What do you rate the game (1-10)?

[HazukiFCBR]

I gave it a 3/10 because it failed to fulfill many of the promises made by Yu and it just feels like a rush job knockoff game despite all the funding and support it has received aside from slacker backer and kickstarter campaigns. It's like they made a list of all the most basic and most memed elements of Shenmue 1 and 2 and made a game based on that checklist without any thought or creativity involved. It should serve as an example why you need proper directors and producers for big projects like this, because just getting funding and outsourcing to India is clearly not enough.

• Recycled fights, 3 times Bailu thugs, 5 times Niaowu thugs, 3 times the Red Snakes leader. That's about all the story-related fights until you get to the castle. Gotta love the variety.
• Inconsequential encounters and story, nothing feels like it matters. Ryo encounters like 10 people who knew Iwao and it doesn't even matter all that much. Niao Sun appears for 5 seconds only to serve as a plot element for the future game. Nobody mentions the loss of the Phoenix Mirror which should've been a huge deal. Lan Di gets away. All Ryo learns is that Chi You Men have a hideout somewhere else and that Lan Di is Sunming Zhao's son. Sure was worth saving Shenhua's father for all this valuable information.
• Body check and reverse body check that the script plays out to be these huge signature moves are just story-bound QTEs with no practical use.
• Final encounter with Lan Di is a joke, his elites are reduced to a one button QTE and the fight with Lan Di serves no purpose whatsoever.
• Essential VAs don't make a return - makes the phone calls really cringy and awkward since the new actors (at least the English ones) don't even try to fit into the role, for the most part. As for story characters, Ren and Lan Di are fine (even if Lan Di sounds nothing like himself) but Shenhua just sounds like a voice synthesizer.
• Too much focus given to non-essential story elements and NPCs. New characters that the game makes you interact wiht over and over are unlikable and unappealing and many of them look like generic kung fu cartoon characters.
• Fighting system is a joke, once you master some of the quicker moves that have good reach and cause knockdown like tiger thigh or hidden sandstorm and level up your attack, you can cheese every fight pressing only L2 and R2 while dodging. A lot of cool moves were lost since no more grabs, but brawling uppercut, the dumbest move imaginable, made it and it's one of the easiest moves to pull off by accident locking you into the insanely long animation.
• QTEs are way too fast and too sudden, also they make no sense. You'd think it'd be easier since Ryo knows predictive explosion, but no. The buttons no longer correspond to actual moves you gotta do in combat. In Shenmue 1 and 2 jumping over stuff was always A, balancing on stuff was always left or right etc., meanwhile here it can literally be any of the 8 buttons which is honestly just annoying. Your instinct says to press left but the game makes you press triangle instead, repeat until you have the entire sequence memorized.
• Too much walking and talking, 99 out of 100 NPCs don't know anything and you spend ages looking for that one NPC that will give you the clue that will progress the story. This never happened in Shenmue 1 and 2 despite all the "looking for sailors" memes, every NPC knew a little bit of information and even not knowing all of it you were able to progress. Here the game locks you in until you find the specific information.
• Recycled gameplay elements and pointless chores being used to extend playtime such as looking for garbage for the pawn shop before going to the old castle, having to exhaust all options before story can progress (fidning out the guy's fighting style, looking for a boat to the castle, Bei doesn't appear until you talk to all the NPCs at the dock etc.)
• The game completely ignores your kung fu level and treats you like an idiot no matter what, for instance by criticizing your kung fu or forcing you to do horse stance near the end of the game even if you have it mastered.
• Unskippable dialogue, also can't pause during dialogue or cutscenes in a 2019 game
• Horrible music choices for the most part, music that was reused from past games was seemingly picked at random and Niaowu music is extremely grating and repetitive
• Unimaginative capsule toy sets that aren't fun to collect
• Hunger system takes away from the enjoyment and is only there to put constant pressure on the player to keep making money
• Graphics are pretty ugly on a non-Pro PS4
• The UI looks like it was created in 2003

This.....
Pretty much all. But....
- Meaningless Shenhua convos. We have had convos in Shenmue 2 that brings a lot more of Bailu, than Shenmue 3's.
- Not a single cut scene with Shenhua. Not a dinner. Not a single quest.
- We got faceoff!!! WTF!!! Horay!!
- Making the cave some sort of tutorial would be wise. I just feel that could be more in that cave to seach while giving the player the first contact with the controls. They could have used that. And give a god damn trophy for getting out of the cave!!!
- I had already said "crap oddly conversations" with Shenhua?
- I hate the way Ryo walks. Those arms breaking polygons is awful. Ryo "20 years earlier" walks better than a Ryo from a 2019 Shenmue game.
- Had fun training and combat. Until i got Shin Bone bash, and realize that as you said. Combat in this one is about having a snake bottle, lots of black garlics, starting with tiger thigh and spanning R2 with ShinBone bash when the thugh is on the floor.
- Sweet jesus.....face off.....
- Bailu is so underdeveloped that makes me wanna scalp my self.
- The best Shenmue 3 scene, not that is a really really good one, is the Bailu ending chapter. Thats is 1% of Shenmue 3 and is what makes Shenmue, Shenmue.
- The dude who became a friend with Ryo (if this is possible with such character developement) m the Hsu guy, is the dude from Bailu, who teaches tai chi to younglins, Ziuxiong, with another hair. Shame.
- I won't even go for the ending. I refused.

 

[BruceWayne911]

I'm at a 6-7 out of 10 if speaking objectively. As a devout Shenmue fan 8.5/10.

 

[Matt180]

So ive not completed the game yet. I think im quite deep into it though. Ive just been purposefully taking things really slow.

Im giving it a 9. Im addicted to the game. Its the only game im playing. It has stopped me playing every other game I own.

 

[Matt180]

So ive not completed the game yet. I think im quite deep into it though. Ive just been purposefully taking things really slow.

Im giving it a 9. Im addicted to the game. Its the only game im playing. It has stopped me playing every other game I own.

Il add to that. The last game I enjoyed playing through and felt obsessed with was Prey, but even that game didn't stop me playing other games now and then. This game has. I only play Shenmue 3. When I don't, I watch youtube lets plays on it lol.
Its not perfect, hence why it isn't a 10. But man, this is a Shenmue, and I love it.

 

[SadCthulhu]

I actually have it at a solid 8. My first reaction was actually a 10 but, that's simply the nostalgia, love, and excitement talking (Just finished my very first playthrough, and good lawd did I take my time.) I think some of the criticism is definitely warranted, but other aspects people have pointed out make little sense to me. In Shenmue 1 and 2 you could absolutely master the button presses of a few key moves and just roflstomp your way to victory. No one forces you to cheese, that is a choice you make on your own. I actually quite enjoyed learning the new button combinations, and managed to have many intelligent and fun fights without using the hot key function lol.

The game was exactly what I wanted, and to be absolutely honest it was more than I expected. Maybe that's on me, my bar was low, and my love is high. As of right now I am the embodiment of the take my money meme. I do not regret the money I dropped on Kickstarter, the digitial deluxe I got, the best buy steelbook, or the Limited Run Collector Edition. Would do it again, and do even more lol. The experience was about as -Shenmue- as I could have ever hoped for. Now I just hope it's not another 18 years between them because I definitely have noticed that my ability to rapidly press those buttons in the half second reaction range has basically vanished as I have become old

The game had some problems, a fair few. But nothing I'd call truly game breaking, or anything like that. The closest thing I have found so far was that if you try to run through the busiest parts of the city the npcs vanish and it can make spotting a subquest difficult on the fly.

Also, loved the ending, had a blast. BUT I did feel a little peeved I didn't get to do more. For me, I sort of just was very cautious and trying to bait so I could tap out a combo. But after one exchange we hit a cutscene and that was the end lmao. Which made me go WTF REALLY. But, hey, revenge ain't easy work!

It may sound bias, but that's how I feel lol. Blew me away, but I was not expecting some game changer. I was expecting less than what I got, and what I got I love so damn much. TAKE MY MONEY YU, PLEASE!

 

[sheeponfire]

A 9.5 that dropped to a 7 after the castle.

To build up Niao Sun in the trailer, of which the footage comes from her only appearances in the game, and rely on nameless goons and thugs to act as the baddies instead, is insane.

 

[Matt180]

A 9.5 that dropped to a 7 after the castle.

To build up Niao Sun in the trailer, of which the footage comes from her only appearances in the game, and rely on nameless goons and thugs to act as the baddies instead, is insane.

yea you see, I didn't watch anything prior to the game. This don't mean to much to me.

 

[Sput Vas Normandy]

Do you really need to create an user and call it "shenmue3isntgood"?

 

[shenmue3isntgood]

Do you really need to create an user and call it "shenmue3isntgood"?

This board is members only and I wanted to see what people are saying about the game. I didn't create the account with the intention of posting anything initially, but I saw a lot of mixed feelings so I shared my thoughts.

 

[Sput Vas Normandy]

This board is members only and I wanted to see what people are saying about the game. I didn't create the account with the intention of posting anything initially, but I saw a lot of mixed feelings so I shared my thoughts.

I mean the name you picked.

 

[HazukiFCBR]

Keeping swallowing that end part, looks like indeed, a major part of the game, was cut. Aside the bad storytelling, really feels that were going to another city, Baisha. But if they did this intentionately, was a big big misfire. And a let down. As i said before. If they had gonne for a better development Bailu Village in a Shenmue 2 fashion, and then go for a close in Choubu, would feel a lot better, imo. Even with Baisha being cut.

 

[sheeponfire]

yea you see, I didn't watch anything prior to the game. This don't mean to much to me.

Nor did I until I finished the game. Imagine though, you're advertising your product to the public, you portray your villain as this colourful, seductive siren of doom, and... she just appears at the end for afew cutscenes and that's it. A lot of people will feel conned by that.

It would be like getting hyped over Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight, seeing him all over posters and trailers, only for the whole film to be Batman beating up thugs with a brief cameo at the end.

 

[iknifaugood]

This board is members only and I wanted to see what people are saying about the game. I didn't create the account with the intention of posting anything initially, but I saw a lot of mixed feelings so I shared my thoughts.

Do you like any of the Shenmue games?

 

[pilman]

8/10.

 

[ShenGCH]

I did a calculation of the poll responses as of this moment, and the average score comes out at 7.25. Not too far off the aggregate of the critics' scores, funnily enough.

 

[BloodyHeartland]

I’m not confident in my rating as I mostly stuck to stuff important to the story, but I’d say it’s a 7 for me until I go back for other things.

Initially I was worried it might be more jank, but it proved me wrong for the most part, and my only real complaints with it are some of the design decisions, like some of the really unnecessarily roundabout investigation in Niaowu - especially after getting Ren to help in which for whatever reason they don’t double team the big bad guy and just get wrecked individually, makes no sense.

Not having backed it myself, I wasn’t privy to what seems to be a lot of cut ideas, and many sound neat, but I guess I just don’t feel as disappointed and find the game as it is to be mostly fine.

I don’t mind the events in the ending for the most part, though I do feel the aftermath could have been more fleshed out, whether it was longer explanations or conversations between characters or at least getting to “play” the segments of getting on the boat and leaving, just something akin to more of an epilogue.

 

[spud1897]

This board is members only and I wanted to see what people are saying about the game. I didn't create the account with the intention of posting anything initially, but I saw a lot of mixed feelings so I shared my thoughts.

The user name doesn't lend itself to anything constructive. However while I personally dont agree with your points, they aren't an issue.

What i will say as a counter point is we dont know why or what development decisions were taken when so to call it a knock off is a little disrespectful as the game clearly isn't intended that way

Just be mindful going forward, the user name screams troll. If you're going to post longer term I'd suggest a more appropriate name. I'm talking to the other mods about this and what happens going forward.

 

[Mystere]

7/10.

I expected shortcomings. I expected a smaller scope and an expansion 'inward' as Yu put it. And I expected sub-par graphics by 2019 standards, but I didn't care about these things because to me, Shenmue is all about the story. Yeah..

During development, Yu said he wanted to "create a sense of smell" with SIII's graphics, and on that front, I've gotta say he nailed it. Honestly some of my fondest memories of Shenmue III are literally scouring for herbs in Bailu Village, achieving nothing but just being there. SIII conveys place beautifully and the nightly chats with Shenhua create a cozy depth to the experience. At one point in Bailu, I would've rated the game 9/10.

Not so convincing, though, is the plot. Like the...

Spoiler

SatAM cartoon rent-a-thug in Bailu beating Ryo's ass, as if this isn't the same Ryo Hazuki who advanced his skills in I & II to defeat epic opponents like Chai, Master Baihu and Dou Niu... Like key characters showing up, ie. Ren and Chai, with almost no fanfare worthy of the event... Like the woefully under-developed and mishandled introduction of Niao Sun, or the Shrine Maiden who seems strangely pointless...

I suspect there's a hell of a lot on the cutting room floor in Niaowu, especially considering how shallow the plot feels there and with all depth of interaction with Shenhua suddenly *gone*, and I wonder if badly-managed development resources are to blame, because the place is huge. Which seems unnecessary for a supposedly inward-looking game.

The stamina / HP system was "meh" to me. Sure it's no big deal once you level up your Endurance, but I've seen at least one user here justify it as an extension of Shenmue as a life simulator. I disagree; if anything its implementation feels more gamey, and while having Ryo ascend the Fortified Castle with 5 jumbo sausages, 10 rice cakes and 20 mangos in his pockets was hilarious to me, I doubt that's the reaction Yu was going for.

I also didn't buy the presence of a brightly-lit arcade, a dedicated Prize Exchange store, and countless Lucky Hit / gambling vendors idly sitting on dirt paths in Bailu Village, seemingly just awaiting customers all day. In a bustling metropolis like Hong Kong, or even in Niaowu the abundance of these stalls made sense, but in Bailu, a tiny hamlet supposedly accessible only by a two-day trek across the mountains, it felt fake and undermined an otherwise convincing locale. Oh well, fan service I guess.

And yet, despite all this, I still enjoyed Shenmue III and will do whatever I can take to support IV, because the series is and always will be close to my heart.

I do think that, if one priority can be established for Yu, it should be to get back Masahiro Yoshimoto as the lead writer. Although Shenmue is Yu's baby, I think we forget that it took a team to bring it to life and clearly, if III's script is anything to go by in comparison to previous entries, then Yoshimoto was key to that. So if there's a IV, I hope he's involved.

 

[stillsense]

I changed my vote from a 1/10 to an 8/10 because looking back I actually think the Shenmue experience is there and playing with the Japanese voice overs is really great.

 

[spud1897]

I changed my vote from a 1/10 to an 8/10 because looking back I actually think the Shenmue experience is there and playing with the Japanese voice overs is really great.

I'm going to use Japanese voices next play. Does anyone know if you can change the voices on new game plus mode?