While it's true that these aren't necessarily part of every conversation per se, as he suggests, they are part of those instances at Shenhua's house (where Ryo takes his shoes off and when Shenhua stops him to say goodbye) and that is very weird since that's not how the previous games handled it and it's a large contributing factor into what makes those sequences feel so intrusive. So, again, considering this is something that is literally one line in a 40 minute review and it is indicative of a larger issue with the game, I can forgive it for not being super accurate and take it in good faith.
The transitions in and out of the shoe removal scenes are loading screens, which as I recall, is exactly how the original games handled pretty much
every transition.
Whilst it's true that these small, niggling complaints do build to form part of a much larger complaint, I think that in overstating the frequency and severity of them, he in turn presents that larger complaint as being much more serious than it actually is.
If I had to rate the game's cutscenes on a one to ten scale, I'd probably give them a four or a five and I'd say the dialogue is a five or a six. If I hadn't played the game and had to go solely on what I'd been shown in this video (which are suggested to be illustrative of the game's cutscenes and dialogue as a whole), I'd be scoring both of them as a one or a two.
Making the point that all of the progress the player makes in the game is constantly being broken up by these elements (a point that I don't entirely agree with in itself) becomes a much bigger problem when the dialogue is shown to be nonsensical and the cutscenes are portrayed as being utterly broken. Him throwing in additional ridiculous criticisms like the shoe removal scene only serves to exacerbate this.
It might be one line here and one line there, but these lines are instrumental in shaping his portrayal of a problem that covers nearly a third of the video (once the intro, outro and fanfiction sections have been taken out) and, according to him, is present throughout the entirety of the game.
The game never elaborates one way or the other but the fact that you can't enter that part of town, combined with the fact that they remain there until you beat them, sure gave me that impression.
I fundamentally disagree with this notion that Suzuki was "damned if he did, damned if he didn't". There were choices he could have made that would have made the game better, starting with better thinking out the scenario and its implications.
This argument could be made of elements of not only the original Shenmue games, but any book, movie, tv show or game that happens to feature a chance encounter.
We're told that the thugs had been chased out of town and we know that their mission is to capture stone-masons, so them returning to go after another one of the stone-masons makes perfect sense to me. It shouldn't
need to be implicitly stated. Losing the fight effectively triggers a reset to checkpoint, which is how pretty much every modern game handles stuff like this, so I don't think it's fair to suggest they are just waiting for Ryo to defeat them.
I don't see how you could possibly characterize the characters, pacing, and story developments of S3 as being not too far behind those in S2. Sure in S2 your objective of finding Lishao Tao is achieved rather quickly, I was exaggerating to point out that all of those things I mentioned are introduced in S2's equivalent of Bailu Village. And introduced in a far more rapid succession, as following the main plot of S2 can be done much faster than S3 (it's a shorter game with more substance).
I'm not referring to the characters and pacing here, but instead the story beats and revelations that punctuate the main quest. Some of the things found in Shenmue 2 were fantastic and I don't think that Shenmue 3 came close to matching them (the wude in particular), but I don't see how finding the Wulinshu for example (something that in an earlier post you suggested was one of the beats that made Shenmue 2 so much better than 3) is any more interesting than finding out about the history of the mirrors.
I think that Shenmue 3 had plenty of these little moments and revelations scattered throughout the game (almost as many as in S2) and had they been developed to the extent that the beats in Shenmue 2 were, it would have been a much better game.
Agree to disagree on this math. I will say that even if I grant you double the amount of days those cutscenes aren't an intrusion, you would still need to complete S3 in 18 in-game days in order for that to be true 1/3 of the time.
The cutscenes in question are only present in the Bailu section of the game which can very easily be completed in 18 in-game days (and do also bare in mind that the first in game day starts in the cave and so does not contain the cutscene).
I understand your point that you think a review should provide an unbiased summary of the game in order to allow the audience to make up their own mind, I even think that's kind of noble but ultimately impossible. Could you point me to an overly positive or overly negative review of something that meets this criteria? Not as any sort of gotcha, just honestly curious.
Good reviews are hard to come by and I'm not about to sift through reviews to find one. This isn't me deflecting, more not wanting to waste the time it would take to find one.
As you point out, it is very difficult to remain completely unbiased (although I don't quite agree that it is impossible), but
trying to remain unbiased and not stating things that you know to be false are fairly easy and I'm sure you yourself could find plenty of reviews that do these things with relative ease.
If that's the case then I think you would need to cut maybe a minute of the review, so I think it's pretty fair to classify that as throwaway content.
Referring to them as throwaway content implies that their inclusion has no real impact on the overall takeaway of the video, but I don't think that's the case (as per my earlier response).
First of all, he doesn't claim that the conversations are made up of entirely nonsensical dialogue, the food system combined with the objectives do constantly require the player to ping pong around the map,
The objectives have you going to different areas of the map? What poor game design. Have they learned nothing from modern games like Five Nights at Freddy's?
It takes only a very basic understanding of the food system (we're talking 'I should keep food in my inventory because I need to eat from time to time' here) to avoid it having any meaningful impact on the game in terms of map traversal. There are at least 3 or 4 places the player can buy food in Bailu distributed fairly evenly across the map, meaning that the player will constantly be passing them as they explore. Taking a moment to stock up on food is hardly the inconvenience it is portrayed to be in this video.
You could certainly make the argument that it is and inconvenience, but no more so than having to stock up on healing items in FFVIIR or deposit your money in to your bank account when your wallet is full in ACNH. It is quite far from the 'ping ponging around the map' that you and SEPW seem to suggest that it is.
As for the conversations, he implies it by cherry-picking examples that paint the dialogue in the absolute worst way possible without making it at all clear that these are the worst examples. There is no distinction made between them and the 99.999% of dialogue that is not absolute nonsense.
and how would you describe the story in that case?
Underdeveloped.
Furthermore, why was your initial impression negative?
My initial impression was negative for many of the same reasons mentioned in this video.
I distinctly remember losing my first encounter with the thugs, going to train at the dojo and then returning to fight the thugs - only to find after triggering the start of the fight that I had no stamina (and as such, health). I also remember thinking 'what an absolutely terrible design choice to put stamina, hunger and health together in this way.' as I made the 20-30 second round trip to stock up on food.
Where SEPW and I perhaps differ is that after that, I made a point of stocking up on food every now and again (we're talking 3 or 4 times in a play-through here) when I walked past one of the game's many food vendors and the issue never really bothered me again. I still think that it is a poorly implemented system, but is a minor inconvenience and not something that's going to completely sour my view of the game.
I also remember reaching Niaowu on my second play through and making a point of going to speak to fat man and broom girl as often as possible because I was convinced that I had missed some massively important event(s) that made them a significant part of the story - as suggested by their decision to bring them along for the game's climax - only to be left disappointed when I realized that what I'd experienced on my first play through really was all there was to these characters and Ryo's relationship with them. Shenhua aside, I think this game did a terrible job at developing the newly introduced cast of characters.
Generally, my biggest disappointments with this game were (and still are) the many moments where I found myself asking 'so what?' (like the Niao-Sun reveal) and the times where I was waiting for Ryo to ask a question that was simply never asked (like 'tell me about my father?') - all of which I think comes back to the game's writing. These things could have really landed if written well, but the depth required for them to pay off simply wasn't there.
All that being said, after taking some time to reflect, I asked myself three questions....
Did this feel like a Shenmue game? Absolutely. The combat system is a little weak, but many of the other elements that make up the gameplay elements that I most associate with the series are better than they have ever been.
Did the story continue? Yes. It might have lacked depth in a lot of places, but it moved the story forwards, answered some of the questions I'd had for the past eighteen years and introduced some interesting new information that lead to new questions as to how that information might impact the story moving forwards.
Did I enjoy my time playing the game? Certainly. There were a few minor annoyances here and there, but on the whole, I had a lot of fun with Shenmue 3.
I think when I looked past the expectations that I had for what Shenmue 3 would be like as a game and what might happen in terms of the game's story, those are the three things that I wanted most from a third Shenmue game and I consider myself lucky to have gotten them after nearly two decades of waiting. I feel genuinely bad for the members of the fanbase who feel otherwise.