Were there never times when you found airing out the books in Shenmue 2 boring? What about having to drive a forklift around for a week in Shenmue 1?
Those are not examples of things that I personally find boring, but in terms of appealing to a wider audience, yes they should be cut (or at least framed differently). To me, having to kill a whole day and come back tomorrow for Charlie is far more boring than forklift driving.
I suppose my real issue here is that the story continues to move whilst completing these tasks in the first few games and the tasks are a little more focused whereas in Shenmue 3 it felt like they brought the story to a screeching halt whilst effectively telling the player to go grind money somewhere.
That I found it a little tedious isn’t necessarily my main issue, more that it felt like a very obvious way of padding the length of the game.
This is exactly what I meant and I'm pretty sure this is stuff that will irk most people.
I’d argue that Ryo’s growth as a person through his training as a martial artist is arguably the main element of Shenmue.
And how does S3 tell this story? Ryo wants to get revenge on Lan Di, gets his ass kicked by Lan Di, learns that Lan Di may have a more sympathetic past, and ends the game vowing revenge on Lan Di. The idea that nothing was meant to change and that Shenmue is this recurring formula of Ryo going to random Chinese villages and beating up their gangs while the CYM narrowly escape is not at all what the series presented itself as. At least not to me.
the locations in Shenmue 3 were perfectly in line with previous locations from the series.
Judging from your subsequent comments on this topic it seems like you're coming at it from the POV that this is what we should have expected, so it makes sense. The way Shenhua described Bailu Village in S2 did not lead me to believe there would be an arcade and a thriving economy with a $2000 bottle of wine for sale but to each his own.
I think ‘the fan base is upset’ is a huge over generalization here. Some of the fan base may be upset, but the reception might have been significantly worse if they’d made drastic changes to the formula.
Perhaps but perhaps not. I guess we'll never know. I will say that only
some of the GoT and Star Wars fanbase are upset too...
But a lot of these plot lines still haven’t played out. We still need to visit Meng Cun and find out if Iwao really killed Sunming Zhao and we still need to find out exactly what the mirrors do, amongst other things.
In terms of new plot points, we need to find out who exactly is pulling Lan Di’s strings and discover what will happen between the warring factions of the Chi You Men. To suggest that there’s not enough intrigue for people to want the story to continue seems a little laughable with these things in mind.
What in S3 led you to the conclusion that someone is pulling Lan Di's strings? What led you to believe that there are warring factions of the CYM? Niao Sun (if that is her name) outright claims that she controls the CYM and she has the Phoenix Mirror; all signs point to Lan Di being on his own to me. No, concept art from 20 years ago about the 4 leaders doesn't mean that they were present or even hinted at in S3.
In terms of intrigue for the sequel? Most of that is stuff that's still been set up from the previous 2 entries. Want proof? Where are all the theory threads about all the cool plot developments in S3?
My original point remains though, that most reviewers criticized elements of the game which have been prevalent within the series since its first game and a better story would have done little to dispel these criticisms. Of course, the obvious argument here is that addressing the criticisms from the first few games rather than embracing them should possibly have been on Yu’s to do list, but that’s a different conversation.
That's my argument, though. Reviews have been claiming that the game is basically a 20 year old DC game for fans of the series only and awarding it 6-7/10 as a sort of backhanded compliment at best. RE2 used to be fixed camera but they updated it for the remake, FF7 used to be turn based but they updated it for the remake. You think
those fans weren't upset? Who cares? They're appealing to a wider,
different audience, 20 years later.
I’m really not sure how you can compare the technical aspects of the combat system to a story beat which required the character to grind and expect me to take you seriously.
The combat system likely ate up a huge chunk of the team’s budget and making further improvements to it would have lead to compromises needing to have been made in other areas of the game (smaller environments, sacrificing the English dub, lower graphical fidelity, etc) whilst forcing the player to grind to progress the story served as a way of padding the length of the game and probably cost them absolutely nothing.
Removing the need to buy the wine would have lead to a shorter game whilst providing no additional budget or resources to improve the combat system.
I think you might be confusing what I was talking about or I just didn't articulate it properly. My point was that after 20 years, S3 needed to put its best foot forward which (imo) is not having money grinding quests and a combat system that was this compromised, considering it was Shenmue's signature gameplay feature. I wasn't trying to conflate the two.
Whilst Shenmue 3 may not be the best example of Yu’s auteurism, that it’s seen by most reviewers and a lot of fans as being a true sequel to Shenmue 2, suggests that Yu and his team at least got some things right.
Again, I don't think that reviewers are being kind when they say that S3 plays like a 20 year old DC game that earns a 6/10.
In my opinion, being grateful to the fan base who effectively allowed your dream to continue and making compromises to your vision in an attempt to please them and show your gratitude isn’t something that should be criticized, but to each their own.
I think that being grateful and allowing them to dictate the game design are two completely different things. I understand why he did what he did, I can even respect him for it, I simply think it was the wrong choice. Fans don't know what they want, you have to show them.
How exactly could Yu have made Shenmue more appealing to a wider audience without fundamentally changing the essence of the series and upsetting some of the fans that have supported him for nearly two decades?
By making a better game. I know that sounds dickish but that's just the way I see it; I don't think S3 is a very good game and imo he
did change the series fundamentally for the worse. If S3 had S1 and 2's mechanics (no stamina, better combat, normal gambling etc.) and everything else was the same, that
alone would make it a better game.
Poor graphics. The team could have allocated more of the budget to the environments of the game, but this would have lead to compromises being made elsewhere. Would you have been happy if they’d spent less on developing the combat system in order to improve the graphics?
I don't personally have a problem with this but maybe Suzuki shouldn't have let the realistic models and the Street Fighter models coexist? That seems to be the most common criticism against the visuals. I actually think that S3 shot for too much graphical fidelity and it wound up working against them. Many games opt for lower graphical fidelity (Persona, Zelda-- granted those are more stylized) and I haven't seen reviews/wider audiences hold it against them.
Poor dialogue. The team could have replaced the voice actors with more talented actors and hired a better in studio director. Do you think the fan base would have been happy if Corey had been replaced and cuts had been made to other areas of the game to cover the increased cost of the English dub? If they’d cut the English dub entirely, do you think the game would appeal to a wider, predominantly English speaking audience?
This is actually a really fair point. Personally, I would have preferred no voice acting at all except for important cutscenes given the budget restrictions. VO is incredibly expensive and many AAA games still lack full VO (Yakuza, Persona, Zelda etc.). The poor dialogue implementation (awkward pauses, fades etc.) are largely a result of this.
Slow pacing. The team could have added waypoints and fast travel and removed the artificial barriers that slowed down story progression. Do you think removing the exploration elements that Shenmue is best known for from the game and cutting the play time of the game in half would have gone down well with the fan base?
Couple things:
1. The main reason for the slow pacing is poor storytelling. S3 simply does not tell a compelling story and tells it poorly. If the story was presented with a sense of urgency and proper stakes and we were learning about the villains and the world (seriously, we were in
Bailu Village and learned basically nothing about the Shenmue tree, the poem, phantom river stone, and Iwao's time there) then the pacing would have been much more acceptable. The fact that I
knew my time was being wasted with leads that were going nowhere is a pretty big issue imo.
2. Do you think removing the
exploration combat elements that Shenmue is best known for from the game and
cutting the play time of the game in half doubling the playtime with filler content would have gone down well with the fan base?
Many of your arguments stem from the fact that, yes, it's very hard to make a Shenmue game, especially on a tight budget. I would have gladly taken no VO, fewer minigames, and poorer graphics if it meant we got an exciting story, great combat, and memorable characters and I happen to think that wider audiences and fans alike would've respected that as well. Sacrifices are going to have to made and if what you're saying is that S4 will need to be similarly compromised by VO, minigames, and storytelling because that's just what the fans expect then they should expect an even poorer reception for it.