SuperEyePatchWolf: "Shenmue III is a terrible game and I've wasted my life"

[WuyingRen]

We're not talking about story fights here. @Rydeen was specifically mentioning high level play, which is why I'm talking about a video of someone beating the hardest 1v1 fights in the Rose Garden on nightmare difficulty (so the hardest fights in the game), by literally spamming one button. You simply can't do that in the hardest fights in S1 and 2, which is why I asked @Rydeen to find a video of someone beating Izumi in a similar fashion.

To be honest, I’ve never attempted the Izumi fight myself (too much work and so easier to just watch videos of others doing it), but I’d be surprised if it couldn’t be handled in the same way with a few attempts. Given the amount of work that goes into unlocking it though, I’m not sure I’d compare it to the Rose Garden anyway.

It’s also worth pointing out that training with Ryo and leveling up his Kung Fu stat also serves as an artificial difficulty setting. Maxing out Ryo’s stats is like leveling your party to level 99 in a jrp, which is inevitably going to take a lot of the difficulty out of the game.

It has its flaws for sure; they're 20 year old games! But I don't think it's quite fair to say that S3 couldn't have been better considering the budget. I wouldn't have minded if they kept it locked to a 2.5D view and restricted it to 1v1 fights, for instance, to make it easier to develop but retain that "fighting game engine" feel.

Technology has certainly come a long way in the last 20 years, but a lot of the stuff that Sega was back then was well ahead of its time.

I read an interview with Yu a while back in which he says that they made a deal with the United States armed forces to provide military grade chips for their Virtua Fighter (2?) arcade cabs. That’s pretty insane and far beyond the reach of anything a small development studio like YSNet could ever do.

This is also pretty indicative of the kind of money that Sega were throwing around back then. I can’t find anything online about the budget for Virtua Fighter, but I think it’s safe to assume that it cost them a pretty penny to put together and that a good chunk of that was spent developing the engine.

Without knowing exactly how much was spent specifically on the combat engine for Shenmue 3, it’s difficult to say whether or not they did a good job, nor do I think that comparing S3’s combat to a state of the art, albeit dated, engine that probably cost several times as much to produce is entirely fair.

I definitely fall into the ‘S1+2 combat is better’ camp, but considering the limited budget, I think I always expected that to be the case. It’s inferior in a lot of ways (at least afaiac), but one assumes that it’s something that can be tweaked and further developed as the series progresses to hopefully iron out some of its issues.

 

[mjqjazzbar]

Yep. Yu Suzuki worked with Lockheed Martin on a graphics processor. Crazy, huh? Folks tend to forget he was instrumental in developing most of Sega's most impressive tech and actually worked under the hood in many cases, not just as a consultant. It's a shame 'video game history literacy' isn't very good. Dude deserves respect for a lifetime...

 

[iknifaugood]

True, but the conversation with Yuan also suggests that they have already been to the cliff temple, which we know not to be the case, so I'm not sure that we can rely on the reliability of this conversation (perhaps it is a remnant from an earlier draft of the story that couldn't be re-recorded).

To be fair, I think Ryo's line is supposed to be "that's the place shown on the scroll" or something to that effect.

We also don't really see much of the scroll itself and so it's possible there's additional information contained on it (why would Iwao/Sunming go to the trouble of returning it to it's original place if it holds no importance and the temple is a known location?). It's also possible that if there is some information hidden within the scroll that it is not hidden in plain sight (kind of how the mirrors require smoke to pass over them to reveal their secret).

I agree and I hope, but atm there's not a ton of reason to believe that will be the case since Elder Yeh interpreted the scroll. It would be interesting if it tied into Ryo and Shenhua's destiny, since Niaowu is on there for no reason, but, again, that's not even hinted at. As far as S3 tells us, it was hidden in order to protect the location of the mirrors (even though it doesn't specifically tell the location of the mirrors). It's kind of a mess.

Possible, but I find the complete lack of information about her be particularly conspicuous, especially how much detail we're given about inconsequential side characters (I saw a clip recently where Yu talks about how a lot of the NPCs have blood types and information about how old their spouses are).

That is indeed very weird, especially the lack of mementos around the house in S1.

Yep. That Ryo remains oblivious to some of the parallels between them remains a particular point of frustration for me, but looking at how Ryo handles some of the situations with the women he encounters, at least we can say that this is a character trait that is portrayed consistently throughout the story. I think there's plenty of room for personal growth in both characters and whilst the lack of growth to this point could be seen as disappointing, the potential for growth is still there which leaves hope that we will see it at some point moving forwards.

I don't really see what Ryo could learn about Lan Di that would lead to more introspection on his part apart from simply being told that Lan Di was lied to about Iwao and the whole thing was one big misunderstanding (which I would absolutely hate). That being said, Lan Di certainly still has room to grow, which is far more interesting imo.

Agreed. Looking back at some of the things that we were told prior to launch, it does feel like they failed to deliver a little in some of these areas. For the most part, a lot of the new information that we were given in Shenmue 3 served as a slight expansion on things that we already knew or confirmation of things that had already been heavily implied.

I deliberately didn't follow a lot of pre-release stuff but I distinctly remember hearing that S3 would cover the most "chapters" of any of the games. Now it seems as though the whole "chapter" structure has been all but abandoned.

He claims that the game sold less than 18,000 copies in its opening week (these sales figures covered sales in Japan only, not worldwide sales)

In fairness it seems as though he left out the "in Japan" part since he says that the results have been similar all over the world.

and that Deep Silver had publicly commented on the 'disappointing sales figures' (their only public comments regarding sales of Shenmue 3 were that it did 'fine' financially, was a 'niche series' and was their 'leading revenue driver' for the quarter in which it was released).

Again, in fairness, he shows the article he's referencing and it supports what he's saying.

He also doesn't mention that the game effectively sold 70,000+ copies through its crowd-funding efforts, which I think is important when discussing the game's sales, but I suppose I can let that one slide.

Again again, in fairness, he does mention this elsewhere in the review.

I think the takeaway for the viewer would be that Shenmue was a bad / below average game that didn't perform particularly well from a sales perspective rather than it being a terrible game that performed terribly.

I get that the latter is exactly what he was going for, but don't think that this excuses the aforementioned techniques used to make that point and suspect that his primary reasoning for doing this simply comes down to 'terrible' getting more clicks than 'bad'.

I'm not sure your proposed edits would increase the viewer's perception that much. If he thinks the game is terrible and that's the POV he's arguing from, a few examples here and there aren't going to change that. It would definitely paint a less terrible picture in the micro sense because he definitely makes it seem as if there's something wrong with every aspect of the game, but if at the end of the day, his conclusion is "Shenmue 3 is terrible and I've wasted my life", it would take a lot of good examples to counter that, not merely "not that bad" examples.

 

[iknifaugood]

Given the amount of work that goes into unlocking it though, I’m not sure I’d compare it to the Rose Garden anyway.

Well it's the hardest fight in S2, technically there's nothing in S3 that you can compare to the amount of work that takes.

It’s also worth pointing out that training with Ryo and leveling up his Kung Fu stat also serves as an artificial difficulty setting. Maxing out Ryo’s stats is like leveling your party to level 99 in a jrp, which is inevitably going to take a lot of the difficulty out of the game.

Is it though? It's certainly not presented as such. In JRPGs, every enemy has a level, so you have some idea of where you should be in relation. It's also far more realistic to max Ryo out in S3 than to get to level 99 in nearly any JRPG since their systems are designed to scale the XP you get with difficulty. I would argue the comparison paints S3 in a less favorable light.

Technology has certainly come a long way in the last 20 years, but a lot of the stuff that Sega was back then was well ahead of its time.

I read an interview with Yu a while back in which he says that they made a deal with the United States armed forces to provide military grade chips for their Virtua Fighter (2?) arcade cabs. That’s pretty insane and far beyond the reach of anything a small development studio like YSNet could ever do.

This is also pretty indicative of the kind of money that Sega were throwing around back then. I can’t find anything online about the budget for Virtua Fighter, but I think it’s safe to assume that it cost them a pretty penny to put together and that a good chunk of that was spent developing the engine.

Totally agree, VF is no joke. I will say that complex martial arts are not something usually seen in games because they're expensive to produce by default and not as popular as they used to be (even VF has seen a marked drop in popularity). The only recent example I can even think of that has been popular are the Arkham games and obviously those are far different.

Without knowing exactly how much was spent specifically on the combat engine for Shenmue 3, it’s difficult to say whether or not they did a good job, nor do I think that comparing S3’s combat to a state of the art, albeit dated, engine that probably cost several times as much to produce is entirely fair.

You could compare it to other low budget fighting games instead and I still don't think it would compare favorably. Shenmue is in the unenviable position of being based around its combat system (Ryo literally learns fighting game moves as part of the story) and so it will basically always need to be there, taking up a not-inconsiderable chunk of the budget compared to other RPG or hybrid genres.

 

[Suzaku]

Yep. Yu Suzuki worked with Lockheed Martin on a graphics processor. Crazy, huh? Folks tend to forget he was instrumental in developing most of Sega's most impressive tech and actually worked under the hood in many cases, not just as a consultant. It's a shame 'video game history literacy' isn't very good. Dude deserves respect for a lifetime...

Yep, he was always involved in arcade hardware first hand. He also crafted the Dreamcast around Shenmue (there should be a video of him going to Yamaha to choose the sound chip he needed for Shen for example).

 

[Dg1995]

We're not talking about story fights here. @Rydeen was specifically mentioning high level play, which is why I'm talking about a video of someone beating the hardest 1v1 fights in the Rose Garden on nightmare difficulty (so the hardest fights in the game), by literally spamming one button. You simply can't do that in the hardest fights in S1 and 2, which is why I asked

Fun fact: In the rooftop fight of Shenmue 2(Where you fight that big bald guy) I just spammed Ryo's elbow move and beated that guy like that.

Shenmue has never had a good combat imo.

 

[Vasid]

Fun fact: In the rooftop fight of Shenmue 2(Where you fight that big bald guy) I just spammed Ryo's elbow move and beated that guy like that.

Shenmue has never had a good combat imo.

So are you saying Virtua Fighter didn't have good combat? Just because you spammed one move through your whole playthrough (how boring by the way) doesn't mean that's the only way to play or that the combat isn't nuanced or deep or good. That's how you chose to play.

 

[Truck_1_0_1_]

...

You don't know his name?

 

[WuyingRen]

To be fair, I think Ryo's line is supposed to be "that's the place shown on the scroll" or something to that effect.

I think that is the assumption we’re going with, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if this turned out to be a remnant from an older version of the script where Ryo had already visited the temple (maybe that’s where they rescued Shenhua’s father from?). We know that recording of the English dub wrapped nearly a full year before the game’s release and that during the period between these two events the decision to cut out the largest area of the game was made, so anything’s possible!

I agree and I hope, but atm there's not a ton of reason to believe that will be the case since Elder Yeh interpreted the scroll. It would be interesting if it tied into Ryo and Shenhua's destiny, since Niaowu is on there for no reason, but, again, that's not even hinted at. As far as S3 tells us, it was hidden in order to protect the location of the mirrors (even though it doesn't specifically tell the location of the mirrors). It's kind of a mess.

I’m not sure that a blind woman is really the best person to interpret a map, but whatevs.

I agree about this part being messy and am still not entirely sure what Niaowu’s significance to the story was or why it was on the map. I’d also thought that the cliff temple was the place where the mirrors were originally stored before Sunming and Iwao retrieved them - and so again - I really don’t see why the cliff temple holds any more importance to the story given that the mirrors are no longer there.

There seems to be some speculation that the cliff temple might be where the treasure is stored, but given that the mirrors themselves are maps, it makes little sense that they would be maps that lead to the location that they themselves are already stored in. I dunno. Maybe they serve as the starting point for the map(s) contained within the mirrors?

Anyway, my point was, why would they hide the map to protect the location of the mirrors when they have already taken the mirrors from the temple? Even if somebody found the map - and even if they somehow deduced that they needed to go to the cliff temple (which I’m not sure is even mentioned on the map because they focused on Niaowu) - the mirrors are no longer at the temple.

With that being the case, if the map serves solely as a means to find the mirrors at the cliff temple, it became useless the moment Sunming and Iwao took the mirrors and so keeping it or returning it to the bell tower would make no real sense.

I don't really see what Ryo could learn about Lan Di that would lead to more introspection on his part apart from simply being told that Lan Di was lied to about Iwao and the whole thing was one big misunderstanding (which I would absolutely hate). That being said, Lan Di certainly still has room to grow, which is far more interesting imo.

Well I guess Ryo could learn that Lan Di was right when he claimed that Iwao killed Sunming? If this is really what happened, I think he’d have to at the very least re-evaluate the situation which might help him to see that Lan Di was only doing what he himself has sworn to do.

I really can’t decide if I want Iwao to have killed Sunming or not, as both could provide some interesting consequences in terms of how Ryo and Lan Di’s arcs progress.

I deliberately didn't follow a lot of pre-release stuff but I distinctly remember hearing that S3 would cover the most "chapters" of any of the games. Now it seems as though the whole "chapter" structure has been all but abandoned.

I guess they were just very short chapters.

In fairness it seems as though he left out the "in Japan" part since he says that the results have been similar all over the world.

Iirc, the results being similar was referencing the game’s poor chart position in the UK, but I could be wrong. Either way, it definitely implies that the game only sold around 18,000 copies worldwide.

Again, in fairness, he shows the article he's referencing and it supports what he's saying.

True, but this article was based on a report that was not published by Deep Silver and was shown to be innacurate not long after it was published. The estimates in it were seemingly based solely on figures from gamstat, which, by their own account, are inaccurate.

It’s entirely possible that this was an honest mistake, but that he failed to find the actual comments from Embracer (which were much more widely reported) seems fairly unlikely.

Again again, in fairness, he does mention this elsewhere in the review.

He did? I would’ve thought that if he were going to mention it it would have been during the section where he talks about how many copies of the game are in circulation.

I'm not sure your proposed edits would increase the viewer's perception that much. If he thinks the game is terrible and that's the POV he's arguing from, a few examples here and there aren't going to change that. It would definitely paint a less terrible picture in the micro sense because he definitely makes it seem as if there's something wrong with every aspect of the game, but if at the end of the day, his conclusion is "Shenmue 3 is terrible and I've wasted my life", it would take a lot of good examples to counter that, not merely "not that bad" examples.

With all due respect, I think I can say with some certainty that a more honest representation of the game would have made a fairly significant difference to the overall take away.

If his aim was to convince the audience that Shenmue 3 is a terrible game, I think that he did a fantastic job. As you say, he tears apart pretty much every aspect of the game whilst praising next to nothing; to the point where I don’t think that anybody watching who hadn’t played the game for themselves would have any doubt that he is right. If you watched this video without playing the game for yourself, you’d think that it was a terrible game.

The issue here is that we can clearly see that Shenmue 3 being terrible is not the takeaway for the average person who plays the game for themselves. Without the hyperbole, misleading examples and lies, we see that the average person seems to think that Shenmue 3 is an average / pretty good game.

We can see this not only through critic ratings, but also through user ratings from a variety of places. Admittedly these user ratings are a little less reliable as they’re susceptible to manipulation, but given how far from terrible they are and taking into account the review bombings from the anti-epic brigade, I think there’s enough there to show that to most people who play Shenmue 3, it isn’t some 1 or 2 out of ten game with no redeeming qualities.

 

[Dg1995]

...

You don't know his name?

Played it once 1-2 years ago. And I have forgotten his name lmao.

So are you saying Virtua Fighter didn't have good combat? Just because you spammed one move through your whole playthrough (how boring by the way) doesn't mean that's the only way to play or that the combat isn't nuanced or deep or good. That's how you chose to play.

What does it have to do with VF ? In VF when you fight a good player, that player easily punishes you when he sees that you are just spamming 1 move.

 

[Vasid]

What does it have to do with VF ? In VF when you fight a good player, that player easily punishes you when he sees that you are just spamming 1 move.

It has to do with Virtua Fighter because it's using essentially the same engine under the hood as VF3TB. There is a massive difference between game difficulty and depth in it's combat system. Just because all the main fights in Shenmue are easy doesn't mean the combat system isn't deep or nuanced just in the same way that if you only played scrubs in Virtua Fighter that doesn't mean it's combat system isn't deep.

 

[WuyingRen]

So are you saying Virtua Fighter didn't have good combat? Just because you spammed one move through your whole playthrough (how boring by the way) doesn't mean that's the only way to play or that the combat isn't nuanced or deep or good. That's how you chose to play.

I think the point being made here is that Shenmue 3’s combat isn’t inherently bad just because fights can be won by spamming a single move, as this is something that’s true of more or less every combat game ever made (including the original games).

I don’t think anybody is saying that the combat in Shenmue 1 or 2 is bad because of this, just that Shenmue 3’s combat is not bad because of this (which is not to say that there aren’t plenty of other reasons it could be considered bad).

 

[Vasid]

I think the point being made here is that Shenmue 3’s combat isn’t inherently bad just because fights can be won by spamming a single move, as this is something that’s true of more or less every combat game ever made (including the original games).

I don’t think anybody is saying that the combat in Shenmue 1 or 2 is bad because of this, just that Shenmue 3’s combat is not bad because of this (which is not to say that there aren’t plenty of other reasons it could be considered bad).

I can totally agree with that, Shenmue was never a hard game when it came to combat, 1 & 2 just had a deep enjoyable system you could get really good at if you chose to.

Edit: And just to explain what I mean by "enjoyable", when I beat Chai in the arcade scene I felt like a bad ass and you get a similiar feeling for overcoming Izumi (though her challenge is mostly overcoming those QTEs). And while the 70 man fight is easy it becomes so much more fun when you know exactly what you're doing and can dispatch everyone in a showy flashy way.

 

[WuyingRen]

Well it's the hardest fight in S2, technically there's nothing in S3 that you can compare to the amount of work that takes.

That’s my point. Izumi was an Easter egg of sorts for fans who really dig in and explore what the game has to offer rather than just following the main storyline. Shenmue 3 didn’t have the budget to implement such an expansive side quest that 90%+ of players would never experience and so there aren’t any fights in which the difficulty has been scaled for hardcore fans.

Is it though? It's certainly not presented as such. In JRPGs, every enemy has a level, so you have some idea of where you should be in relation. It's also far more realistic to max Ryo out in S3 than to get to level 99 in nearly any JRPG since their systems are designed to scale the XP you get with difficulty. I would argue the comparison paints S3 in a less favorable light.

I mean... you train and then you can hit harder and take more damage. It seems a pretty solid comparison to me.

I don’t think there’s any added incentive to level Ryo up other than making fights easier, but with this in mind, I don’t think it’s fair to then complain that the fights are too easy.

As leveling up in JRPGs is mainly done passively as you progress through the story whilst training in Shenmue 3 is (more or less) entirely optional, one could argue that the system in Shenmue 3 gives players much more control over the difficulty of the fights.

You could compare it to other low budget fighting games instead and I still don't think it would compare favorably. Shenmue is in the unenviable position of being based around its combat system (Ryo literally learns fighting game moves as part of the story) and so it will basically always need to be there, taking up a not-inconsiderable chunk of the budget compared to other RPG or hybrid genres.

Which is easier said than done, as combat focused games are usually pretty expensive to put together, meaning you don’t find too many ‘budget’ games in the genre.

That said, I have played a few budget games with well implemented combat elements, but these have usually been quite limited in scope with very few moves and animations. Either that or they’ve 2/2.5D.

I’d be genuinely interested to see a budget game with 3D combat, 100+ fully animated moves and combat with multiple enemies that does a significantly better job than Shenmue 3.

 

[Tsukuyomimagi99]

Shenmue has never had good combat imo.

As for Shenmue III's combat system, I think it's not as good as the original games but it has potential. If the system added in better input control, animations, parrying, juggling, move properties, throws, and the ability to cancel out of certain moves then you'd have something. If we aren't going to get the Virtua Fighter system back then refining this system would be the optimal way forward in my opinion.

 

[iknifaugood]

I wouldn’t be too surprised if this turned out to be a remnant from an older version of the script where Ryo had already visited the temple (maybe that’s where they rescued Shenhua’s father from?). We know that recording of the English dub wrapped nearly a full year before the game’s release and that during the period between these two events the decision to cut out the largest area of the game was made, so anything’s possible!

That's interesting, I didn't know that, I thought Baisha was cut earlier than that. It would stand to reason that many scenes that don't make a ton of sense were basically the victims of being cobbled together with what they had if that's the case. Still not a good look, but it makes sense. I'd be very curious to know more goings on behind the scenes.

I’m not sure that a blind woman is really the best person to interpret a map, but whatevs.

lol, I thought the exact same thing when S3 had her interpreting Shenhua's descriptions of the drawings.

I’d also thought that the cliff temple was the place where the mirrors were originally stored before Sunming and Iwao retrieved them - and so again - I really don’t see why the cliff temple holds any more importance to the story given that the mirrors are no longer there.

There seems to be some speculation that the cliff temple might be where the treasure is stored, but given that the mirrors themselves are maps, it makes little sense that they would be maps that lead to the location that they themselves are already stored in. I dunno. Maybe they serve as the starting point for the map(s) contained within the mirrors?

Anyway, my point was, why would they hide the map to protect the location of the mirrors when they have already taken the mirrors from the temple? Even if somebody found the map - and even if they somehow deduced that they needed to go to the cliff temple (which I’m not sure is even mentioned on the map because they focused on Niaowu) - the mirrors are no longer at the temple.

With that being the case, if the map serves solely as a means to find the mirrors at the cliff temple, it became useless the moment Sunming and Iwao took the mirrors and so keeping it or returning it to the bell tower would make no real sense.

From what we have to go on, the Cliff Temple is where the mirrors were stored after they were created until they were removed from there by Sunming Zhao to protect them from the CYM. Now the CYM have both mirrors and are going back to the Cliff Temple for unknown reasons. Unfortunately, Elder Yeh says that the scroll from Bailu Village is the treasure map, even though the mirrors are supposed to be the treasure map and, doubly unfortunately, the scroll is ultimately useless in S3 since Chai tells them to go to Niaowu and Yuan tells them to go to the Cliff Temple. So it's possible that S3 is implying that the mirrors are no longer a map and the two only function as a key, but that would mean we're much closer to the end of the story. As I said, it's a mess.

Well I guess Ryo could learn that Lan Di was right when he claimed that Iwao killed Sunming? If this is really what happened, I think he’d have to at the very least re-evaluate the situation which might help him to see that Lan Di was only doing what he himself has sworn to do.

I really can’t decide if I want Iwao to have killed Sunming or not, as both could provide some interesting consequences in terms of how Ryo and Lan Di’s arcs progress.

In my opinion, if Iwao didn't kill Sunming the story is fundamentally broken. Doesn't mean he couldn't have been justified or whatever, but he definitely had to have done it. Path of the warrior and all that.

I guess they were just very short chapters.

But S3 abandons the chapter structure, in S1 and 2, Ryo writes a little chapter number above the entries in his journal (1. Yokosuka 2. Hong Kong 3. Kowloon (which is in Hong Kong, but still) and 4. Guilin.

Iirc, the results being similar was referencing the game’s poor chart position in the UK, but I could be wrong. Either way, it definitely implies that the game only sold around 18,000 copies worldwide.

He cites the 18,000 figure, then talks about Astral Chain and Code Vein, then talks about DS, then he says similar numbers all over the world. The sentence doesn't make any sense without "in Japan" somewhere so I'm willing to chalk it up to an editing mistake, rather than him deliberately misleading.

He did? I would’ve thought that if he were going to mention it it would have been during the section where he talks about how many copies of the game are in circulation.

This is where your point about him making a good video taking precedent really comes into play since he mentions the successful KS when painting a picture of how excited he was for the game but likely didn't want to repeat the information later in the video when it may have been more informative.

Without the hyperbole, misleading examples and lies, we see that the average person seems to think that Shenmue 3 is an average / pretty good game.

No, we see that the average person who has beaten Shenmue 3 thinks that (which is a very skewed audience). I think the fact that S3 failed to reach a larger audience shows that the "average gamer" was simply not interested in playing the game for one reason or another. I don't think this can be blamed entirely on negative reviews since 1. plenty of games get negative reviews and still sell well and 2. the negative reviews don't fundamentally misrepresent the game (it's slow, you spend a lot of time grinding and talking to people, there isn't a lot of action, the combat isn't very engaging etc.) even if they do exacerbate its flaws.

 

[iknifaugood]

That’s my point. Izumi was an Easter egg of sorts for fans who really dig in and explore what the game has to offer rather than just following the main storyline. Shenmue 3 didn’t have the budget to implement such an expansive side quest that 90%+ of players would never experience and so there aren’t any fights in which the difficulty has been scaled for hardcore fans.

But it has difficulty selection! So playing S3 on nightmare is equivalent to the hardest fights in S1 and 2.

I mean... you train and then you can hit harder and take more damage. It seems a pretty solid comparison to me.

I don’t think there’s any added incentive to level Ryo up other than making fights easier, but with this in mind, I don’t think it’s fair to then complain that the fights are too easy.

But the game doesn't tell you what level you should be at! In a JRPG, if you're facing enemies leveled 10-12, you know that you should be somewhere in that range; you do not grind for a bit and get to level 99 because you're not even given enough XP to do that. S3 only has one gate like that (the rooster step), that prevents Ryo from maxing out too early. If the goal of the training is to modify the difficulty (which I don't think was its intention since the game has difficulty modes) then it's poorly designed in that regard.

As leveling up in JRPGs is mainly done passively as you progress through the story whilst training in Shenmue 3 is (more or less) entirely optional, one could argue that the system in Shenmue 3 gives players much more control over the difficulty of the fights.

It's definitely not optional. You have to beat two dojos worth of opponents to progress the story, which is basically like attempting a naked run in Dark Souls.

I’d be genuinely interested to see a budget game with 3D combat, 100+ fully animated moves and combat with multiple enemies that does a significantly better job than Shenmue 3.

There's a reason you don't see that, or open world games in general, attempted on a low budget.

 

[Creward]

The physics and animations are my biggest obstacles.The combat just doesn't feel satisfying to me. I am playing Ghost of Tsushima right now and it has very simplistic combat, yet 20+ hours in I'm still having a blast. They made it feel great. That's certainly easier said than done...

Same here, while I agree on the input lag is not the best thing to have it did not bother me as much as the lack of "oomh" or "juice" (some game designers use that word) that can really be attributed to the animations/physics/sound used in the current combat system in Shenmue 3.

 

[Rydeen]

You said:


So if it's not fair to say that if S4 keeps the same system but adds parries and throws, you will consider it as fully featured as S1 and 2's system, then I'm afraid it's not my reading comprehension that should be in question.


I showed you a video of a guy beating the hardest 1v1 fights in the game by spamming one move. You can't "suck" at a game that allows for that. And I'm afraid "git gud" isn't a requisite for criticism.


If you enjoyed the combat system, then good for you, but no one is "failing to grasp the system"; we don't like it. At least not as much as the first two.

Generally I have actual engineering to do on things that exist in the real world, so no I have not kept up with every post in this thread you've made into your spamming grounds.

You're the game developer here, I've heard. I'm pretty sure you know what a "feature" is. It seems like you don't know what elements actually make up those features for a fighting system, though. Whether or not you actually like the way those features were implemented in the game is, again, NOT RELEVANT. You and others have accused the system of lacking depth that's already there. If you're concerned about the AI not being good enough, ADJUST THE DIFFICULTY. That is a feature the first two games did not have. By the way, did you not know that you can spam the same move on enemies in the first two games without issue, even in the Dou NIu fight?

As tomboz mentioned, the parry button in the first two games is busted. They can certainly improve the combat. I personally hope they add a Third Strike style parry where tapping the direction toward the incoming attack parries it; putting the move shortcuts on the right stick; cycle through targets with the bumpers; right trigger for inputting grapple moves. If it were still exactly the same, though, there would still not be an issue with the system.

You are failing to grasp the system, and I know you're going to twist this discussion into personal opinions on 'feel,' of the combat rather than addressing the fact that you said it lacks depth, and it doesn't. I don't care if you don't like the combat. Just say it doesn't suit you, and move on. Don't give me this bullshit about it lacking aspects that it doesn't.

We're not talking about story fights here. @Rydeen was specifically mentioning high level play, which is why I'm talking about a video of someone beating the hardest 1v1 fights in the Rose Garden on nightmare difficulty (so the hardest fights in the game), by literally spamming one button. You simply can't do that in the hardest fights in S1 and 2, which is why I asked @Rydeen to find a video of someone beating Izumi in a similar fashion.

Why would they have to be 1v1 fights? Those aren't the hardest fights in Shenmue 3. That's a really arbitrary criterion. Besides that, Izumi is not the hardest fight in the first two games. The only thing that's even remotely challenging with Izumi is the broken damage if you miss command QTEs against her.


I've made my points. You can continue to wring your hands over this, but I'm done.

 

[iknifaugood]

You're the game developer here, I've heard. I'm pretty sure you know what a "feature" is. It seems like you don't know what elements actually make up those features for a fighting system, though. Whether or not you actually like the way those features were implemented in the game is, again, NOT RELEVANT. You and others have accused the system of lacking depth that's already there. If you're concerned about the AI not being good enough, ADJUST THE DIFFICULTY. That is a feature the first two games did not have. By the way, did you not know that you can spam the same move on enemies in the first two games without issue, even in the Dou NIu fight?

You seem to be under the assumption that I think S1 and 2 have perfect combat systems. I have repeatedly characterized them as 20 year old games; the fact that they hold up at all today is a miracle. I actually can't think of a game where combat isn't the sole focus that has a fighting system that holds up as well as Shenmue for its time. If you consider S3 to be as fully featured and deep as a pair of 20 year old games (and you don't), then congratulations, it's met the bare minimum of expectations. I can't think of a single genre (apart from strategy games) where, 20 years on, we're debating if the mechanics of the latest entry are better. I think that S3 should have improved on S1 and 2 so nothing you say is going to convince me that the system isn't a failure because it is.

I personally hope they add a Third Strike style parry where tapping the direction toward the incoming attack parries it

Doesn't work as well in a game with full 3D movement, which is why most games have a dedicated button or combo for it.

If it were still exactly the same, though, there would still not be an issue with the system.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. I happen to love Shaq-Fu.

You are failing to grasp the system, and I know you're going to twist this discussion into personal opinions on 'feel,' of the combat rather than addressing the fact that you said it lacks depth, and it doesn't. I don't care if you don't like the combat. Just say it doesn't suit you, and move on. Don't give me this bullshit about it lacking aspects that it doesn't.

It lacks depth and it doesn't suit me. You repeatedly listing features that don't even measure up to a pair of 20 year old games doesn't change that and it certainly doesn't mean I've somehow failed to grasp the system. Kingdom Hearts lacks grabs but has parries and a bunch of magic and super attacks, is it as deep or "deeper" than Shenmue 3?

Why would they have to be 1v1 fights? Those aren't the hardest fights in Shenmue 3. That's a really arbitrary criterion.

Because they're the hardest fights in the first 2 games! The arcade fight with Chai is the hardest fight in S1, and Izumi and the ranked battles are the hardest fights in S2. So, to compare the systems tested at the highest levels, you have to compare them equally.