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

I agree with your points but it all comes back to finances and the development team. Shenmue 1 and 2 had unlimited funds and a top notch development team. Moving forward we're gonna have to keep our expectations in check. IMO if we get Shenmue 5 we're never gonna match the quality of Shenmue 1&2.


Whatever the reasons are, it can be argued. What I meant to point out though is why some people feel that way. Now the reasons why the game are this way is another matter. Even though I still think that some of those shortcomings are more about misguided priorities in regard to the budget. Shenmue I and II might have a huge budget indeed. But people didn't ask for a AAA Shenmue by today standards. Doing what a 20 years old game does today with a smaller budget is doable. The thing is, some of the elements feels like a step backward.

To me, Shenmue 3 budget shortcomings prevent it from being up to par to today's AAA standards. Not 20 years ago AAA standards.
 
But again its all subjective.

If you think it's not worth it then that's fair game. But others clearly think it is (user reviews are generally positive.

As I've said a fair bit. It does lack the characterisation of the first two games (amongst other things) and the payoff isn't as great but, for me it's still an enjoyable game that I will play again.

Budget absolutely played a part in that. Animations and cutscenes are, so I'm told, some of the most difficult and time consuming parts of a game to make. In Shenmue II we got quite a few long cutscenes/activities establishing our characters, Shenmue III doesn't and therefore the characters suffer.

I'd wonder what the comparison is between Shenmue III and either Shenmue I or II is in terms of actual cutscene content.

The management of said funds is the interesting question for me.
 
Last edited:
This. 100% this. Anytime I've ever recommended Shenmue to someone it's always with the caveat "the juice is worth the squeeze". It's pretty much the only game where I will put up with the shenanigans it asks of me because of the characters, setting, story, and overall vibe of the game. If the story gets its hooks in you, S1 and 2 always make it worth your time. Clearly that's not true of S3. When SEPW started yelling "why is this what you made?!" during the grinding part, I think I yelled the exact same thing during my play through.


That's my feeling as well. The juice you get from Shenmue III are the elements some of us are complaining about.


But again its all subjective.

If you think it's not worth it then that's fair game. But others clearly think it is (user reviews are generally positive.

As I've said a fair bit. It does lack the characterisation of the first two games (amongst other things) and the payoff isn't as great but, for me it's still an enjoyable game that I will play again.


Personnal enjoyment is always subjective indeed
Save for CD4. It's objectively a masterpiece. I don't want to hear otherwise :""")
But I feel like we're many to feel that way and there's also many others who feel the opposite way. My point was to try to convey how part of the audience feels like since some people are arguing that "we are disliking Shenmue III for being Shenmue".
 
That's my feeling as well. The juice you get from Shenmue III are the elements some of us are complaining about.





Personnal enjoyment is always subjective indeed
Save for CD4. It's objectively a masterpiece. I don't want to hear otherwise :""")
But I feel like we're many to feel that way and there's also many others who feel the opposite way. My point was to try to convey how part of the audience feels like since some people are arguing that "we are disliking Shenmue III for being Shenmue".
Disc 4 is excellent. No doubt haha.

I think Shenmue means/is different things to different people. So what we ended up with is a one size fits all, but not quite approach. Perfectly playable and enjoyable but lacking in the areas discussed.

A basis for a Shenmue 4 if it happens. But that's a whole other thread
 
Whatever the reasons are, it can be argued. What I meant to point out though is why some people feel that way. Now the reasons why the game are this way is another matter. Even though I still think that some of those shortcomings are more about misguided priorities in regard to the budget. Shenmue I and II might have a huge budget indeed. But people didn't ask for a AAA Shenmue by today standards. Doing what a 20 years old game does today with a smaller budget is doable. The thing is, some of the elements feels like a step backward.

To me, Shenmue 3 budget shortcomings prevent it from being up to par to today's AAA standards. Not 20 years ago AAA standards.


Yea, that's what I think has more to do with it. In the middle of development, the budget increased by quite a bit, and in the heat of the moment, Yu Suzuki made a very bad judgment call.

It would've been so much better if the mapping was scaled down alittle, maybe 1 less mni game, and they put Shenmue 2 quality QTEs, as well as developed the characters that are suppose to be new major characters more.
 
Whatever the reasons are, it can be argued. What I meant to point out though is why some people feel that way. Now the reasons why the game are this way is another matter. Even though I still think that some of those shortcomings are more about misguided priorities in regard to the budget. Shenmue I and II might have a huge budget indeed. But people didn't ask for a AAA Shenmue by today standards. Doing what a 20 years old game does today with a smaller budget is doable. The thing is, some of the elements feels like a step backward.

To me, Shenmue 3 budget shortcomings prevent it from being up to par to today's AAA standards. Not 20 years ago AAA standards.

I don't think it is doable. We know Yu Suzuki to be a perfectionist if we could've gotten a better game I believe we would have one. As much as we praise Yu for Shenmue equal praise has to go to the AM2 development team. Yu asked those guys to do things that had never been done in gaming.
 
Yea, that's what I think has more to do with it. In the middle of development, the budget increased by quite a bit, and in the heat of the moment, Yu Suzuki made a very bad judgment call.

It would've been so much better if the mapping was scaled down alittle, maybe 1 less mni game, and they put Shenmue 2 quality QTEs, as well as developed the characters that are suppose to be new major characters more.


I wouldn't say as a whole that he made a bad judgment call. There was a decision to take. One that please part of the userbase but not the other. It just happened that the direction taken was one that displeased me and many others.


I don't think it is doable. We know Yu Suzuki to be a perfectionist if we could've gotten a better game I believe we would have one. As much as we praise Yu for Shenmue equal praise has to go to the AM2 development team. Yu asked those guys to do things that had never been done in gaming.


Yes, in 1999-2000. Most of the stuff Shenmue I and II are doing can be done with a fraction of the budget today. Hence why Shenmue III has been possible. But decisions were made toward some elements rather than others.
 
Hopefully in Shenmue 4, they reduce the npcs by 50% but make all of the main characters and main npcs fully fleshed out.

Id rather have that than hundreds of random npcs.


Having less general NPCs won't really free up work hours, for something major like that. Scaling the map size down a bit would though(do we really need a million shops for example. It's likely we wouldn't even beable to tell, if they scaled that down), and fix other issues as well(for example one of the valid arguments is, there weren't enough NPCs in the city as is).
 
Whatever happens, it's going to be difficult to please everyone again.
Yu Suzuki needs to do his own thing and not cave into what he thinks the fans want for 4 and 5.
It's not their game, it's his.
 
Hopefully in Shenmue 4, they reduce the npcs by 50% but make all of the main characters and main npcs fully fleshed out.

Id rather have that than hundreds of random npcs.
Shenmue 3 is already quite thin on NPCs. Reducing the number would make the setting to be a town smaller than Bailu. Or do you mean NPC we can interact with?
 
Page 16. People complaining about eating garlics "its not realistic". When they notice that Shenhua can talk with animals they will fade away.

This is pure gold.
It may or may not be realistic, but I'm not sure it's fun or adds anything to Shenmue. Shenhua talking to animals, on the other hand...
 
When does he do this?
In his first video about Shenmue, the "tragic history of".

There is no reason to assume that "most" of S3 would have been slow-paced anymore than there was reason to assume that S2 would be slow-paced for "most" of the game. Unless you think that S3 was always meant to be the way that it is.
I do think that, broadly speaking, Bailu and Niaowu are close to what we would've got in 2003 in terms of story events. It's the last third of the game that would've been majorly different -- heightened the stakes, featured more action scenes etc. -- and this was all cut and condensed into an hour of content in the final game. Obviously there's no way to know for sure -- that's just what I think based on the info we have.

Despite having this conversation multiple times, I feel like the point never gets through.
The issue with Shenmue III isn't that it's slow paced...The problem is the quality of what's being played/shown.
If you looked a few posts up I was talking about the story more than anything, not just the pacing, that impacts the Shenmue formula, and this is presumably why SEPW dislikes 1 and 3 but not 2 (judging from both his Shenmue videos). I literally said:
...talk to person X to find person/location Y, where you'll find person Z -- that's the foundation of all 3 games. Obviously the reason behind finding the next person/location will dramatically affect your enjoyment of this system...
I'm not sure why you're pretending like people don't know why others dislike S3. We know. We've been over every point a thousand times already. It's just that not everyone agrees with your definition of quality.

For example, you say the slow pace works at the end of S2 but not in S3. I disagree. The ending of S2, while novel for the time, is painfully drawn-out and self-indulgent. It's extremely linear, much more than any section of S3, it's repetitive and could've been cut by at least 60% and the game would've been better for it.

My point is, creating a strawman as an excuse to re-explain and regurgitate the same opinions over and over again is tiresome.
 
I suspect a lot of aspects that make the story thin is the ability to play as shenua and ren being cut as I understand this was the original plan and it's very clear something was lost when this aspect was removed especially in how shenhua becomes well not even a character on the 2nd halfe which was a real missed opportunity to see her perspective on how she interacts with the locals a d a busy location she has never been before instead she just comes off kinda cold

I imagine each character was ment to a bit of story each that by themselves didn't add up to much but she all 3 of ther sections was completed it was going to add up to something like meow sun would of had a bit of story with each of them or in some way even made it so each character unknowingly effected eachothers progression think sonic adventure structure

It without the other 2 characters perspective we only got ryo which didnt make as much sense as Imagine it would have otherwise

That's my theory anyway
 
I'll fix the spelling later I'm using a really crummy phone to type this out with tiny little screen lol it I hope you guys can follow what I was getting at
 
Cracking post. I think it is forgotten that in some circles Shenmue III was indeed well loved. And I also agree it can exist within a massive gaming industry that we have today, which is why we need to keep the message out there that we want the series to continue.
Nah, not at all. Let's bullshit the game in public and make sure to spread the voice that everybody hated it. That wont affect a development of S4 at all, let's just make memes about how bad it is. I mean, garlics? Really? Come on, this cant be a serious game.
 
In his first video about Shenmue, the "tragic history of".
I haven't watched it in a while, as I recall it's mostly positive.

I do think that, broadly speaking, Bailu and Niaowu are close to what we would've got in 2003 in terms of story events.
I certainly hope not.

It's the last third of the game that would've been majorly different -- heightened the stakes, featured more action scenes etc. -- and this was all cut and condensed into an hour of content in the final game.
I know that it would've been different, we know as much from Cedric, but I don't see how the story could've been that different. I mean, Niao Sun gets the mirror and Ryo loses to Lan Di. Sure it could've been more Yellowhead-esque in execution, but I feel like the broad strokes of the story were there unless we were supposed to maybe get more about the 4 leaders of the CYM. But either way that doesn't change the fact that nothing was set up properly in Niaowu for any of it to be effective unless they were planning on introducing Niao Sun in Baisha.

The ending of S2, while novel for the time, is painfully drawn-out and self-indulgent. It's extremely linear, much more than any section of S3, it's repetitive and could've been cut by at least 60% and the game would've been better for it.
I don't disagree but I will say that it's the kind of thing that works better on a first playthrough (finally meeting Shenhua after 2 games of seeing her on the cover art, delivering the prologue, appearing in Ryo's dreams) so I can at least understand the structure of it. I don't understand S3 repeating much of the same ground; they could've copy-pasted some of the dialogue and I wouldn't have known.

Nah, not at all. Let's bullshit the game in public and make sure to spread the voice that everybody hated it. That wont affect a development of S4 at all, let's just make memes about how bad it is. I mean, garlics? Really? Come on, this cant be a serious game.
If people don't like the game then they're allowed to express it, it doesn't mean they're bullshitting. Hopefully it makes S4 better.
 
Yea, that's what I think has more to do with it. In the middle of development, the budget increased by quite a bit, and in the heat of the moment, Yu Suzuki made a very bad judgment call.
I think they had the game's scenario pretty well nailed down at that point, though. Granted, it would have included Baisha, but Suzuki has said that they began production with a focus on the story. I believe the extra funds from DS went into scaling up the game world and features to match an actual Shenmue game, like what the rest of the stretch goals from the Kickstarter suggested. I think there's potentially an argument to be made that there should have been less of that emphasis placed on Bailu, though. We don't really know when exactly Baisha was cut, or why, so there may have been a sense that building up Bailu and Niaowu would also help to cover for the absence of Baisha.


developed the characters that are suppose to be new major characters more.
I feel like there weren't really any new characters meant to play major roles in the story, at this point, aside from Niao Sun. I do think most of the audiences in the West potentially missed out on a lot of Hsu's character, though. He has a very thick backwater accent in Japanese, and plays off of Ryo as a bit of an affable dullard, especially when asking about animal forms. I find him entertaining in much the same way as Goro, or Cool J.
 
People have been dunking on Shenmue for 20 years and I can’t say that it’s ever really bothered me. It’s clearly not a game for everyone and I actually find a lot of the videos making fun of it to be pretty damn funny.

My concern comes from the need for Shenmue 3 to be as financially successful as possible and Yu’s promise to continue working on the series as long as there is a clear desire to see the series continue from the fan base.

Videos like this hurt sales and a bunch of fans saying ‘Yep. That video that says ‘Shenmue 3 is terrible and the series should just die already’ is completely honest and I agree with all of the criticisms in it.’ would likely weaken Yu’s determination to see the series through were the comments ever to be brought to his attention.

I can’t stop SEPW or those fans from feeling the way that they do, but I can show anybody reading that the video itself isn’t as black and white as it seems and that there are still fans who want to see the continuation of the series.

This is what I'm trying to say.
 
Back
Top