Which systems/ideas from Shenmue 3 would you keep for Shenmue 4? Get rid of?

mjqjazzbar

mjqjazzbar

Joined
Jul 28, 2018
Favourite title
Shenmue IIx
Currently playing
Ghost of Tsushima
PSN
mjqjazzbar
Keep:

Kung fu/leveling system - I know this has its detractors, but I think it's a good idea and encourages you to train. I'd like the team to make sure they don't start Ryo over at level 1 in the next game. That would be a horrible mistake. I get it this time, because it's almost like a do-over episode, but they need to avoid falling into this trap again four games into the series.

Indifferent

Stamina/eating - Ideally, it'd not run out so quickly. I get why it isn't separate from health, however, so I don't really mind if health/stamina are kept as one meter. Health is meaningless outside of the occasional fight unlike in most other games. I would urge Ys Net to avoid resetting this meter in the next game, however. People don't want to spend 5-10 hours 'leveling up' stamina in place of plot development. I would also prefer the next game to have restaurants/shops where you can actually eat meals instead of just focusing on filing Ryo's pocket with one item and abusing that to refill his health.

Item sets - I like this in theory, but it's pretty boring and unengaging to buy stuff you can't interact with or use.

Remove:

Tokens - I get the whole game economy and being forced to interact with all aspects of the world, but I think this takes away from Shenmue. Bailu is this tiny town, yet 50-75% of it is occupied with betting games, a pawn shop and a token redemption center. It makes the world feel very gamey and unrealistic. I'd rather just earn money and spend it. I understand this has something to do with Chinese laws or censorship, but I find this whole system very convoluted and unnecessary.

Curfew - It made sense in Shenmue 1. It makes 0 sense in Shenmue 3 and discourages you from truly exploring the game. I have no idea why they kept this.
 
Down by Law said:
I get the curfew in Bailu - Shenhua says it gets pitch black and there's wolves n shit - but in Niaowu it should have been 10pm at least. Exploring at night looks ace but that two hour window is quite limiting.
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I concur, also unlike Bailu there’s really no sizeable or lengthy conversations you can have with Shenhua which makes the curfew feel even more constraining.
 
There should be no curfew in Niaowu. It makes no sense.
 
Keep: Herb collecting
Ryo always needs more licorice 😂 But seriously though I found this much more fun than I thought it would be. The ability to trade herbs for scrolls was also great. Good way to make money too!
 
RetroLord120 said:
Keep: Herb collecting
Ryo always needs more licorice 😂 But seriously though I found this much more fun than I thought it would be. The ability to trade herbs for scrolls was also great. Good way to make money too!
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Yeah, I like this. It's much more rewarding than tokens and endless gambling.
 
I would scrap the stamina system for sure. It's needlessly prohibiting and doesn't fit Shenmue.

As for everything else, it should just do the things it requires to tell the story. Collecting herbs made sense because it was rural Guilin, if it doesn't make sense for the next locale then scrap it.

Same thing for everything else, Shenmue's gameplay should exist to suit its setting and story.
 
Keep:
- The circular economy. I think it's a brilliant and innovative idea to make the environment useful as a whole, encourage indoor exploration and avoid the movie set cardboard effect seen in many open world games, although the only eventual purpose was to collect the move scrolls.

- The dojos and the idea of training mini-games. Make them even more complete and immersive if possible (we should be able to talk with any fighter, add defense training, real time force sensor). Just get rid of the QTE in training.

Fix:
- The curfew. It should be two hours later. Then you have two hours to talk with Shenhua before midnight. If any ambiguity: sleeping should still be mandatory.

- The stamina: eating should be an (immersive) bonus, not a penalty. Ideally, the FFXV food system would fit Shenmue well. Training and eating would help to raise Ryo stats: Max stamina, force, efficiency for some type of moves, etc.

Remove:
- The current side quest system.
Shenmue 1 & 2 were immersive because the side quests were informal, sort of special events or easter eggs. Now, they are separated with the Square/X button. Starting the side quest should be seamless, more natural and always interesting.
Some side quests were cool in Shenmue 3 (broom girl, Mr.Su, pai-chan clone) so I know they can do it. Or else, keep active the Square/X button for every character or associate the button with the idea of "free discussions" rather "special request".
 
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Yokosuka said:
Keep:
- The circular economy. I think it's a brilliant and innovative idea to make the environment useful as a whole, encourage indoor exploration and avoid the movie set cardboard effect seen in many open world games, although the only eventual purpose was to collect the move scrolls.

- The dojos and the idea of training mini-games. Make them even more complete and immersive if possible (we should be able to talk to any fighter, add defense training, real time force sensor). Just get rid of the QTE in training.

Fix:
- The curfew. It should be two hours later. Then you have two hours to talk with Shenhua before midnight. If any ambiguity: sleeping should still be mandatory.

- The stamina: eating should be an (immersive) bonus, not a penalty. Ideally, the FFXV food system would fit Shenmue well. Training and eating would help to raise Ryo stats: Max stamina, force, efficiency for some type of moves, etc.

Remove:
- The current side quest system.
Shenmue 1 & 2 were immersive because the side quests were informal, sort of special events or easter eggs. Now, they are separated with the Square/X button. Starting the side quest should be seamless, more natural and always interesting.
Some side quests were cool in Shenmue 3 (broom girl, Mr.Su, pai-chan clone) so I know they can do it. Or else, keep the Square/X button for every character or associate the button with the idea of "free discussions" rather "special request".
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Agree with all of this. Especially the way the in-game economy works. I honestly think that it's Shenmue III's biggest stroke of genius. It has me visiting everywhere and talking to everyone and searching every nook and cranny in a way that the first two games didn't.
 
Yeah, I like the circular economy. I’m just not crazy about tokens.
 
Keep
the new Kung fu system, and it wouldn't bother me personally with Ryo starting at level 1, although i think it needs other factors than just attack and stamina.

Improve
stamina system
QTE's need improving again, more like 1 and 2s.
Token system, not exactly bad but needs improving.

Remove

Pay to progress missions
 
I don’t want to start over at 1 because I don’t want Ryo to get his ass kicked by random nobodies and need to spend the entire game training. If they can start you over without making that part of the story, then I suppose I could live with it.
 
mjqjazzbar said:
I don’t want to start over at 1 because I don’t want Ryo to get his ass kicked by random nobodies and need to spend the entire game training. If they can start you over without making that part of the story, then I suppose I could live with it.
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In all RPG's you have to level up to become strong enough to beat your oponents GAMEPLAY WISE, but STORY WISE the hero always comes out on top other than specific scripted events. Shenmue 1 and 2 was the same. Making it part of the story in shenmue 3 just seemed to make Ryo feel weak, especially after S2.... I get it he cant beat muscle boss 1 or 2 .. But a fucking pail toss guy? Cmoon
 
I wish they would tighten up the stamina system a bit. If Ryo is running everywhere make it so that it saps less stamina over time the more you run, to coincide with his cardio getting better from doing all of that running everywhere.
 
Keep but improve:
- The training system. Just add a few more variants.For example: Balancing on the posts like the guy in Bailu, Tree punching like your father, Martial arts dummy striking instead of just horse stance.

- Minimap: however the minimap in Shenmue 3 was useless. Just make it better and more useful. Add markings for herbs and quest NPC's.

- Gambling being the only way to make money at a reasonable pace is fine. I get what they were going for but it came off as silly padding and prizes cost WAY to many tokens. At least make the betting amount more for christ sake. the pay outs are way to small. Also they need to increase the pay from non gambling jobs. How little you make from everything was ridiculous.

Toss:
- Stamina system. Never bothered me but it adds nothing to the game and is just a cheap way to limit the player.
- All of the fan service. A few things were GREAT but they went to far with the backer fan service for sure.
- Those crappy rag doll physics for enemies.
 
kaliskonig91 said:
- Minimap: however the minimap in Shenmue 3 was useless. Just make it better and more useful. Add markings for herbs and quest NPC's.
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I love the map in III because it's useless. I never have to look at it, which is exactly what I want from Shenmue. As soon as you add markers it's a slippery slope to every other "stare at the map instead of the world around you" open-world game. Exploring, getting to know the environments and remembering where things are, is one of the main appeals of Shenmue. A detailed map would ruin that, at least for me.

They should add an option to remove it completely in IV, in my opinion.
 
Combat: I liked how you could switch between combos with the bumper buttons/L1 + R1, but the dial-a-combo mechanic with the face buttons made the face buttons pretty much useless for me. Also, allow the d-pad to be used for movement in combat.

Stamina: Like @Yokosuka said, maybe eating in restaurants etc could raise your overall health, but being punished for exploration by having it deplete constantly was a pain in the arse and counter to the Shenmue experience.

Curfew: Doesn't make sense now that Ryo is not staying at the Hazuki residence, at least not so early. In Bailu I guess it was to encourage conversations with Shenhua but in Niaowu it made no sense.

Controls, Menus, and UI: Why are the Start and Back buttons not used? Why is RB/R1 used for the menu? Why is clothing hidden in Settings? Why was the Skill Book system/switching between MT and AT never properly explained? So many things we had to figure out blindly that should have been straightforward.
 
I love herb collecting.

Fishing's pretty cool but feels like it could be improved upon by increasing the complexity of reeling/catching.

I barely gamble so I don't really care too much about what they do with tokens, but I think some form of real money gambling would be nice in IV.

Sparring should be changed to something else. Your opponent shouldn't attack you during these sections because whether you get hit or not is completely irrelevant -- all you want to do is practice moves over and over again. It also feels pretty crappy due to the lack of impact. Instead, there should be a "Practice" mode, where you can master your moves on a "dummy" opponent, and a "Fight" mode that is proper fighting -- that's it.

With the combat, tapping the left analogue stick to evade doesn't feel natural to me. Move it to the right stick and cycle through multiple targets with a bumper instead.

I haven't found the curfew to be disruptive, to be honest. The days feel like a good length in spite of the earlier curfew.

Amir said:
Controls, Menus, and UI: Why are the Start and Back buttons not used? Why is RB/R1 used for the menu?
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The most baffling one for me is Help being assigned to a face button...something you barely use and that could've been stuck literally anywhere else...which means "Interact" and "Open notebook" have to share a button 🧐 So you have to turn away from NPCs in order to open the notebook, which is just straight-up shit UX design. It's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things but it's an annoyance that could've easily been avoided.
 
orient said:
With the combat, tapping the left analogue stick to evade doesn't feel natural to me. Move it to the right stick and cycle through multiple targets with a bumper instead.
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Really? It's actually one of the things I appreciate the most in this iteration, because it's a bit like in the latest Virtua Fighter :) I would move the target cycling though from right stick to bumper as well though.
 
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