Were you happier with no Shenmue III? Or do you prefer living in a post-Shenmue III world?

danielmann861

danielmann861

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Shenmue II
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danielmann861
This is a question that has been stirring around in my mind since the release of Shenmue III based on some of the mixed reaction here and elsewhere. The question is a simple one. Was it better to live in a world where Shenmue III never happened and we were always left to wonder "what if?" Or is it better to be living in a world with Shenmue III (warts and all)

For me? The answer is simple. It's better living in a Post-Shenmue III world. Even if the franchise goes nowhere after III. Even with the disappointment felt by some in the fanbase. Even with all the KS drama and what not. Even with all the bullshit fighting between the Yakuza and Shenmue fanbase about which is better? Even if Shenmue III potentially bombed hard in the marketplace...and even if most of the mainstream think it's a joke. I'm still damn happy the game exists. I'd take all of this over a world where Shenmue III doesn't exist.

BUT, there is a case for the other side of argument too. Maybe it was better to dream about what Shenmue III would have been compared to what it actually was. Maybe it was better to leave the franchise as a grand ambitious dream that was never meant to be. Maybe that stigma around the lack of Shenmue III was better to have then a potentially disappointing product that left the fanbase divided.

So what do you think? For purely conversational purposes. Which one is better? I know which one I prefer. I prefer living in a post Shenmue III world over not having the game at all.
 
Definitely happy it exists. It isn't perfect and I wish it had gone down differently from what it ultimately had to, but it is what it is.

For the record, I love Bailu and really enjoy the first half of the game for the most part. I do feel that although I love the village, it feels a lot of its authenticity was lost at times when you're bombarded by 'fan service', with lucky hit stalls and arcades etc which makes it feel more like a tourist area, rather than some remote village in Guilin, but it's just a minor criticism really.

It's unfortunate the story is not as strong as that in 1 and 2 and that after all these years more wasn't revealed, but overall I am estatic we finally got Shenmue 3. I just hope Yu Suzuki takes the framework and foundations built and now uses that to make a much better Shenmue 4.
 
Very happy it exists for a number of reasons. The game itself isn't perfect but what it does show is that if a community fights for something hard enough it can be reached.

From a personal view, through the journey, I've been lucky enough to meet some of the staff here, meet Yu Suzuki himself and become more and more invested in the series. Shenmue III hasn't dampened that for me, if anything the possibility of a 4th Shenmue excites me and keeps me going. The fact that we've been able to actually go around Bailu Village and continue the journey is nothing short of a miracle.

Around 2012 I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact that Shenmue III wasn't ever going to happen and even though it's not the game we all wanted the 2015 E3 announcement will forever be etched into my memory. A happy memory but also one of vindication of why we fought so hard.

My hope going forward is that Shenmue 4 pushes things on, rekindles some people lost along the way and really brings us back together. We're in a strange place now as a community but given time I'm sure the destination will become ever clearer. Shenmue 4 is that destination.
 
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Very happy it exists. For no other reason than to see Yu Suzuki making games again and doing what he loves. I also happened to really enjoy the game despite its flaws. It's very easy to over-analyse something after the fact.

Being a Shenmue fan was pretty depressing in the years before the III announcement. There's no way I'd ever want to go back to that. I think some fans think III has soiled the reputation of the series and forget that, to the haters, the series has always been cheesy, slow, boring, whatever. III is just the same to them -- no better, no worse.

If III has damaged anything it's the egos of some fans. The type of fans that anything less than AAA production was never going to be enough. The type of fan that still dreams of SEGA choking up multi-millions like they did in the DC days. Living in the past, basically.
 
I’m happy that it exists, but I’m also disappointed in the finished product. We can’t time travel to 2003 and will the planned Shenmue 3 into existence, so we’ve got to take what we can get. I am glad Yu Suzuki is still eager to make games and look forward to what’s next.
 
I'm going to be very rude but:

While the situation was highly frustrating, I feel I prefer the first one. The game I played has only "Shenmue III" in the title. It's like I still never played "Shenmue III" but a (bad) ripoff so the concept of living in a "post-Shenmue III era" makes barely sense to me. Nothing changed in my mind, apart the situation that all my dreams have been shut down.

Emotionally speaking, the game has been a massive pain. I'm not pretending I know what "depression" is, but I feel I was very close to it over the first hours of my playthrough and some other moments in the game. No anger but a deep sadness.

If I have not followed the Kickstarter news, I think I would have shed the same tear I did for Star Wars Episode 8 at the Casino scene. The irreversible annihilation of everything I used to love. Being rational helped me to appreciate the whole game for what it was and dissimulate that sadness in a corner of my mind.

To be honest, I was never a pro-Kickstarter because I knew it means a very limited game. Shenmue 1&2 was a clinical synergy of high-end crafted and interdependent elements to work well. If you removed one of them, I always supposed the result might be critical. But I had still little hope that Yu manages to compact the Shenmue substance in a humble piece of art. As I like to say, the Shenmue feel was there but not the substance.

Do I regret the existence of "Shenmue III"? No because Shenmue 4. All my hopes are now focused there. Not because I believe it has solid chance to be a great game but rather because Shenmue is the only franchise I'm really interested in for now.

I don't play video games as much as before. Shenmue III is still the last solo game I played. I don't watch TV shows or read novels, I go to the cinema very few times, etc. Since SIII, I feel a void I need to fill and Shenmue is one of the few things I can dream for.
 
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Yokosuka said:
I'm going to be very rude but:

While the situation was highly frustrating, I feel I prefer the first one. The game I played has only "Shenmue III" in the title. It's like I still never played "Shenmue III" but a (bad) ripoff so the concept of living in a "post-Shenmue III era" makes barely sense to me. Nothing changed in my mind, apart the situation that all my dreams have been shut down.

Emotionally speaking, the game has been a massive pain. I'm not pretending I know what "depression" is, but I feel I was very close to it over the first hours of my playthrough and some other moments in the game. No anger but a deep sadness.

If I have not followed the Kickstarter news, I think I would have shed the same tear I did for Star Wars Episode 8 at the Casino scene. The irreversible annihilation of everything I used to love. Being rational helped me to appreciate the whole game for what it was and dissimulate that sadness in a corner of my mind.

To be honest, I was never a pro-Kickstarter because I knew it means a very limited game. Shenmue 1&2 was a clinical synergy of high-end crafted and interdependent elements to work well. If you removed one of them, I always supposed the result might be critical. But I had still little hope that Yu manages to compact the Shenmue substance in a humble piece of art. As I like to say, the Shenmue feel was there but not the substance.

Do I regret the existence of "Shenmue III"? No because Shenmue 4. All my hopes are now focused there. Not because I believe it has solid chance to be a great game but rather because Shenmue is the only franchise I'm really interested in for now.

I don't play video games as much as before. Shenmue III is still the last solo game I played. I don't watch TV shows or read novels, I go to the cinema very few times, etc. Since SIII, I feel a void I need to fill and Shenmue is one of the few things I can dream for.
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I feel more or less the same about Shenmue III, that it feels like a bad ripoff. But I'm glad it exists because I made peace with the serie. I'm curious about Shenmue IV, but I got over it. If it happens, I'm glad. If it doesn't, I don't care. The same couldn't be said after Shenmue II.
 
Definitely happy to see that it exists.

People seem to forget sometimes that games development/design is an art form and art is definitely subjective. My feelings behind Shenmue III are sorta fragments of what pretty much every post before this one are, that yes, while it is slightly limited due to it being a Kickstarter etc, it is good to see the continuation of the series, no matter how it turns out.
 
A good question, one I've been considering myself. Ultimately, I'm glad it was released.
What I would say, though, is that I almost remain the same as I do after S2: stoically, I'll accept whatever comes at this point. If nothing else, this experience has taught me patience and to limit my expectations.

I think I truly tuned out of video games once Sega tapped out of consoles. (Context: I was born in 1989, so I was at the right age to mourn with the Dreamcast, buy an Xbox and 360, and ride the gaming wave with buddies till college.) Like giving up soda, it's hard to get back into it once it's far removed from your life. To that end, S3 feels more like a little nod to nostalgia, even though I would gladly see the conclusion of the story and buy sequels.

I'm probably a minority voice in admitting I'd settle for the story being released in print, but if and only if an S4/5 can't work. I don't want the experience to die with S3-- again, I think another topic worth making may be whether or not YS's perfectionism may damn the series-- but one has to ask: do we love Shenmue as a video game, or more as a story? In a statistical sense, I think the harshest critics focus on the latter, and the most forgiving balance both.
It may be harder to push the story as a game henceforth, and maybe (key term) S3 proved that.
 
As someone who funded the game honestly expecting the end product to be dogshit and simply wanted Yu to be able to continue what he started regardless of the outcome, I was obviously going to be happy either way. The fact that I ended up loving S3 and it actually turned out to be a full fledged Shenmue experience (something I legitimately thought would never be possible under these circumstances) is just cocaine-infused icing on the cake.
 
Hindsight is always 20/20. Shenmue III isn't perfect and doesn't fill me with the same joy as I or II, but it is still a fantastic game; I have to remind myself that as I get older, my patience isn't what it was, so in some cases it's not Shenmue III that sometimes got me annoyed, it was myself being annoyed at not being able to adapt to the game as much as I would like.

No matter the end result (and it is still a 4/5 game for me), *WE* helped make Shenmue III a reality. In a modern world where it feels like there is little but bad news, there is something wonderful that something we desperately wanted against the odds was made.

Yesterday, I finally saw Terry Gilliam's "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote". For those who don't know, this is the film equivalent of Shenmue III; something that was thought never to come to pass. After 20 years, the film finally came out. It wasn't perfect, but there were flashes of brilliance and the fact that it exists through what seems like sheer willpower makes it very special. Shenmue III is very much the same.

And think of it this way; in a post Shenmue III world, we now live in a world where we are asking for Shenmue IV instead of Shenmue III. We are one step closer.
 
danielmann861 said:
This is a question that has been stirring around in my mind since the release of Shenmue III based on some of the mixed reaction here and elsewhere. The question is a simple one. Was it better to live in a world where Shenmue III never happened and we were always left to wonder "what if?" Or is it better to be living in a world with Shenmue III (warts and all)

For me? The answer is simple. It's better living in a Post-Shenmue III world. Even if the franchise goes nowhere after III. Even with the disappointment felt by some in the fanbase. Even with all the KS drama and what not. Even with all the bullshit fighting between the Yakuza and Shenmue fanbase about which is better? Even if Shenmue III potentially bombed hard in the marketplace...and even if most of the mainstream think it's a joke. I'm still damn happy the game exists. I'd take all of this over a world where Shenmue III doesn't exist.

BUT, there is a case for the other side of argument too. Maybe it was better to dream about what Shenmue III would have been compared to what it actually was. Maybe it was better to leave the franchise as a grand ambitious dream that was never meant to be. Maybe that stigma around the lack of Shenmue III was better to have then a potentially disappointing product that left the fanbase divided.

So what do you think? For purely conversational purposes. Which one is better? I know which one I prefer. I prefer living in a post Shenmue III world over not having the game at all.
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Shenmue 3 is the shenmue game with the best gameplay hand down i dont know how a "shenmue fans" would prefer a world without shenmue 3 the story telling was not great but that it's the rest is better on shenmue 3 than any other shenmue and without shenmue 3 the saga would be dead with shenmue 3 we can hope for shenmue 4 and maybe shenmue 5.
 
orient said:
If III has damaged anything it's the egos of some fans. The type of fans that anything less than AAA production was never going to be enough. The type of fan that still dreams of SEGA choking up multi-millions like they did in the DC days. Living in the past, basically.
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True. Very true. I still wonder to this day how much of the disappointment boils down to overblown expectations. SEGA isn't the same company it used to be. And you know what? I know this may sound blunt or rude, but after seeing the sales for SIII, it drives home exactly why they weren't interested in funding SIII for all those years. Because even they knew it was a risk not worth taking when they were trying to rebuild and restructure. I really can't blame SEGA at all for that.

As someone who funded the game honestly expecting the end product to be dogshit and simply wanted Yu to be able to continue what he started regardless of the outcome, I was obviously going to be happy either way. The fact that I ended up loving S3 and it actually turned out to be a full fledged Shenmue experience (something I legitimately thought would never be possible under these circumstances) is just cocaine-infused icing on the cake.
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I think I'm in the same boat. My expectations were mixed when the KS was first announced. I was happy it was happening, but I was also weary as to whether they could even pull it off on a fraction of the budget and even moreso weary that it was going to be a meager shadow of its former self. So I went into the game with realistic expectations and was pleasantly surprised just how close they got and was constantly floored as to how much they were getting away with. They were clearly punching above their weight on all fronts and yet, despite the story woes, they still delivered something that felt like Shenmue and, at times, also came close to being an evolution of Shenmue. I know the RPG mechanics are mixed in reception here, but these things were trying to evolve on Shenmue's gameplay while at the same time trying to give us what we knew and loved elsewhere.

My issues with it remain in the story and presentation department. The grand cinematic camera shots are lacking and the story was mostly filler. But I still feel the game itself was as close to Shenmue as you could possibly get 20 years removed from SII.
 
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Yokosuka said:
I'm going to be very rude but:

While the situation was highly frustrating, I feel I prefer the first one. The game I played has only "Shenmue III" in the title. It's like I still never played "Shenmue III" but a (bad) ripoff so the concept of living in a "post-Shenmue III era" makes barely sense to me. Nothing changed in my mind, apart the situation that all my dreams have been shut down.

Emotionally speaking, the game has been a massive pain. I'm not pretending I know what "depression" is, but I feel I was very close to it over the first hours of my playthrough and some other moments in the game. No anger but a deep sadness.

If I have not followed the Kickstarter news, I think I would have shed the same tear I did for Star Wars Episode 8 at the Casino scene. The irreversible annihilation of everything I used to love. Being rational helped me to appreciate the whole game for what it was and dissimulate that sadness in a corner of my mind.

To be honest, I was never a pro-Kickstarter because I knew it means a very limited game. Shenmue 1&2 was a clinical synergy of high-end crafted and interdependent elements to work well. If you removed one of them, I always supposed the result might be critical. But I had still little hope that Yu manages to compact the Shenmue substance in a humble piece of art. As I like to say, the Shenmue feel was there but not the substance.

Do I regret the existence of "Shenmue III"? No because Shenmue 4. All my hopes are now focused there. Not because I believe it has solid chance to be a great game but rather because Shenmue is the only franchise I'm really interested in for now.

I don't play video games as much as before. Shenmue III is still the last solo game I played. I don't watch TV shows or read novels, I go to the cinema very few times, etc. Since SIII, I feel a void I need to fill and Shenmue is one of the few things I can dream for.
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Not rude at all. It's why I posed the question :)

Because I figured it would be interesting to see responses debating both sides of the coin.

Thanks for answering honestly.
 
I'm absolutely thrilled to be living in a timeline where Shenmue III exists, flaws and all. I always knew that it was a Kickstarter game and kept my expectations in check accordingly. While I would be lying if I said that it didn't disappoint me in some ways, it also exceeded my expectations in many other ways. The good far outweighs the bad for me. I loved the game and just getting to play a new Shenmue in 2019 was a surreal and incredible experience.

There is one caveat. Around 2006, I had resigned myself to the "fact" that Shenmue III would never exist. I had come to terms with it and had barely even thought about it for years before 2015. Now that it does exist, my love and passion for the series has been rekindled. But what this means is that until/unless Shenmue IV gets announced, it feels a bit like 2003-2005 all over again. So I suppose I could argue that I was happier before, having accepted the franchise's fate of never continuing beyond Shenmue II. Now, I feel like I've warped 15 years back in time in the sense that I'm extremely hungry for more Shenmue, I think about it all the time, and the future of the franchise is once again shrouded in uncertainty. I can only hope that history does not repeat itself and Shenmue IV gets announced relatively soon.

Having said all that, I definitely would not go back to a pre-Shenmue III world if given the chance. Even if we never get another game, I'm extremely grateful that Shenmue III exists. Playing it was a truly special experience. I got the chance to step back into the shoes of Ryo Hazuki and experience the uniquely beautiful world of Shenmue once again, something that I assumed to be literally impossible for the better part of a decade.
 
I definitely love that Shenmue 3 exists.
Did it live up to all my expectations !?
No. But I also wasn't expecting it be at the same level of Shenmue 1&2.
I think that the high expectation and all the drama that came along during the games development was what ended up harming Shenmue 3 the most.
The game was never going to be perfect; Ys net is a small team compared with other studios.
I'm not saying this as an excuse for some of the bad choices that were implement in the game, like the writting, the lack of story, all the grinding and to much fan service.
But if we look at the game as a whole, in my oppion there are definitely more positives than negatives.
The locations of the game and the atmosphere are amazing.
The martial arts training and Ryo development is good.
Bailu feels like a fullfledged Shenmue location. (Niaowu needed another year of development for side characters and quests).
The relationship with Shenhua in Bailu village.
The quest where we play hide and seek with the children of Bailu is totally Shenmue.
The old and new music tracks were well implemented.
The anime style design of the main characters.
I could go on and on with more positive things to say about Shenmue 3.
All in all I enjoy Shenmue 3 and I love that it exists, because it gives me hope for Shenmue 4 and the possible completion of the series.
Thats definitely much better than having nothing. If they can improve on most of the bad things of Shenmue 3 and give us a great story with great characters in Shenmue 4 I believe that we will be granted with the true full Shenmue experience.
 
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