Now I'm not saying Shenmue 3 is a disaster or that it isn't a niche title, but it was built up to be a legendary series and the end result left a lot of younger gamers and/or more mainstream audiences thinking "um what the fuck is this?" It is the most highly funded video game on Kickstarter, so there was a lot of high expectations.
I think mostly we're on the same page though, just approaching it from different angles.
Yeah, I can see where you're coming from re: Zelda, Metal Gear etc, but those games never had the disadvantage that Shenmue had with finances. There was a 10+ year gap between Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid, but for a lot of people MGS was their first Metal Gear game so didn't have the baggage that Shenmue has.
When I was on the Zoom chat last week, I brought up the theory that for gamers in their 30's like myself, we had the benefit of seeing gaming evolve from 2D pixel art to 3D to HD etc, whereas a lot of younger gamers never had that. In a way, I don't blame them for thinking Shenmue isn't a very good game as they've never had the context or experiences we've had.
I also have another thought (although feel free to disagree) that many people got swept up in the hype of the Kickstarter and wanted to be part of the crowd funding it without fully appreciating what Shenmue was in the first place. A more flimsy theory I have is that some people criticise Shenmue, because they weren't part of the "club" growing up with it and so take their anger out of the game. There's no proof to say that's the case, but that's my gut feeling at least.
But yeah, like you say, we're looking at it from different angles and that's hunky dory with me.
Also I disagree about that part where relatively unknown publications scored the game low.
Edge, Gamespot, VG24/7, Game Informer, US Gamer, Jeuxvideo.com and Metro.co.uk are fairly big known publicationd and they all rated it 6 or lower.
I've never heard of the ones highlighted, but that might because i'm UK based. I agree with what you say that what is deemed "average" for a game is different to that of films and games, but that's just something I could never fully understand. This is something going back years and years, so I understand why that is so, but I do find it baffling. I think that's why in a way I appreciate the way Eurogamer and other sites doing away with scores, because sometimes I'll read something that reads as a 6, but gets an 8. It's really strange.
And for what it's worth, I thought that the Edge and Metro reviews were fair and objective. To me a 6 means OK, but again that's not the "norm" for games. Their reviews had a lot of positive points, but weren't afraid to highlight the drawbacks. For what it's worth I consider Shenmue III a 7.5/10. I flitter between 6 and 8 depending on my mood when playing the game.
I do think people should be less obessive about scores and in a way Metacritic does more harm than good. When it comes to film, I trust certain critics (Mark Kermode, Peter Bradshaw etc), but in gaming, it's much harder.
I think they've made their bed with III on the rather lacklustre way of bringing newcomers on board, so with IV they should carry on with the assumption that people will have played the first 3 games and not to cater to newcomers.
What i'd really love to know is the weighting Metacritic use for different sites. It's most likely the more popular sites have a greater weight, but just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's the same quality. I'd trust an Edge review more than an IGN one for example.
