The Shenmue 3 Review Thread

[jsh020]

BUT the Xbox 360 version is also the original version, its not the Directors Cut (all other platforms have the DC)
which means its missing some of the extra cutscenes. (it really doesnt make a big difference)

Theres still the quality of life improvements too, theres a few areas where the game legit could break and be impossible to beat if you dont have a health item on you and in general the combat sections last way longer in the original version, which absolutly no one even the director SWERY wants.

 

[shredingskin]

Again, I don't think it's the greatest fighting system I've ever played...but it's far from button mash friendly. The enemy will punish you if you do that shit. They will block and they will punish.

I know it doesn't work, but what I'm saying is that I think it was YS goal, making a button mashing cinematic gameplay, but failed.

 

[9dragons]

What a load of shite. All this "within the context of modern games" bollocks is meaningless. What does that even mean?

"Within the context of modern popular music, Judas Priest have clearly aged. 5.9/10"

"Within the context of modern cinema, blah blah blah"

What do they want? Stupid derivative nonsense like way points, mission markers and fetch quests for nameless nobody filler NPCs?

Shenmue 3 is anything but "mediocre".

They love those shite 2D metrovania games that gleefully rip off their source material and do nothing to move the genre forward though.

Well spoken. I also do not have any clue what is the context of modern gaming? And what is this modern gaming at all?

As someone that is gaming for a long time I would say modern gaming does not exist.

Almost every genre popular today was invented at the dawn of 3d gaming. 25 years ago. Gameplay wise we are stills stuck in the 32 bit era. Sure the graphics and controls have evolved but the premise and the gameplay is still the same.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with that. Never change a running system as they say.

The term dated or the game is not modern is just a cheap excuse for mediocre gaming journalists to mask their non existing know how.

Unlike other fields off journalism gaming journalism is a mess. In general. We do have much experienced writers out there that have been gaming for long. Must of them are younger people that are not familiar with gaming history at all.

Especially at some websites this problem is way to strong. They rarely have any senior writers that know their stuff.

I still have not read a single review of Shenmue 3 and I do not regret anything. It would be a waste of time.

I can understand why people here are into the reviews and are said about the reviews but the future of Shenmue is still not set. Reviews do not mean anything. We still might get a 4.

And it was clear from the started that reviews will be very mixed.

we had two possibilities Either Yu san beytrays the old fans and makes something mass appealing that has nothing to do with Shenmue, or he listens to the fans and make a Shenmue 3. He did the write choice and made a real Shenmue.

We should play it as much as possible and do not think that much about negative stuff, like the uncertain future.

 

[danielmann861]

I know it doesn't work, but what I'm saying is that I think it was YS goal, making a button mashing cinematic gameplay, but failed.

Fair enough. I can't say I see it that way though. In order to do that, they might as well just full on QTE for everything since I don't know if anyone could really make something like that fun to play to be honest.

 

[Kdog4sado]

Are there anymore reviews on the horizon? Or are we slowing down?

 

[Forklift No. 4]

Are there anymore reviews on the horizon? Or are we slowing down?

off the top of my head, GameSpot, Push Square, The Sixth Axis, and USGamer are working on their reviews.

 

[Real1]

Imagine Party Babyz - 7.5 -IGN "Does what it's supposed to do"
Shenmue III - 5.9 -IGN "Does what it's supposed to do"

 

[danielmann861]

Well spoken. I also do not have any clue what is the context of modern gaming? And what is this modern gaming at all?

As someone that is gaming for a long time I would say modern gaming does not exist.

Almost every genre popular today was invented at the dawn of 3d gaming. 25 years ago. Gameplay wise we are stills stuck in the 32 bit era. Sure the graphics and controls have evolved but the premise and the gameplay is still the same.

I think it mostly boils down to presentation more so than gameplay.

It's interesting to me. Take GTA V for example. I love GTA V, I'm not bringing this up to rag on it. But when you look at the core gameplay, it's literally the same core design we've been running since GTA III. Yeah, story telling has evolved in that series. Overall presentation has evolved. Gameplay has gotten better (it has in some regards)....but the core design is very much the same thing it was since GTA III on the PS2.

Go to Point A --> Get Mission --> Do Mission --> End Mission. Rinse and repeat.

The presentation has evolved but the actual core gameplay design is still the same thing it was many years ago.

I think critics confuse the two. They see that the presentation has evolved but overlook the fact that the core design is still the same it ever was.

Hence the difference here. They see Shenmue III and they see presentation that reminds them of what games used to be. Hence why you see a lot of "looks like a Dreamcast/PS2 game" type of comments.

That's just my two thoughts. It's the presentation that they're judging the most.

But it's a weird criticism that is selective at best. They can overlook it with games they actually like but use it for games they don't like. Hence why they can praise all these 2D Pixel Art games that are literally just emulating what came before while adding very little new.

Funny that. That and a lot of VG critics have a weird disdain for early polygonal game but have this weird love affair for 2D gaming. Don't know what everyone has against early polygons? I kinda love that era warts and all.

I like my reviews to be thoughtful. Not just to be echoing the talking points of everyone else....even if that does mean I'm up my own ass

On a different note, have any notable devs mentioned anything about playing Shenmue III on their twitter accounts? I know Swery posted a photo of him playing it. But anyone else of note talked about it?

 

[shadowman16]

The switch version releases recently is high and far the best version if you have access to it, otherwise on any other platform I hope you trained your eyes for the sight of sub 15 fps at all times.

Is it better than the 360 version? I know at launch the Switch version had worse performance, did one of the recent patches rectify that?

 

[jsh020]

Is it better than the 360 version? I know at launch the Switch version had worse performance, did one of the recent patches rectify that?

it did have a patch, but the 360 versions only benefit is slightly better graphics and color. The 360 version only has better performance than the ps3 version not the switch and its because its running at 480p on 360, the real thing that makes the 360 version the worst one are the game breaking bugs, they arent super common to get to, but rather infamously theres a few boss fights where if you dont have the right amont of health entering it, tough shit you wont be able to beat the game.

Also bit of history behind one of the weakest parts of deadly premonition and why the 360 version is just all around the worst one. Deadly premonition is a cheaply put together salvaging of a canceled game called rainy woods that was somehow even more of a twin peaks rip off than it is as we know it. After being uncancelled and put into development for one last stretch the publisher forced the game to input combat in the final couple months of development, something the director did not want to do, so this already not properly finished game now had a bunch of weird combat situations literally show up out of no where and never get acknowledged by the characters for 98% of the game, and shocker, they werent good. All subsequent releases of the game have simplified combat by greatly lowering enemy health and beefing up yours to make it borderline negligible and something you can speed through, but if you play the 360 version your getting it in all its annoying tedious glory.

tl;dr, even if performance was worse the switch version is still lightyears above 360

 

[Tosh]

I think it mostly boils down to presentation more so than gameplay.

It's interesting to me. Take GTA V for example. I love GTA V, I'm not bringing this up to rag on it. But when you look at the core gameplay, it's literally the same core design we've been running since GTA III. Yeah, story telling has evolved in that series. Overall presentation has evolved. Gameplay has gotten better (it has in some regards)....but the core design is very much the same thing it was since GTA III on the PS2.

Go to Point A --> Get Mission --> Do Mission --> End Mission. Rinse and repeat.

The presentation has evolved but the actual core gameplay design is still the same thing it was many years ago.

I think critics confuse the two. They see that the presentation has evolved but overlook the fact that the core design is still the same it ever was.

Hence the difference here. They see Shenmue III and they see presentation that reminds them of what games used to be. Hence why you see a lot of "looks like a Dreamcast/PS2 game" type of comments.

That's just my two thoughts. It's the presentation that they're judging the most...not the actual core design.

But it's a weird criticism that is selective at best. They can overlook it with games they actually like but use it for games they don't like. Hence why they can praise all these 2D Pixel Art games that are literally just emulating what came before while adding very little new.

Funny that. That and a lot of VG critics have a weird disdain for early polygonal game but have this weird love affair for 2D gaming. Don't know what everyone has against early polygons? I kinda love that era warts and all.

I like my reviews to be thoughtful. Not just to be echoing the talking points of everyone else....even if that does mean I'm up my own ass

On a different note, have any notable devs mentioned anything about playing Shenmue III on their twitter accounts? I know Swery posted a photo of him playing it. But anyone else of note talked about it?

I think Red Dead Redemption 1 has one of the most beautiful game worlds and atmosphere
but the mission design is horrible. 95% of the missions are exactly the same.
Start the mission, ride to point B, kill 15 people, thanks. Thats almost every mission,
the difference is just that sometimes its about rescuing someone or attacking someone
but the procedure is always the same. Get to the hostage, hes guarded by 15 enemies,
get to the boss of the group, hes guarded by 15 enemies.
Of course the game looked absolutely stunning on release but then again the budget was probably
lightyears higher than the budget of Shenmue 3.

 

[I Got Sriracha In My DNA]

Lol they gave Alien Isolation 5.9? Are you sure that wasn't Aliens Colonial Marines instead?

Alien Isolation is basically that genre's, and franchise's darling for crying out loud, if they gave that a 5.9, they're lucky they weren't laughed into bankruptcy.

Lol no it was Alien Isolation. It wouldn't surprise me though if the reviewer went into that game with preconceived notions of the quality based on the whole experience with Colonial Marines and the difficulty of Isolation reaffirmed his bias.

Anyway going back on topic at least the fanbase loves Shenmue 3 so far. It hasn't really been divisive so far which would've been worse than a couple bad reviews.

 

[ARokitLawnChair]

off the top of my head, GameSpot, Push Square, The Sixth Axis, and USGamer are working on their reviews.

UsGamer is another oncoming shit show, I heard their early impressions on Kinda Funny Gamecast a few weeks ago. Not positive.

 

[danielmann861]

I think Red Dead Redemption 1 has one of the most beautiful game worlds and atmosphere
but the mission design is horrible. 95% of the missions are exactly the same.
Start the mission, ride to point B, kill 15 people, thanks. Thats almost every mission,
the difference is just that sometimes its about rescuing someone or attacking someone
but the procedure is always the same. Get to the hostage, hes guarded by 15 enemies,
get to the boss of the group, hes guarded by 15 enemies.
Of course the game looked absolutely stunning on release but then again the budget was probably
lightyears higher than the budget of Shenmue 3.

I'm in the group that hated Red Dead Redemption but actually really loved Red Dead 2. I think it's the pace of RDR 2 I loved the most. Same thing as Shenmue...just a world that was interesting to hang out in and explore and do stuff in...I didn't even really care about the story at times...I was more interested in exploring the world of RDR 2 just because there were some wonderful odd things to find in it if you went off the beaten path.

The first game kind of bored me by comparison for reasons you mentioned. The mission design was very samey and the world, while beautiful, just wasn't as fleshed out when it came to exploring.

I loved that in RDR 2 you could say "howdy" to every NPC you passed. I loved that you could find some really fucked up shit in the marshes while hunting. Or have really fucked up shit randomly happen to you.

That alone got me for whatever reason. It just felt like a world I wanted to chill in and let it take me places just to see what would happen while exploring. RDR 2 for that reason alone, is one of the biggest steps forward that R* has done in ages. I mean they were flirting with random events in GTA V as well, but RDR 2 just felt complete to me.

 

[Truck_1_0_1_]

For what it's worth, I quite like them, but they are bubblegum for the brain. Entertaining at the time, but doesn't leave an impression down the line. Scorcese - on the other hand - just did a 3 1/2 hour film that felt half the length in his mid-70's. It's extrordinary (and I paid £18 to see it at the cinema as I don't do Netflix).

It's the binary for/against mentality I can't stand with this (and many other things). I love watching low budget Italian grindhouse films (hail Lucio Fulci & Ruggero Deodato), but also thought provoking art cinema (I finally have the 3 hour cut of Terence Mallick's "The Tree of Life" i'm desperate to watch) for example.

Sorry for the minor thread derailment, but I find a lot of news/journalism very much of writing some crap to get the web traffic. I genuinely believe that good journalism (like say Eurogamer's or Metro's review) that doesn't respond to hyperbole will bring good discussion. Sadly, this seems to be a minority view these days.

Also have something to add on that front.

I'm not a Scorsese fan at ALL (he's great at telling stories and cinematography, but I find him highly overrated; Coppola, for example, will always be head and shoulders above him in my eyes {as he does almost EVERYTHING brilliantly}, but they are considered neck and neck, most of the time), but I went to watch Silence in early 2017, as I am quite the devout Catholic and adored the book (read it on the way back from Japan on the flight, too).

That film is a cinematic masterpiece from top to bottom, with little to no flaws; any hype was killed immediately because it was a film full of, "religious imagery," (which is guaranteed) and, "religious, political undertones." (which it absolutely does NOT).

It still maintains a solid rating on imdb, but what should've been nominated for:

- Best Actor (wouldn't have won)
- Best Supporting Actor (wouldn't have won)
- Best Adapted Screenplay (possible winner)
- Best Cinematography (DEFINITELY should've won)
- Best Costumes (debatable, but they did feudal Japan PERFECTLY)
- Best editing (debatable as well)

Instead, it only got nominated for Cinematography, which it lost to that POS La La Land.

The big Hollywood Blockbuster with big names and a lot of fanservice, will always do better and reviewed better than the actual pieces of art, because money talks... and it pisses me off.

I think Red Dead Redemption 1 has one of the most beautiful game worlds and atmosphere
but the mission design is horrible. 95% of the missions are exactly the same.
Start the mission, ride to point B, kill 15 people, thanks. Thats almost every mission,
the difference is just that sometimes its about rescuing someone or attacking someone
but the procedure is always the same. Get to the hostage, hes guarded by 15 enemies,
get to the boss of the group, hes guarded by 15 enemies.
Of course the game looked absolutely stunning on release but then again the budget was probably
lightyears higher than the budget of Shenmue 3.

I'm sure you remember Yakuza 1's substories, which were literally that as well (when I played 3 {and 2, but 3 is where it REALLY began}, I was floored when the substories actually had branching paths and sometimes spanned over 10 chapters!). There's an evolution to gaming, for sure.

 

[danielmann861]

For what it's worth, I quite like them, but they are bubblegum for the brain. Entertaining at the time, but doesn't leave an impression down the line. Scorcese - on the other hand - just did a 3 1/2 hour film that felt half the length in his mid-70's. It's extrordinary (and I paid £18 to see it at the cinema as I don't do Netflix).

I've been meaning to see The Irishman but couldn't find anywhere showing it near me. I have to go the Netflix route with that one (sadly)....I wanted to see it in a cinema but it doesn't look like it will happen.

 

[jsh020]

UsGamer is another oncoming shit show, I heard their early impressions on Kinda Funny Gamecast a few weeks ago. Not positive.

USgamer will most likely be the lowest score by a longshot, I'm expecting a 3/10 if not a 2.

I've been meaning to see The Irishman but couldn't find anywhere playing it near me. I have to go the Netflix route with that one (sadly)....I wanted to see it in a cinema but it doesn't look like it will happen.

Even if its apparently one of the greatest films of the past couple decades, I dont think I could handle 4 hours in a theater watching it

 

[Kupo]

I'm in the group that hated Red Dead Redemption but actually really loved Red Dead 2. I think it's the pace of RDR 2 I loved the most. Same thing as Shenmue...just a world that was interesting to hang out in and explore and do stuff in...I didn't even really care about the story at times...I was more interested in exploring the world of RDR 2 just because there were some wonderful odd things to find in it if you went off the beaten path.

The first game kind of bored me by comparison for reasons you mentioned. The mission design was very samey and the world, while beautiful, just wasn't as fleshed out when it came to exploring.

I loved that in RDR 2 you could say "howdy" to every NPC you passed. I loved that you could find some really fucked up shit in the marshes while hunting. Or have really fucked up shit randomly happen to you.

That alone got me for whatever reason. It just felt like a world I wanted to chill in and let it take me places just to see what would happen while exploring. RDR 2 for that reason alone, is one of the biggest steps forward that R* has done in ages. I mean they were flirting with random events in GTA V as well, but RDR 2 just felt complete to me.

I know people here have said this before but for me it was when I first entered Valentine and I took it slow and immediately though this feels like Shenmue if it was done in the old wild west, to the decent ai of NPC, the little responses you can give back & forth and you could go into a shop and investigate food on the shelves, pick them up and buy them or go to the counter and look through the catalogue of stuff to buy or opening drawers in first person. I could go on but it'd take forever.

It's their most atmospheric game they've made to date and their most divisive, probably because it was to slow for their traditional fanbase to take.

 

[Kupo]

USgamer will most likely be the lowest score by a longshot, I'm expecting a 3/10 if not a 2.


Even if its apparently one of the greatest films of the past couple decades, I dont think I could handle 4 hours in a theater watching it

Ease up, there. I think your overreacting.

 

[I Got Sriracha In My DNA]

Also, some interesting letters from readers of Metro on their review of Shenmue III (note, one of them is from me...)

Games Inbox: Do video game reviews matter?

The Friday Inbox discusses what it’s like to be a Google Stadia early adopter, as one reader asks for one-handed video game recommendations.

metro.co.uk

One of those letters hit on something I've been meaning to talk about. Again the negative reviews are what they are, but I do kind of wish when reviewers critiqued the fact that Shenmue 3 wasn't innovative that they had more carefully considered how handcuffed Yu Suzuki was in terms of the budget to accomplish that.

At the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign Yu was very transparent on what he truly wanted to do for Shenmue 3. He wanted an open world map, a combat system affected by environment/setting, switching of playable characters, a third city etc. All hallmarks of a modern day game with room for his ambition, however we didn't meet the stretch goals or he was unable to implement a feature without sacrificing budget on other crucial elements of the gameplay. That's really key. He didn't come in like EA would on most projects and select safe gameplay elements based on market data to guarantee a healthy rate of return. Its not his M.O. and reviewers know that, which is why I'm surprised the more critical ones aren't carefully considering it, at least on their review. What if he tried to be innovative and failed miserably, I wouldn't have been the least surprised if most of those very same critics would've said, he should've just stuck with what worked in the past. I absolutely get knocking the game for the gameplay if it doesn't interest them due to the dated nature but it would at least be nice to illustrate or show an understanding that the developers were in a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario.

All that said all the knocking on the stamina system is fair game. I don't hate it personally because I like doing minigame stuff and it adds incentive for me now, however I absolutely get how its hurting the experience.