Jeff
Posting Since 2003
I'd give the game 6/10. If you are still playing don't read any further although it's not giving much away here. I was expecting going into this that the game play would be sub-par and the story to be good. It seems like the exact opposite. It's a fun game to play, but the story writing was just awful. What a fall from Shenmue II, the climactic elements that were building up from the last two just crumbled into mundane. The plot holes you can steer the Titanic through. You would think given the fact that Shenhua's father had been kidnapped, the tempo and the concern would keep up with the situation. You spend the whole time in Bailu not learning anything new than what Yuanda Zhu told you within a few minutes in the last game. Later on when you finally see Ren, it is the must unenthusiastic entrance ever. Ordering Chow Mein and they're both indifferent of each other and Ren's walking around like a NPC. That I found incredibly disappointing and didn't make sense based on what they've been through together. We learned nothing about Lishao Tao's brother, nothing about the Tiger Scroll, no answer as to what happened with Zhao and Iwao. The magical aspects of the mirrors absent. Nothing about the significance of the Shenmue tree which is surprising hence the name SHENMUE! don't even know the name of the female Chiyomen leader, it's like they squished her into the story line. They prolong the game by making you earn money than story line which in actuality was very short and uninteresting, which you would have though they'd want to pack it with as much story as they can. The ending, wow, how immensely unsatisfying which we were promised one. The story goes on? Yea, we'll see considering this barely got off the ground. I'm very disappointed in Yu Suzuki in what he gave us. We deserved much better and more. We got Rush Hour 3 but worse. So many similarities.
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