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

Dietsoap said:
On one hand your point is completely valid, but on the other it's kind of his own fault for giving it such a stupid and hyperbolic title to begin with. He could change it any time he wants, maybe then I'd watch it jk that's a lie, there's pretty much nothing he could do to get me to watch this short of splicing in some Shenmue 4 footage or some nice T&A.
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Your loss. It's a good and thoughtful review.

LemonHaze said:
I loved it. Much as I liked trying to obtain a lot of the capsule toys.... for almost no apparent reason. :)
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Sonoshee said:
I enjoyed collecting capsules in the first two games, why would it be any different in 3?
I also enjoyed trading herbs for monies, does that still count? :p
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Guys, the capsule toys in S3 are random filler content that have no relevance to the world, or anything. They are there for the sake of being there. Seeking completion is not the same as doing it because you enjoy it. Fire axes and fire hydrants could be completely removed from S3 and no one would miss anything. If Shenmue 4 doesn't have lamps to buy and trade, I doubt anyone will say anything about it.

There's literally no benefit to defending meaningless filler content in a game supposedly on a budget.

This topic is frustrating and disappointing.

Shenmue 3 sucks but I hope the best for Shenmue 4. I can say that and have no fear of being labelled any less of a fan, even if Yu Suzuki himself reads my post.
 
Nobody is wrong in there argument of Shenmue 3. Some like some don't. Some of us fall somewhere in the middle. Shenmue 3 has alot of flaws but it's still enjoyable in many ways. After 20 years of waiting I'll take it all day everyday and twice on Sunday😎
 
GhostTrick said:
The serie didn't. But Shenmue III did. And I think it's fair to say that kind of things about III. Even if a serie as a whole is amazing, you can single out chapters as weaker than others. That's the case for Shenmue III.
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Right, but I'm confused how you can judge its entry into the series, if you simply do not know the full details. We're going round and round in circles, now.
 
Thomasina said:
Guys, the capsule toys in S3 are random filler content that have no relevance to the world, or anything. They are there for the sake of being there. Seeking completion is not the same as doing it because you enjoy it. Fire axes and fire hydrants could be completely removed from S3 and no one would miss anything. If Shenmue 4 doesn't have lamps to buy and trade, I doubt anyone will say anything about it.
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Now that is a far reach. So exactly what relevance do any of the capsule toys have in any of the games, then?
 
Thomasina said:
Your loss. It's a good and thoughtful review.



Guys, the capsule toys in S3 are random filler content that have no relevance to the world, or anything. They are there for the sake of being there. Seeking completion is not the same as doing it because you enjoy it. Fire axes and fire hydrants could be completely removed from S3 and no one would miss anything. If Shenmue 4 doesn't have lamps to buy and trade, I doubt anyone will say anything about it.

There's literally no benefit to defending meaningless filler content in a game supposedly on a budget.

This topic is frustrating and disappointing.

Shenmue 3 sucks but I hope the best for Shenmue 4. I can say that and have no fear of being labelled any less of a fan, even if Yu Suzuki himself reads my post.
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Isn't constructive discussion good?
 
I mean criticizing things like a group of generic thugs holding a town of martial arts experts who train all day under siege ‘til Ryo earns enough money to buy liquor and until he catches chickens, two weeks later: is this being picky, or is it a criticism that’s fair? I guess it’s picky if you think video games writing hasn’t evolved since the NES days, but we are talking about a sequel to an open world pioneer that emphasizes reality. I think it’s pretty fair to say a game full of moments like this at least has somewhat objectively poor writing, no matter how subjective an opinion on writing seems to be. It’s evidence of a certain lack of care that went into the game, imo, especially combined with infamous things like a dude saying “No I haven’t”.

There are areas that I think subjectivity takes over for sure, such as whether the combat is inferior, or if the mini games are boring,but there are aspects of Shenmue 3 that I think are pretty clearly inferior or poor when you compare these aspects to modern standards.

Not sure I would necessarily call “filler” an issue, though a stronger main game would make the “filler” stand out much less.
 
Dietsoap said:
On one hand your point is completely valid, but on the other it's kind of his own fault for giving it such a stupid and hyperbolic title to begin with. He could change it any time he wants, maybe then I'd watch it jk that's a lie, there's pretty much nothing he could do to get me to watch this short of splicing in some Shenmue 4 footage or some nice T&A.
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EDIT: Never mind, you should really watch it though
 
LemonHaze said:
Now that is a far reach. So exactly what relevance do any of the capsule toys have in any of the games, then?
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I honestly don't know if your posts are real or not...

Are you seriously asking me the difference between a fire axe toy and something like, say, Virtua Fighter toys and Sonic toys? I'm not a Sonic fan, nor am I fan of Virtua Fighter but those capsule toys were cool and relevant, especially when Shemue was a flaship exclusive title on a Sega system.

I'm gonna say that this video seems to have triggered the most unusual responses I've personally seen on this forum. I need to bounce out before I get banned.
 
Thomasina said:
I honestly don't know if your posts are real or not...

Are you seriously asking me the difference between a fire axe toy and something like, say, Virtua Fighter toys and Sonic toys? I'm not a Sonic fan, nor am I fan of Virtua Fighter but those capsule toys were cool and relevant, especially when Shemue was a flaship exclusive title on a Sega system.

I'm gonna say that this video seems to have triggered the most unusual responses I've personally seen on this forum. I need to bounce out before I get banned.
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By your own admission, you called 'capsule toys' filler. And there is 0 purpose to the capsule toys, be it the ones you might like or not, in Shenmue I and II. So I don't really see the difference at all between the capsule toys found in Shenmue I and II and the ones found in Shenmue III, they're just capsule toys... none of them have any significance in the story at all.
 
Thomasina said:
I honestly don't know if your posts are real or not...

Are you seriously asking me the difference between a fire axe toy and something like, say, Virtua Fighter toys and Sonic toys? I'm not a Sonic fan, nor am I fan of Virtua Fighter but those capsule toys were cool and relevant, especially when Shemue was a flaship exclusive title on a Sega system.

I'm gonna say that this video seems to have triggered the most unusual responses I've personally seen on this forum. I need to bounce out before I get banned.
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The thing is they put what they could into gacha cuz they didn’t have the licensing lined up but the fans expected collectibles. I can’t really fault them for including it. Did I enjoy collecting lil trees and stuff? Not really. But honestly, I didn’t care about gacha when I was collecting Sonic and Knuckles either.

like I said, I cant really fault the team for anything here, though perhaps next time they can prioritize the main game at the expense of extras, if it comes to that. I can definitely expect people to freak out over no forklift or gacha in Shenmue IV, but I’d guess the desire for the team to include all these throwbacks will diminish now that the series hasn’t been dormant for nearly two decades.
 
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Rydeen said:
It's not really inaccurate, but I don't really see that final scene as expository. To me it was meant as a sort of vignette to place the three protagonists together with their primary motivations. I don't think it necessarily represents actual events after the boat out of Niaowu.

Shenhua and Ryo do share a scene together after she's rescued. It just doesn't have any dialogue between them (which I personally enjoy quite a bit).
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That’s a fair point and I can also interpret the last scene as something of a vignette with their primary motivations articulated (I do wonder if Suzuki’s promise of the meaning of the poem will ever come to fruition)

I actually liked the last scene too, the lense flare colouring Ryo’s sense of loss, helplessness and anger. I still think there should have been a scene paying off Ryo rescuing her or at least interacting with her Dad since his rescue was arguably driving the entire narrative of Shenmue 3.

iknifaugood said:
Right but if you just played S1 and 2 and didn't follow S3's development super closely (I didn't as I wanted to go into S3 with as little information as possible) then, just going from the previous games, there was no reason to assume that you would need to grind for money daily except possibly to buy food. Certainly not enough to save for the amount of money the game requires ($7000 for just the two moves). I think it's perfectly valid to criticize that when it simply wasn't a major part of the series prior to this.
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Yet you don’t need to grind for money daily. I just mentioned in my original post that my initial playthrough I developed a routine, just I had in prior games with regarding to training and tasks so by the time I reached those paywalls since I was interacting with these interconnected systems and economy it didn’t necessarily halt my progress since I had constant engagement. My larger point was the opportunities to engage in the economy is more diverse and plentiful than the two prior Shenmue games combined. There’s no reason he would only play Flower, Bird, Wind and Moon especially as it’s far from the optimal way to earn money legitimately.

And last point I want to bring up, is any additions or changes to the Shenmue formula is looked at by some fans as egregious. We can debate some of those changes implementation (i.e. the stamina system) but as @mjqjazzbar alluded to I think the ultimate conclusion SEW reaches regarding Yu Suzuki is off base. According to Ryan Patton, Suzuki initially pitched 70/30 of new to old elements and others had to argue that he more closely eschews to the original games so my take is from the information we have Suzuki wants to push new ideas and is far from stuck in the past. Whether he has the time, budget and team to implement those ideas is another discussion.
 
iknifaugood said:
1. It doesn't matter what the conversion is, what matters is how much of the player's time is wasted. So 7000 as compared with 1000.

2. But you can save scum. It's how I did it in all my playthroughs of S2. I never spent more than 15-20 minutes earning enough money to satisfy the needs of the story and to buy every move in the game. And either way, the gambling stakes are much higher in S2, so if you happen to get a particularly lucky playthrough, you can be done in no time in S2. S3's system strikes me as a reaction to save scumming and not in a good way.
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It makes ALL of the difference! I said 'if you remove save scumming gambling,' because it takes about the same time to hit these milestones in both games doing just that. I need that Drake meme for: Panel A) People deciding to save scum gambling in Shenmue III. Panel B) People deciding to save scum gambling in Shenmue II.

All you're actually saying is that 2000 is a larger number than 500. That's obviously true, but you fail to acknowledge the differences in earning potential, and spending power between the two games. You'd be lucky to make 70 HK$ moving crates. Maybe you could do better working part time at a lucky hit stand, but both are very time consuming. Wood chopping takes a couple minutes, and pays about 50-75 Yuan at a time. You can also, just in the normal course of your gameplay, stop for a second to pick some herbs, which will pay in the 100s of Yuan. Fishing and foklifting probably take roughly the same amount of time as moving crates in Shenmue II, and both pay out in the 100s of Yuan. If you aren't good and/or lucky with gambling, your legitimate options in Shenmue II are dire. For all intents and purposes, this is alleviated in Shenmue III. You're hung up on this idea of one number being larger than the other with nothing to support the actual time investment being worse.


iknifaugood said:
I don't really see how that's possible given the overly simplistic mechanics and enemies, especially compared to S1 and 2, as was the point made in the video.
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Right, so you are confirming to me that you did not learn optimal movement, nor the dodging mechanics, and you also didn't bother to go through the move list to figure out the different properties each move has in terms of strike height, range, combo ability, etc. I think it's also safe to assume at this point that you only ever played on Normal, of Hard difficulty, and didn't give yourself a reason to learn these things because your training always outstripped your opponent.

The only fundamental differences in combat features between Shenmue I&II and Shenmue III, are grabs, parries, and unlocked movement. Grabs don't add depth unless your opponents can also grab you. Parries are great, and probably the biggest loss of depth, but also don't make or break it. Having unlocked movement is probably one of the least good things about the combat in the first two games, in my opinion. Can't say I miss that.


iknifaugood said:
In Empire Strikes Back, no one complains that Luke doesn't land a hit on Vader but that's partially because there's a reasonable chance of him beating him in the next fight: not so with Shenmue.
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Oh, right. I forgot that all characters must conform to how the archetypes were laid down in the almighty Star Wars. What an insufferable twit Suzuki is for giving Ryo an obstacle that he potentially can't overcome. I really can't believe anyone would dare to think about removing the player's catharsis like that. You're right.


mjqjazzbar said:
I mean criticizing things like a group of generic thugs holding a town of martial arts experts who train all day under siege ‘til Ryo earns enough money to buy liquor and until he catches chickens, two weeks later: is this being picky, or is it a criticism that’s fair?
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It's picky, because most of the martial arts "masters" are old and retired. Some of the ones in Bokusen say as much when they tell Ryo that they no longer accept students. Even Kong Mei mentions she'd like to be a bit younger in order to deal with the thugs. They aren't really the small threat you're making them out to be, either. They are sort of presented as affable, but it's a facade. Aside from that, all of this pretty much ties into the idea of what Ryo lacks: patience. These people have learned not to rush foolishly into dire situations. Ryo saves them, but was practially risking his life. He's brash, and unpolished, and it still shows in his technique.
 
LemonHaze said:
I think that is speculation, sir.
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It certainly is but Yu Suzuki age, 62, does not seem to help against it and honestly I do not think anyone aside of him will be making Shenmue games.

Assuming a dev time of 2.5 years per game Yu Suzuki would be 67 so it seems quite unlikely to see something beyond it.
LemonHaze said:
Right, but I'm confused how you can judge its entry into the series, if you simply do not know the full details. We're going round and round in circles, now.
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You can judge an individual entry of any series, we do that all the time, a few example:
* Star Wars episode 2 did not become ever an okai movie and we could judge that after day 1 of the screening even without having to see episode 3.
* Final Fantasy 13 was not a good jrpg even if we know there were more into that series.
 
hmjohnny said:
One sentiment I'm getting from scanning this thread is that there are a lot of sour people on here that don't like any criticism of S3. I get that this is a kind of safe space for Shenmue fans but we need to remember that SEPW is (was?) a big Shenmue fan and S3 being a disappointment for him hurts a lot more than if he were only passively interested. A sentiment I and others on this forum share with him as well. So when you see fans harshly criticizing the game/series (i.e. @iknifaugood, @Thomasina) and we are still posting here we are doing so because we love the series and want it to be better, not because we hate it.
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I do not doubt your sincerity nor Super Eyepatch Wolf's. My issue is the inability of people to see that not everyone shares their views. It's one thing to say "Shenmue III is garbage and here's why" versus "If you don't agree that Shenmue III sucks then (insert generalization here). Which is something I have seen inferred multiple times here at the Dojo. It's pure egotism at its finest.

For all your time here I am surprised that you think this forum is a "Safe Space" for Shenmue fans. If that were the case, why haven't the moderators banned members for having negative opinions on Shenmue? Why have the moderators had to reign-in fans who do go too far in their love for Shenmue III that they can't see that not everyone feels the same way? Why have some fans who loved the game admit that it does have some faults? If anything, this sounds like the exact opposite of a safe space.

This forum welcomes civil discourse and encourages people to express their views in a constructive manner. The only sentiment I have seen from this thread is how utterly divided the fanbase is over Shenmue III.

BruceWayne911 said:
I know on this forum Yu Suzuki is a "god" but it made me cringe to hear Yu say that he doesn't keep up with what's going on in the gaming industry. That was cool back in the day when Yu was actively making games but a lot has changed since the early 2000s. I pray that someone on this forum or anyone who knows the heartbeat of the community can relay these concerns to Yu Suzuki. It's not for my sake because I'm already a die-hard fan but if we want to see the conclusion there needs to be changed.
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I think Suzuki is quite aware of this given his perfectionist nature and what we learned from the IGN Japan interview. In it, he states that he made Shenmue III the way he did because he thought that's what the fanbase wanted. With Shenmue IV, he's clearly stated he wants to broaden Shenmue's appeal. Seeing how he added more anti-frustration features as the series has gone on tells me he takes the criticism to his work seriously. In that same interview, he even mentions adding throw moves back into the combat system. So I am not too worried about Suzuki being out of touch.
 
Of course the video is now becoming one of his fastest growing videos. It has gained more than a 100k more views just during the day...
 
Tsukuyomimagi99 said:
I do not doubt your sincerity nor Super Eyepatch Wolf's. My issue is the inability of people to see that not everyone shares their views. It's one thing to say "Shenmue III is garbage and here's why" versus "If you don't agree that Shenmue III sucks then (insert generalization here). Which is something I have seen inferred multiple times here at the Dojo. It's pure egotism at its finest.

For all your time here I am surprised that you think this forum is a "Safe Space" for Shenmue fans. If that were the case, why haven't the moderators banned members for having negative opinions on Shenmue? Why have the moderators had to reign-in fans who do go too far in their love for Shenmue III that they can't see that not everyone feels the same way? Why have some fans who loved the game admit that it does have some faults? If anything, this sounds like the exact opposite of a safe space.

This forum welcomes civil discourse and encourages people to express their views in a constructive manner. The only sentiment I have seen from this thread is how utterly divided the fanbase is over Shenmue III
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I don't think that I have personally approached criticism of the games saying that if you like/don't like X then you must be dumb etc. I'd agree that kind of rhetoric is needlessly inflammatory but I get why sometimes some people may get that way, the anonymity of the internet makes it easy to dissociate from others and their feelings.

Regarding it being a safe space, I don't mean that literally. But there is a general consensus here among most people that negativity isn't welcome. The reason for that is there is already so much negativity on the internet, especially towards Shenmue, that it's nice to have a small slice of the net where like minded people can say they enjoy the games without being bashed. I know the mods aren't actually censoring criticisms of the game, but the general feeling around here is that's what most people would like this forum to be.

I have to agree that the Shenmue fanbase is very divided. I think that's to be expected given that Shenmue 3 leans heavily into one aspect of Shenmue and not others. Depending on what you like these games for S3 is either more Shenmue or something that only barely resembles Shenmue. Like other series who have faced similar divergences the fan base divides.
 
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