10
lageekroom.com : no rate, very positive

Netherlands:
Avomagazine.nl : 85/100

English:
Novagames : no rate, very positive
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That's the problem with most mixed/negative review. I agree with the result, than Shenmue III wasn't a good experience. I disagree with the reasons. A lot of the reviews feels like they've been written on auto-pilot:
- outdated visuals, check.
- outdated gameplay, check.
- outdated game design, check.
- only for the fans, check.

Those are superficial reviews that anyone who didn't play the game could write based on trailers.

None of them talks about their feelings, their impressions about the title.

In fact, most of the accurate reviews I read about Shenmue III were on french website Senscritique, where it averages a 6.5 out of 10. (For non french speakers, it's basically a community website where people can rank, score and review games. Sort of a metacritic but based on communities. While it's about user reviews, because of how niche the site is, you dont have a lot of cases of 0 or 10 and troll reviews).
 
I fully agree. That's why I think reviews from indy obscure sites or blogs might deserve some attention because they're usually more free minded than professional writers, although the said problem can still occur.

Looking forward to reading the Steam user score and reviews since they're very reliable in general with many good written pieces. Hopefully the review bombing is not going to be too influential...
 
I suspect Steam will end up around the Metacritic avg. provided people aren't still mad about EGS. Seems most people are content with the game.
 
The "amount" of main plot in Shenmue III is not the problem. Both I and II moved the plot forward very slowly. The problem, in my opinion (and I've posted this 100 times already) is the lack of character moments, character depth, and structure.

Shenmue is a series about the small stuff, the atmosphere, the journey, and squeezing it down just to get the ending in there would've been a betrayal of the series' core tenants. And given how the game was made for the fans who wanted a "real" Shenmue game, I can see why they tried to shoot for the stars and deliver a real Shenmue game, even when they didn't quite have the resources to pull it off.

That's a long way of saying that somehow fitting the ending (and all the main plot in between) into Shenmue III wouldn't have made it a better game. In fact, in order to do so, it would've ended up feeling nothing like a Shenmue game.
 
Thomasina said:
Would it? I've started to question what's left in the story, myself. How many more games will end with seeing Landi just narrowly escape Ryo? It's not like S3 had much story at all and what we learned in Bailu was disappointingly minimal and barebones.

Another approach on how to deliver the series may need to be considered. Maybe S4 should skip ahead and tell the conclusion. And then if there's the chance to make more games, they could fill in the chapters that were skipped.

I accepted S2 as being the end from 2002 onward. But if we come to this point where we got to see S3 made, and maybe even S4 but no real progression takes place then for me, that's a wasted opportunity. I already tbink S3 was a massively wasted opportunity. Don't waste it again with S4.
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Suzuki himself said Shenmue III would focus on Ryo and other characters rather than the main plot. Shenmue III is needed for the bigger picture. I also liked the story they had here because they built up some huge things there at the end. It's set up in such a way that Shenmue IV HAS to have more story.

And IV won't be the end either. I hope, and think. Suzuki wants at least 5 games I think.
 
Yokosuka said:
Canard PC, a French magazine I view in very high regard only gave 5/10. The review was not as interesting as I expected since the arguments are mostly politically correct (pro-nostalgia, old game design, etc.).

Some other reviews I randomly found through the web:

France:
Japanpop.fr : 6/10 (78 users give it an average score of 3.8/10)
Playscope : 6.7/10
Jeuxvideo24.com : 6/10
new-game-plus.fr : 7/10
lageekroom.com : no rate, very positive
gamehope.com 6/10 interest, 4/10 design
thepixelpost.com : no rate, very negative (note: Epic gave the reviewer the key)

Netherlands:
Avomagazine.nl : 85/100

English:
Novagames : no rate, very positive
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Oh boy, a whole bunch of reviews that aren't in the list there I think. How annoying. :p (Just kidding, it's just a pain to look for links for all of them to add to the list, i will do so later). France, notoriously, seem to hate Shenmue more than any other country I have noticed. Many of the lowest reviews come from there.
 
Real1 said:
Oh boy, a whole bunch of reviews that aren't in the list there I think. How annoying. :p (Just kidding, it's just a pain to look for links for all of them to add to the list, i will do so later). France, notoriously, seem to hate Shenmue more than any other country I have noticed. Many of the lowest reviews come from there.
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If anything, there's a sizeable fanbase in France when it comes to Shenmue.
Low reviews doesn't mean hate.

In fact, you see those Shenmue I-II and III collectors editions from Pix'n Love ?
This is a French company.
 
Real1 said:
Suzuki himself said Shenmue III would focus on Ryo and other characters rather than the main plot.
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Too bad they weren't the focus. Suzuki said lots of stuff was gonna be in S3 that didn't end up in S3.

Real1 said:
Shenmue III is needed for the bigger picture.
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Apart from the last like 10 minutes, I don't see how anything that happened in S3 was necessary for the bigger picture (or even addresses the bigger picture, frankly).

Real1 said:
It's set up in such a way that Shenmue IV HAS to have more story.

And IV won't be the end either. I hope, and think. Suzuki wants at least 5 games I think.
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It's fine that you think that, but you can understand why some fans and critics aren't OK with that right?
 
I do confirm there is a proved cult following in France. Shenmue I and Shenmue II received great rating from the French media almost unanimously when the games released on Dreamcast.
In 2016, Shenmue II was seen in the top 5 of best games of all time in Sens Critique, the French equivalent of IMDb.

Most of the French just didn't like the third episode it seems.
 
Yokosuka said:
I do confirm there is a proved cult following in France. Shenmue I and Shenmue II received great rating from the French media almost unanimously when the games released on Dreamcast.
In 2016, Shenmue II was seen in the top 5 of best games of all time in Sens Critique, the French equivalent of IMDb.

Most of the French just didn't like the third episode it seems.
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Indeed. Shenmue I is sitting at 8.4, Shenmue II is sitting at 8.5 and Shenmue III at... 6.5.

To say that it's about France disliking Shenmue as a whole is far fetched.
 
GhostTrick said:
Indeed. Shenmue I is sitting at 8.4, Shenmue II is sitting at 8.5 and Shenmue III at... 6.5.

To say that it's about France disliking Shenmue as a whole is far fetched.
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Maybe so but some of the reviews that came out regarding the press demo were plain awful. One accused the game of being broken.

Also times and tastes change but 6.5 is the lower end of the scale that Yu himself scored the game. He gave it a 7 then changed it to a 6.
 
spud1897 said:
Maybe so but some of the reviews that came out regarding the press demo were plain awful. One accused the game of being broken.

Also times and tastes change but 6.5 is the lower end of the scale that Yu himself scored the game. He gave it a 7 then changed it to a 6.
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To be fair, that was one publication from a terrible writer.
 
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