While I think you bring some valid points, I think ultimately you are wrong. In the case of Goro while I would never argue his characterization is deep, it’s important to note his character actually has an arc. He initially starts out as a thug robbing citizens at harbour, gets beaten by Ryo and that begins to change his nature. He becomes a companion to Ryo assisting him and ultimately his relationship with Mai makes him want to turn completely straight so he can help and support her.
Now I ask, what is the arc for Mr. Hsu? What development takes place from your initial meeting to ultimately getting him to decide to join Ryo venturing to the Old Castle? I argue there is none and that’s why majority of Shenmue 3 characters fall flat because they lack basic characterization and motives.
Absolutely, you're correct. Goro has an arc, no matter how superficial it is, it's there. It really consists of Ryo beating the crap out of him, and Goro almost immediately becoming a completely different person, but your point is fair; Hsu does not have an arc. My point is that their involvements in their respective narratives are very similar (if you disregard the castle portion of III), and you really know, or can infer, about the same amount about each of them. I'm not necessarily pointing out whether Goro is a better or worse character than Hsu, more that it's a matter of degrees, and that the separation isn't that significant.
You can learn a lot of things about Nozomi ingame. About her family, her situation, her friends. And more importantly, she has a lot of screen time. She has developpement. There's actually something going on with her and Ryo. From the moments where you take care of that cat. To the moments where she worries about Ryo multiple times. The flowers for Iwao. The park scenes with Ryo where she confess. Heck, she has a theme dedicated to her. And I'm not even talking about the motorcycle scene. What does Shiling has ? Except for being a shrine maiden who use a broomstick ?
I mean, seriously, are we really debating that Nozomi had more developpement that Shiling ? For real ?
Whew the revisionism going on here.
No, no revisionism. I played Shenmue on release in 2000, and I never cared for Nozomi, but I appreciate you proving my point that she's still a fairly weak character who you really don't know anything about outside of a handful of details about the people around her. Consider the way in which you're introduced to Nozomi in the game: A standard conversation like most of the ones you have with Ryo's friends. There's very little to even suggest that she has much of a relationship with Ryo beyond her concern being similar to what Mayumi shows, but you'd have to really dig into supplemental materials to piece that together. I went back to check, but by my count Nozomi is involved in four main cutscenes, and four optional cutscenes, not including the end of the game. Her default state, if you talk to her, is one of excessive worry for Ryo, and the only other state she has that comes up in the cutscenes are these "feelings" she has for Ryo, that I've never found believable. You don't see a scripted interaction between the two until coming out of the tattoo parlor, and she pretty much just continues to express concern. The next time, if you don't engage in the optional cutscenes, she's calling Ryo out to the park to confess her feelings, but the game basically doesn't give any context for her having them. If you look at supplemental materials you find that they've been friends since junior high, but that scene also dumps the Canada thing on you that potentially doesn't make sense without her backstory from supplemental materials, either.
I realize I'm dumping on a waifu for a number of people here, but she's not a well written character, within the context of the game, and the motivations for her primary function within the story aren't given due context. It's flimsy at best. I will say that some of the optional cutscenes demonstrate her character a bit better: Willing to stand up to Enoki to protect a kid, kind enough to send Iwao's favorite flowers. That's sort of the bare minimum of characterization, though, which Shenmue III establishes for Shilin as soon as you meet her. I'm not trying to discourage people from enjoying Nozomi as a character, even though when I play the first game, I always hope that Mayumi will just confess her feelings before Nozomi does (maybe I can remind YS about Mayumi, since she's supposed to be learning Chinese in order to become a diplomat). What I'm suggesting here is that it would be reasonable to invest in Shilin as much as Nozomi. They're fairly comparable in characterization and development, within their respective games. (To be clear, in both cases, it's somewhat limited.) What Shenmue does really well is build a deeply interconnected world that makes everything feel comfortable, and natural. The player will feel like Ryo knows all he could about Nozomi, but it does not give the player any reason to feel that same level of familiarity, upon analysis.
It's the comparisons with II when tragedy comes. There's nothing in III that comes close to Xiuying, Joy, Ren, Fangmei or Shenhua in the second game. Even Dou Niu and Yuan feel more developed than anyone in III.
Absolutely. There is a gulf that exists between these two games, in this respect. I couldn't even begin to attempt to draw parallels, but Shenmue III does still have Shenhua and Ren. This trio seems to be the cast for SIII, and the foreseeable future, so from that perspective, I'm less concerned about other supporting characters that Ryo encounters at this point. Actually this reminds me of one of the phone conversations with Fangmei, where she tells Ryo that she'll only be happy when he promises to come back to Hong Kong, as if he would be returning to stay. If Ryo continued to encounter these groups of people that he established those kinds of relationships with, all the way along, where would he "return" to?
Sorry, Chuck. Is this a bad time to mention that that movie scarred me as a child, and I still can't watch it as an adult?
