D
Deleted User
Guest
OP
As some of you may or may not recognize Ive written quite a few Shenmue related things on this site now. I'd consider myself a pretty big fan with Shenmue 2 being my all-time favorite game for however many years now. Anyway, with this thread I'd hope to spark a discussion with the like 2 other people on here who even know what Shenmue is.
Shenmue 3 is releasing in just 6 months(barring any future delays, which still seem like a possibility). This is something that many people have been waiting for for almost 20 years at this point. It's so close I can almost see my $250 goodiebox of Kickstarter treats in my hands now. However, Ive been quite skeptical of the games quality from the start. Let me explain.
I, like many others, lost my shit when Shenmue 3 had been announced at that fateful Sony E3 conference. But then I recollected myself quickly and immediately almost began dreading this announcement. "Kickstarter? Oh no." I thought to myself with the smile on my face quickly turning into a look of concern. Immediately I realized that this will be a gimped Shenmue experience even if it could reach 10x its $2,000,000 goal.
Now, I know admittedly know very little about game development, but I think I know more than the average bear. It's fairly obvious that a Shenmue with todays technology wouldn't require the original 2 game's $80,000,000 budget, but that doesn't mean with its relatively small 7.5 mil it ended up raising that it won't have any compromises. Now, apparently there is some outside funding coming from investors and their publisher Deep Silver and while it's true we don't know at all how much is being contributed but I think its safe to assume it's not a game changing amount.
Okay, so the budget is something that should put your expectations in check, but there's even more to consider and that's how little we have been shown of the game. Outside of a handful of screenshots and 2 very short trailers that really do not show much of anything besides close ups of some characters, we haven't seen really anything. No gameplay, no in depth looks at the environments, no story details, no combat, no minigames, we have seen virtually nothing of this game during its 4 years and counting of development. And again, the reason I'm even writing this, the game is set to release in just a few months.
This single screenshot is the closest thing we have seen to gameplay.
That's what worries me the most about the whole situation, the refusal to show off the game. The few times we have seen it, It's looked bad, and they're aware of that from the fan response. Faces look lifeless and some don't even resemble the characters we know and love from past games. Animations on the character rigs are some of the worst and most primitive ever seen. Backlash was instantaneous and they quickly responded with a video of "real facial animation" being worked on but ironically it looked just as bad if not worse than in the trailer. The environments look quite nice and in some of the newer screenshots the characters look decent but otherwise in motion the games looked pretty awful. Hell in the most recent trailer there's slow down. Have you even seen poor performance in a trailer? It's ridiculous.
This was supposed to be a "we told you so" response to the fans after the initial trailer but it really didn't help their case.
Anyways, we're scheduled to finally see the game in motion gameplay and all next month at MAGIC Monaco, a small Anime and Gamed festival in France. Why there? Not really sure but I think one of the key investors runs that event or something. It's such a Literally Who convention but it's been pretty much the only place we've been getting new info on the game since it's initial reveal. Hopefully it's good this time but I won't be surprised if it's the same crap we've been seeing.
What do you guys think? Are you excited or skeptical like I am?
Shenmue 3 is releasing in just 6 months(barring any future delays, which still seem like a possibility). This is something that many people have been waiting for for almost 20 years at this point. It's so close I can almost see my $250 goodiebox of Kickstarter treats in my hands now. However, Ive been quite skeptical of the games quality from the start. Let me explain.
I, like many others, lost my shit when Shenmue 3 had been announced at that fateful Sony E3 conference. But then I recollected myself quickly and immediately almost began dreading this announcement. "Kickstarter? Oh no." I thought to myself with the smile on my face quickly turning into a look of concern. Immediately I realized that this will be a gimped Shenmue experience even if it could reach 10x its $2,000,000 goal.
Now, I know admittedly know very little about game development, but I think I know more than the average bear. It's fairly obvious that a Shenmue with todays technology wouldn't require the original 2 game's $80,000,000 budget, but that doesn't mean with its relatively small 7.5 mil it ended up raising that it won't have any compromises. Now, apparently there is some outside funding coming from investors and their publisher Deep Silver and while it's true we don't know at all how much is being contributed but I think its safe to assume it's not a game changing amount.
Okay, so the budget is something that should put your expectations in check, but there's even more to consider and that's how little we have been shown of the game. Outside of a handful of screenshots and 2 very short trailers that really do not show much of anything besides close ups of some characters, we haven't seen really anything. No gameplay, no in depth looks at the environments, no story details, no combat, no minigames, we have seen virtually nothing of this game during its 4 years and counting of development. And again, the reason I'm even writing this, the game is set to release in just a few months.
This single screenshot is the closest thing we have seen to gameplay.
That's what worries me the most about the whole situation, the refusal to show off the game. The few times we have seen it, It's looked bad, and they're aware of that from the fan response. Faces look lifeless and some don't even resemble the characters we know and love from past games. Animations on the character rigs are some of the worst and most primitive ever seen. Backlash was instantaneous and they quickly responded with a video of "real facial animation" being worked on but ironically it looked just as bad if not worse than in the trailer. The environments look quite nice and in some of the newer screenshots the characters look decent but otherwise in motion the games looked pretty awful. Hell in the most recent trailer there's slow down. Have you even seen poor performance in a trailer? It's ridiculous.
This was supposed to be a "we told you so" response to the fans after the initial trailer but it really didn't help their case.
Anyways, we're scheduled to finally see the game in motion gameplay and all next month at MAGIC Monaco, a small Anime and Gamed festival in France. Why there? Not really sure but I think one of the key investors runs that event or something. It's such a Literally Who convention but it's been pretty much the only place we've been getting new info on the game since it's initial reveal. Hopefully it's good this time but I won't be surprised if it's the same crap we've been seeing.
What do you guys think? Are you excited or skeptical like I am?
