Review cover Shenmue 3 (PlayStation 4)
User Review

Product Information:

  • Release Date (NA): November 19, 2019
  • Release Date (EU): November 19, 2019
  • Release Date (JP): November 19, 2019
  • Publisher: Deep Silver
  • Developer: Ys Net
  • Genres: Simulation, RPG
  • Also For: Computer

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
Shenmue 1 and 2 are my all time favorite games. Naturally, I've been long awaiting the third installment. How does it add to the story people have been waiting 18 years for?
This is it. Shenmue 3 is here. A game we all thought was impossible and would never come is real, and I played it. I finally get to experience more of this story that was left on a cliffhanger for 18 years from Shenmue 2. Or... do I?

Story
This is so painful for me to write. Shenmue 2 ends with one of the most insane cliffhangers possible. To recap, Ryo travels to Guilin, China at the end of Shenmue 2 and meets a girl named Shenhua. She tells Ryo of a prophecy, one we have heard in the intros to the games, and we start to see the story really unfold. Just who is she? Why is she so important? They make their way to the cave where her father mines a mystical stone. Inside, they find a sword, and a note from her father nowhere to be seen. If that wasn't strange enough, Ryo takes the sword and places it upon a pedestal where it begins to float somehow and Shenhua uses a mysterious power to seal it in. Then Ryo places his Phoenix Mirror in another structure and a god damn laser comes out of it, starts a fire, and reveals 2 giant versions of the Dragon and Phoenix mirrors carved into the wall.

This ending was so legendary because of how this pretty grounded in reality game just went off the wall nuts with these supernatural happenings and all the last minute questions it brings up. So naturally, Shenmue 3 would just pick up from that right? Well, yes and no. Shenmue 3 starts off by showing the cave scene again, but its a little different. All of the supernatural elements are completely gone. Nothing interesting happens, they still find the letter from Shenhuas missing father and there are still 2 big mirrors carved into the wall, but everything else is just gone. No sword, no levitating, no Shenhua powers, no lasers, nothing.

Now that is super disappointing but lets see where else the story goes, maybe it will get addressed later or will be better for it. Ryo and Shenhua then go to Bailu Village, a settlement near her house to ask if anyone has seen Shenhuas dad. You ask around for a while and nobody really knows. You eventually find out some thugs were looking for the village stonemasons, assumingly looking for who made the mirrors. You find the thugs, beat them up and lose anyway because the game doesnt have branching paths unlike Shenmue 2, and are now forced to train for a couple of ingame days. You find some old guy who trained your dad many years ago and he reveals that the guy in the photo with your father was Zhao Sunming, Lan Di's father. Something that was pretty obvious to anyone paying attention, but not outright stated until now so I guess nice info. I hope you werent prepared to learn any other new info in this entire game though because that is literally it. After the game wastes your time running around to various old people to learn about a bridge for literally no reason in a storyline that goes nowhere, you find this old guy Sun who trains you. You have to buy a lot of things for him, and then you chase chickens 3 times and then are forced to fight at the dojo if you havent already to progress. It takes way too long and isnt fun. After that you get to fight the thugs again, you win and they tell you everything you already knew but game pretends like you didnt. After that Chai from Shenmue 1 is there for some reason. You dont get to fight him though its just a lame 3 button QTE. Afterwards, you go to an old womans house, collect keys for the belltower, enter the belltower and retrieve a scroll from it. For some reason, the games writers forgot that Yuanda Zhu near the end of 2 tells you that the mirrors are the keys to a legendary treasure, because the following cutscene pretends that this is a big reveal and the characters act like they havent heard all of this before. This game does this a lot actually, it has these scenes that are set up to be huge plot points but its all stuff thats been stated previously and clearly in the other games.

Afterwards, you go to the city of Niaowu. Here you do literally nothing but plot irrelevant minor events until about 8 hours later you go to the castle where Lan Di is hiding, break in, fight some bad guys, have a really shitty QTE, and then fight Lan Di for all of about 20 seconds and then he beats you up and some lady you saw one other time in the game lights the castle on fire and you leave. That is literally it. Shenhua found her dad off screen and theres a final scene of all of them on a pier and the credits roll.

Yep, that is really it. This is the story we have been waiting 18 years for. All that happens is they retconned the ending of 2 and then repeated some info once or twice and then the game ends a couple hours later. I cannot begin to describe how hard of a slap to the face this is for everyone who wanted to see more of this series's story. The entire game is literally filler, designed to take a long time to complete to trick you into thinking its meaningful just because it takes a while to do. Words cannot describe how heartbroken I am over this. I genuinely wish the game did not happen because now we are technically left with less than we had before since they decided the events from Shenmue 2 didnt happen.

Gameplay
Shenmue has never been about the gameplay. In its rawest essence, all you do in Shenmue is walk around, explore, talk to characters, and sometimes a fight breaks out. Also theres minigames along the way. Theres not much to it, but theres a real charm in exploring the virtual worlds these games housed. Characters said strange but funny things and it made you want to talk to all of them. The shops and buildings were detailed to an impossible degree and you wanted to go inside each one and just look in awe of what they were able to pull off all those years ago. And the story was always interesting, very rarely a low point, so you always wanted to push forward to see what was next.

So, how does Shenmue 3 mess this simple idea up. It does it by taking that definition of Shenmue I just wrote out so literally, that it entirely misses the point. Shenmue 3 is basically just an infinite loop of "Talk to this person who tells you to talk to this person who tells you to talk to this person" for roughly 15 hours until the game is over. Now, yes, that is basically what you do in the other games, but it was so much more varied than that. In Shenmue 3, there is often only ever 1 person who has the answer for you. The beauty of the previous games and what made them so replayable was that many characters had answers and could even take you down different paths to the same goal. Also the game generally only lets you do 1 story thing per day as to pad out the playtime naturally. Yes, you have to wait in the previous games sometimes, but not this many times. There is a skip time option sometimes but you still have to walk all the way back to where you were the next day just because the game wants to waste your time.

Speaking of wasting your time, this game truly has no respect for you. The game is meticulously designed to take as much time as possible to hide the fact that if there was no padding the game would only be like an hour long. Constantly you are forced to grind for money to progress, or go train at the dojo. Again, before you say "But the other game had that" yes it did, like 2 times. This game makes you do some tedious, grindy bullshit almost every story point. Gotta buy things for Sun like 4 times one each day, and then you have to grind an additional $2,000 (which is an INSANE amount of money in this game), and then you have to catch chickens 3 times once each day, and then finally the day after you get to progress in the story. Similar instances happen many times in this game and it is the most blatant filler I have ever seen in a videogame.

The other half of Shenmue, the character interaction, is just abysmal here too. Most characters only have one thing to say to you, some you can ask about story stuff and have a couple additional extra lines for that. And thats it. What's there isnt even good most of the time either. This games translation is abysmal at points. Ryo will often respond with dialogue that makes no sense in response to what was said. Now, Shenmue is known for its awkward dialogue, it is its trademark. However, despite the awkward dialogue, it at least made sense. In Shenmue 3, Ryo will literally say "Hello" mid conversation with other characters, it gets that bad. And it isnt a rare occurance or glitch either, it happens often. This is made even less excusable because there are less characters than ever to talk to. Bailu village is incredibly small, and Niaowu despite being a city is a borderline ghost town. You also cant talk to every character either. In previous games, sure, some characters had more to say than others but you could still talk to them all anyway. In this game though, many characters, especially in Niaowu, cannot be interacted with at all. Only shop keeps and few select NPCs can be spoken to. There is a number of them but it creates a massive disconnect from the world. There also arent many people walking about to begin with, this is supposed to be a bustling city but it feels completely empty. Compare this to Hong Kong in Shenmue 2, which is an 18 year old game on comparatively weak hardware, and the difference is night and day. There are so many people walking around in the old games they can even get in the way sometimes, like a real life city and, of course, you could talk to each and every one lets not forget. One could argue its due to budget reasons. This may be true, however, most of the characters reuse eachothers clothes, facial features and other assets to begin with. If theyre getting that lazy and cheap with it, is it really too much to ask to just make a couple more and have them populate the city streets?

Graphics and Sound
This game is a mixed bag audiovisually. Sometimes it looks really nice. Walking out onto the hotel balcony at night to a view of the starry sky and moonlit waters is a visual feast. But then, you notice that the city streets are completely empty. And then you looks closely and notice the shaders around the light sources are interfering with the shaders on the water ruining the effects. And then you remember the song that is playing is just copy and pasted from Shenmue 2. A beautiful scene ruined by a machine gun spread of blemishes. This is typically how every area in Shenmue 3 plays out. The environments and foliage and whatnot look quite nice but youre ripped out of the moment by everything else going on. When the game isnt playing an old reused song, its usually something that is not particularly good. The song that plays in the majority of Bailu village becomes migraine inducing after about an hour.

Characters look either pretty good, or downright awful with very little inbetween. The majority of NPCs reuse eachothers clothes, facial features, etc. For example, go to Joy Park in Bailu Village. Theres a drunk old man. Right behind him is the dice game guy, who has literally the same exact hair, head and face minus the beard. That old man head is probably the most reused one in the game lol, its on the dojo master, the Tao Get shop owner and many many other characters. Once you see it you cant unsee it and it pulls you out of the game every single time.

Conclusion
I hate this game. I wish it did not exist. I feel bad for the fans(even though some still blindly love and support this game for some idiotic reason), I feel bad for the backers who paid to make this game happen including me, I feel bad for the people who waited 18 years for a story they didnt get, I feel bad for the people who just got into Shenmue to play 3 and will be presented with this trash, and I feel bad for Yu Suzuki. It is indeed partially his fault the game is like this, he did direct everything so it all went through him, but I still do feel bad because he was so passionate about these games and telling this grand story, and now its over. The series may go on beyond this game, maybe we will see a 4 and 5 but Im not interested anymore because this game has ruined the story with its retcons and plot changes. Whatever comes next, if anything at all, will not be the original story and the plot we have been waiting for since 2. Shenmue 3 singlehandedly has killed this franchise.

Get up, I'll allow you to die like a warrior.

Verdict

What I Liked ...
  • Graphics look nice sometimes
  • Shenmue music is always good
  • I had fun playing Lucky Hit once or twice I guess
What I Didn't Like ...
  • Absolutely no story
  • When it doesnt look alright, the game looks abysmal most of the time especially character animations
  • Everything is padding
  • Everything takes forever
  • The stamina system is only there so you are forced to walk slowly making the game feel longer
  • No dialogue skipping except for very few instances
  • Very few minigames and the same ones are pointlessly copy and pasted in close proximity to eachother
  • The combat sucks
  • World feels empty
  • Most of the music is reused from Shenmue 2
  • The voice acting is bad in a way that isnt charming
  • We waited 18 years for this absolute garbage
1
Gameplay
Shenmue has never had super enthralling gameplay. You talk to people and sometimes theres a fight. Shenmue 3 takes that very literal description and doubles down on the monotony in a way that is very grating and really just dreadful to play. Everything takes forever and you are forced to grind for cash and fighting EXP often. There is nothing fun here.
6
Presentation
There are some detailed environments here and a lot of the lighting and textures are quite nice. However, so much of the game is made with storebought assets and its clear as day too. Characters look awkward and many even look incredibly similar to others. Animations on everything are poor.
-
Lasting Appeal
I have played the original two games more than I can count. Thats because they have many hidden scenes, alternate ways of doing things, and so many characters and shops and buildings that you may never see them all in a lifetime of replaying them. Shenmue 3 lacks all of that and since its such a slog to go through the first time around, I do not wish to play it ever again.
2
out of 10

Overall

The disrespect for everyone who waited for this game is unreal.
Oh wow, the guy who had nothing positive to say and constantly looked for negatives throughout the whole of development dislikes the game. What a shocker. You managed to become literally the ONLY person banned from a certain discord, because you just can’t accept any positives. Any time someone brings up a positive, you just turn around with “nah, that doesn’t count”

Garbage review by garbage person of niche game.
 
R
Oh wow, the guy who had nothing positive to say and constantly looked for negatives throughout the whole of development dislikes the game. What a shocker. You managed to become literally the ONLY person banned from a certain discord, because you just can’t accept any positives. Any time someone brings up a positive, you just turn around with “nah, that doesn’t count”

Garbage review by garbage person of niche game.
Sounds like you definitely, actually did read my review for sure 100%.
 
Sounds like you definitely, actually did read my review for sure 100%.


I did, and many of your criticisms are invalid, or read as pure entitlement. "Boohoo, Yu Suzuki didn't make it exactly as I wanted it to be, it's crap". Fact of the matter is, throughout the whole of development, you specifically went out of your way to find anything to be upset about. You were never going to give the game a fair shake, so get the fuck off your high horse.
 
Ouch. I bought it, but haven't gotten started yet due to already being tied up with Pokemon. I really hope my experience is more positive.
 
R
I did, and many of your criticisms are invalid, or read as pure entitlement. "Boohoo, Yu Suzuki didn't make it exactly as I wanted it to be, it's crap". Fact of the matter is, throughout the whole of development, you specifically went out of your way to find anything to be upset about. You were never going to give the game a fair shake, so get the fuck off your high horse.
I gave the game much more than a fair shake, I spent about 35 hours in my playthrough despite the game only requiring about 15 to complete. I also spent about $700 on it across my Kickstarter copy and all the other versions. If I was so dead set on hating, I wouldn't have done that now would I?

I was so openly critical of the game prior to launch because I wanted my voice to be heard and possibly spread by others so changes would be made to the game. But people like you and the other sheep-like fans were dead set on silencing any "negativity" because nobody should dare say a bad word about your precious Shenmue. And look what happened, nobody spoke up about the games real issues pre-launch so nobody did anything about it and we have the same exact crap we saw over a year ago in trailers. Instead you all opted to complain about things literally nobody cares about like the logo and Ryos jacket.

I love Shenmue, and I care about it more than you ever will because Im not scared to speak up about its issues. Blindly loving every single thing that comes out of a series does not make you a fan, that makes you a fanboy and thats the difference between you and I.

Also, your namecalling and swearing towards me is super mature dude lmao. Pretty sure you're older than I am. Grow up.
 
I gave the game much more than a fair shake, I spent about 35 hours in my playthrough despite the game only requiring about 15 to complete. I also spent about $700 on it across my Kickstarter copy and all the other versions. If I was so dead set on hating, I wouldn't have done that now would I?

I was so openly critical of the game prior to launch because I wanted my voice to be heard and possibly spread by others so changes would be made to the game. But people like you and the other sheep-like fans were dead set on silencing any "negativity" because nobody should dare say a bad word about your precious Shenmue. And look what happened, nobody spoke up about the games real issues pre-launch so nobody did anything about it and we have the same exact crap we saw over a year ago in trailers. Instead you all opted to complain about things literally nobody cares about like the logo and Ryos jacket.

I love Shenmue, and I care about it more than you ever will because Im not scared to speak up about its issues. Blindly loving every single thing that comes out of a series does not make you a fan, that makes you a fanboy and thats the difference between you and I.

Also, your namecalling and swearing towards me is super mature dude lmao. Pretty sure you're older than I am. Grow up.

Gave it a fair shake, eh? Alright then, let's do this.

In Shenmue 3, there is often only ever 1 person who has the answer for you.

Outright untrue, in most situations, you can get to the answer (IE where to go next) a variety of ways, but only one person advances the story. This is EXACTLY how the Shenmue series has always been.

Also the game generally only lets you do 1 story thing per day as to pad out the playtime naturally.

Again, untrue. After many story events, the game will let you skip ahead to 9PM at Shenhua's House; but as long as you have enough time in the day, you can continue on in the story (unless, of course, an important scene at Shenhua's house is next in the sequence of events, but a decent chunk of these are missable/skippable).

There is a skip time option sometimes but you still have to walk all the way back to where you were the next day just because the game wants to waste your time.

Wow, what a shock; another untruth. Every day when leaving Shenhua's house, you can skip right to the dojo, the Tao-Get Store, or the Village Square (IE the most central location of Bailu). Sorry that Yu Suzuki didn't hold your hand, and actually wanted you to explore the environment a bit.

you have to grind an additional $2,000 (which is an INSANE amount of money in this game)

$2000 really isn't all that much. Took me about 10 minutes of looking for herbs, and another 10-15 minutes of chopping wood. Sorry that you had to play the game for half an hour. What a horrible gameplay choice, you actually have to play it.

then you have to catch chickens 3 times once each day, and then finally the day after you get to progress in the story.

And you clearly didn't listen to the conversation afterwards. There's a reason Ryo was catching chickens. Sorry that doing things for a reason bothers you.

In Shenmue 3, Ryo will literally say "Hello" mid conversation with other characters, it gets that bad.

You.... You realized that did happen in Shenmue II though, right? I've been trying to avoid invoking "the other games had that too", but here, you're outright lying again and saying that the other games DIDN'T have this, when they did. Please stop lying.

In this game though, many characters, especially in Niaowu, cannot be interacted with at all. Only shop keeps and few select NPCs can be spoken to. There is a number of them but it creates a massive disconnect from the world.

Yes, due to the much smaller budget for this title. Yu Suzuki has been open about that from the get go. "You won't be able to interact with every NPC, we had to reduce the scope a bit to only around 300 NPCs you can interact with"
"HEY! WHY ARE THERE ONLY 300 NPCS I CAN INTERACT WITH, THAT'S BULLSHIT!" You go on to say "maybe this could be the budget, but they share X, Y, and Z, so would it be so hard to add a few more". Yes, actually. To say that shows that you have VERY little understanding of how game development actually works. So yeah, this one is very clearly you TRYING to find something to complain about.


I'm not going to get into the audiovisual aspects, or the story aspects; since A/V is by-and-large a personal taste thing (I, for one, happen to love the way the game looks.... mostly, a few NPCs I have issue with; but it's not WORST GAME EVER 2019 material, because that's... well... largely insignificant bullshit that only people looking for things to be upset about would get truly upset about), and I haven't completed the story; but it's clear enough to me that you either didn't pay attention to it, or wanted it to be bad so much, that you nitpicked every negative you could possibly find. Just to uhh... illustrate that, you mentioned that the sword of seven stars isn't in this game... but uhh... it is... it turns out to actually be pretty damn important.

So I'm going to ask again, do you have any actual criticisms, or are you just going to continue to whine and act entitled?
 
Alright Rob listen here you need to play the game again and work on this review a little bit more better you see if you're going to play the game with negative thoughts you're going to have negative reactions and interactions with this game that's how it works. sure you have made a good few points but none of the less you have not appreciated or took the time out of your fucking day to understand that this game was made with a 7 million dollar budget you act like your shit is fucking gold, you act like this game who had a 7 million in a fucking budget to be just like the other two now obviously that's not going to fucking work but let's talk about this. See if you're actually a real fan a true fan of shenmue you would understand and appreciate that it had a $7000000 motherfuking budget you fucking idiot now I agree that yu suzuki could at least worked on it a little bit better to the story as to the intro and some parts later on but I'll give you that ok sure. But now let's talk about the whole bulk of the game it had a 7 million dollar budget why do I keep saying 7 million dollar budget? Well its because you obviously fucking forgot that this game has 7 million dollar budget and you are too f****** stupid to understand that so here are the facts it had a small budget, it's not a AAA game so we can concur that the bulk of what shenmue really is it's going to be a little lackluster and you said that you put $700 for your shenmue 3 Kickstarter copy and then you want to bitch and complain when its finally out and expect it to reach soaring heights and what if you put more money into the game hm? Maybe then the shit you were complaining about might just be a bit better. Oh and before you go into this little childish mode of "I'm a bigger shenmue fan than you! Nyah nyah" no one is you dumb fuck don't think highly of yourself in that level and oh please please bring your fuckbuddy inno here because I would love to slap you two with some fucking sense. Oh and another thing it seems to me you just wanna rush and beat the game I mean why do you think the game is having you to do shit or train or fight at the temple? Its because its to stop people like you who just wants to play it and be over with instead of taking the time and smell the roses.you might give shenmue 3 a 3/10 well you're a 0/10 of a fucking human being and I hope you and your lovable bottom fuck buddy inno have a beautiful relationship.
 
R
Gave it a fair shake, eh? Alright then, let's do this.



Outright untrue, in most situations, you can get to the answer (IE where to go next) a variety of ways, but only one person advances the story. This is EXACTLY how the Shenmue series has always been.



Again, untrue. After many story events, the game will let you skip ahead to 9PM at Shenhua's House; but as long as you have enough time in the day, you can continue on in the story (unless, of course, an important scene at Shenhua's house is next in the sequence of events, but a decent chunk of these are missable/skippable).



Wow, what a shock; another untruth. Every day when leaving Shenhua's house, you can skip right to the dojo, the Tao-Get Store, or the Village Square (IE the most central location of Bailu). Sorry that Yu Suzuki didn't hold your hand, and actually wanted you to explore the environment a bit.



$2000 really isn't all that much. Took me about 10 minutes of looking for herbs, and another 10-15 minutes of chopping wood. Sorry that you had to play the game for half an hour. What a horrible gameplay choice, you actually have to play it.



And you clearly didn't listen to the conversation afterwards. There's a reason Ryo was catching chickens. Sorry that doing things for a reason bothers you.



You.... You realized that did happen in Shenmue II though, right? I've been trying to avoid invoking "the other games had that too", but here, you're outright lying again and saying that the other games DIDN'T have this, when they did. Please stop lying.



Yes, due to the much smaller budget for this title. Yu Suzuki has been open about that from the get go. "You won't be able to interact with every NPC, we had to reduce the scope a bit to only around 300 NPCs you can interact with"
"HEY! WHY ARE THERE ONLY 300 NPCS I CAN INTERACT WITH, THAT'S BULLSHIT!" You go on to say "maybe this could be the budget, but they share X, Y, and Z, so would it be so hard to add a few more". Yes, actually. To say that shows that you have VERY little understanding of how game development actually works. So yeah, this one is very clearly you TRYING to find something to complain about.


I'm not going to get into the audiovisual aspects, or the story aspects; since A/V is by-and-large a personal taste thing (I, for one, happen to love the way the game looks.... mostly, a few NPCs I have issue with; but it's not WORST GAME EVER 2019 material, because that's... well... largely insignificant bullshit that only people looking for things to be upset about would get truly upset about), and I haven't completed the story; but it's clear enough to me that you either didn't pay attention to it, or wanted it to be bad so much, that you nitpicked every negative you could possibly find. Just to uhh... illustrate that, you mentioned that the sword of seven stars isn't in this game... but uhh... it is... it turns out to actually be pretty damn important.

So I'm going to ask again, do you have any actual criticisms, or are you just going to continue to whine and act entitled?
1. I said often, not always. Sounds like you haven't gotten to Niaowu yet because you would find that generally only one person out of all the vendors will have useful info. In Bailu, sometimes you can ask 2 or 3 people, sure, but this is absolutely not the case in Niaowu and its often a wild goose chase to find who you need to speak to. Compare this to Shenmue 2 and almost everyone, even the most random character on the streets can be helpful.

2. Yes, you can sometimes skip to the end of the day after you do that days story thing. Again, you clearly haven't made it to Niaowu because that stops becoming an option very quickly. You will be forced to wait out entire days there. And yes there is the quick travel but that doesn't cover everything. And when Shenmue 2 had a "Start from Yesterday" option I would expect this game to have it as well. There is no quick travel in Niaowu either, which is a much bigger problem because its a bigger area and a chore to go through every single

3. $2000 is absolutely a lot of money. Even the best complete herb set which is difficult to find will only net you about $400. And optimal woodchopping only gets you about $50-70 per session. And thats ignoring the other 4 times you have to buy wine and buns for the guy like I said. Sure that doesn't cost *that* much but its still a cost and it adds up.

4. I know theres a reason hes catching chickens and buying him garbage, doesn't mean I have to like it or think its fun. It's a Karate Kid/Kung Fu Movie rip off, super amazing story dude you got me there.

5. Shenmue has awkward conversations, I acknowledged that, however it does not get to the point where it literally does not make sense like Ryo greeting someone for a second time midway through or at the end of a conversation or in response to a question. I implore you to find me just one example of exactly what I said in the previous games. I'd love to see it, you won't find it though.

6. If the budget is that small, then don't create a city area. It is beyond awkward being in a city that feels like a ghost town in most areas. And as for the NPCs that do not speak, they could have easily done what the first game did where the unimportant characters just said they were busy and moved on. It wouldn't have destroyed the budget to get a couple more lines out of all the actors they had already, and there aren't a ton of characters that just don't talk to begin with. And no, when they're obviously using a character creator with the same 20 or so different parts, it would not have been that hard to make a couple more thats the entire point of them doing it that way.

7. I paid attention to the "story", if you read my review and finished the game you would know that theres hardly any. 99% of the game is filler and padding. Most of the events that take place are meaningless to the plot whereas a game like Shenmue 2 is nonstop action and plot movement, and the few non story parts it has are actually fun and worth doing anyway.

If you're going to go ahead and cry "budget" again, then theres an entirely different problem to discuss. Maybe they should have just not made the game if they didn't have the funds(which they had more than enough, they wasted the first 2 years trying to make the game look less ugly and learning Unreal 4 because nobody on the team knew how to use it.) Plus they had several investors, I'd wager the budget was about double the Kickstarter funds when alls said and done.)

There are games out there that have done much more for much less money too. My favorite recent example is A Way Out. Sure, its a little more linear than Shenmue and doesn't have as many characters, but it features modern visuals, full modern cinematic motion capture, an arguably much more interactable world, a movie quality story and cutscenes, tons of characters that can be talked to just like Shenmue, probably just as many minigames, much better gameplay, tons of set pieces, I could go on and on. And that entire game only cost 3 million to make. There are many other games that have done much more for as much money or less. Yu Suzuki squandered the budget and managed the project poorly.

Anyways, Im done talking to you as you clearly are not willing to listen to what I have to say. Your bias shows and it shines bright. Everything I just wrote here to refute your claims was already in my review and you did not listen.

Have a nice day, if you enjoy the game, good for you dude, I didn't say you couldn't like it. But do not come to me and tell me I am a garbage person because I didn't like it and didn't play it or pay attention because that is absolutely childish. I probably supported this game and had more on the line than you did, so who's really the real fan?
 
R
Alright Rob listen here you need to play the game again and work on this review a little bit more better you see if you're going to play the game with negative thoughts you're going to have negative reactions and interactions with this game that's how it works. sure you have made a good few points but none of the less you have not appreciated or took the time out of your fucking day to understand that this game was made with a 7 million dollar budget you act like your shit is fucking gold, you act like this game who had a 7 million in a fucking budget to be just like the other two now obviously that's not going to fucking work but let's talk about this. See if you're actually a real fan a true fan of shenmue you would understand and appreciate that it had a $7000000 motherfuking budget you fucking idiot now I agree that yu suzuki could at least worked on it a little bit better to the story as to the intro and some parts later on but I'll give you that ok sure. But now let's talk about the whole bulk of the game it had a 7 million dollar budget why do I keep saying 7 million dollar budget? Well its because you obviously fucking forgot that this game has 7 million dollar budget and you are too f****** stupid to understand that so here are the facts it had a small budget, it's not a AAA game so we can concur that the bulk of what shenmue really is it's going to be a little lackluster and you said that you put $700 for your shenmue 3 Kickstarter copy and then you want to bitch and complain when its finally out and expect it to reach soaring heights and what if you put more money into the game hm? Maybe then the shit you were complaining about might just be a bit better. Oh and before you go into this little childish mode of "I'm a bigger shenmue fan than you! Nyah nyah" no one is you dumb fuck don't think highly of yourself in that level and oh please please bring your fuckbuddy inno here because I would love to slap you two with some fucking sense. Oh and another thing it seems to me you just wanna rush and beat the game I mean why do you think the game is having you to do shit or train or fight at the temple? Its because its to stop people like you who just wants to play it and be over with instead of taking the time and smell the roses.you might give shenmue 3 a 3/10 well you're a 0/10 of a fucking human being and I hope you and your lovable bottom fuck buddy inno have a beautiful relationship.
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@cactusjack901

"Outright untrue, in most situations, you can get to the answer (IE where to go next) a variety of ways, but only one person advances the story. This is EXACTLY how the Shenmue series has always been."
Well, aside from the fact that, no, Shenmue has not always had only one person advance the story, though it does happen often, the problem Rob is really addressing here is that there's shit for branching paths. Between his playthrough and mine, we both ended up getting to an objective differently at only a SINGLE point, whereas in Shenmue 2, that happened multiple times. I even surprised him by telling him I never went to the orphanage in Kowloon to progress the story in Shenmue 2, something he didn't even know was possible to skip, despite his numerous playthroughs of 2.

"After many story events, the game will let you skip ahead to 9PM at Shenhua's House; but as long as you have enough time in the day, you can continue on in the story (unless, of course, an important scene at Shenhua's house is next in the sequence of events, but a decent chunk of these are missable/skippable)."
Exaggeration on Rob's part. But there is a considerable chunk of the game where you are just told that you have to wait. Sometimes the game lets you skip. Other times, including once in Bailu and two or three times in Niaowu, you can't. I really like when you're near the very, very end of the game and the game tells you that before you can go finish the game, you have to literally just wait around for the next day. But you just did your story beat for the day at the morning. This happens several times with Sun in Bailu, too, as well as several other instances. It's padded to shit and back. But yes, you can generally do more than *ONE* a day. But not always.

"Wow, what a shock; another untruth. Every day when leaving Shenhua's house, you can skip right to the dojo, the Tao-Get Store, or the Village Square (IE the most central location of Bailu). Sorry that Yu Suzuki didn't hold your hand, and actually wanted you to explore the environment a bit."
This option doesn't exist in Niaowu. And Niaowu is EXCEEDINGLY tedious to navigate after the second hour or so, let alone when you have to keep running to opposite sides of the place, complete with zones where Ryo has to walk and take a long way around because the game's unnecessarily blocking the very obvious shortcut. I get the feeling you are still in Bailu, because if you were in Niaowu, you'd know that you can't jump around the place.

"$2,000 really isn't all that much. Took me about 10 minutes of looking for herbs, and another 10-15 minutes of chopping wood."
By itself, no, it isn't much. But when you're buying food and move scrolls (which are necessary for sparring, which is necessary to improve your attack rating), and shit for any side-quests, or even simple shit like the occasional article of clothing, it becomes a significant investment. Near the end of the game, you're expected to spend $5,000 on a single object and, no matter how you slice it, that's a fair chunk of change. Collecting herbs only gets you so far when they don't respawn.

"You.... You realized that did happen in Shenmue II though, right?"
I mean, not really? It almost never happened in 1 or 2, but it is a VERY frequent occurrence here, as is other problems regarding dialogue. It's janky af. Also, Shenmue 2 is an 18 year-old game. I'd hope they'd have improved upon that late '90s, early '00s translation jank by now.

"Yes, due to the much smaller budget for this title. Yu Suzuki has been open about that from the get go."
And it's still a flaw. Shenmue 1 had a solution for this very problem. Have a few lines written and have a few of the voice actors who are already in the studio say lines for these unimportant characters that have nothing of value to say. Things like, "I'm busy, please leave me alone," or things of that nature. Very simple solution, not expensive to implement. No excuse, not for a series like Shenmue where feeling like you are a part of the world is VERY, VERY central to what makes Shenmue work.

"You go on to say "maybe this could be the budget, but they share X, Y, and Z, so would it be so hard to add a few more". Yes, actually."
Hm, no, actually. I have more of a mind for how development works than you, and even something as simple as having your modellers model a few more heads for adult men, adult women, and especially elderly men is really not that expensive, especially considering how poor Ys Net's internal character models are. Then, look at Bethesda games. For all their problems, they do more to alter base heads to look different than Shenmue 3, and if two characters look very similar, they don't put them right next to each other, as Shenmue 3 does. An important part of development is smartly using the tools and assets at your disposal, which is something Shenmue 3 fails at.

As for the audiovisual aspects, there's objectively many problems with them. Certain shaders seem somewhat broken, especially when other shaders and graphical effects are laid on top of them. Shadow draw-in is evident, animations are almost always pretty poor, and despite being a technically unimpressive game, the performance on both PS4 and PS4 Pro is bad. There's also noticeable ghosting going on, and what appears to be some cheap form of anti-aliasing that softens the image dramatically, giving an impression of vaseline smeared over the screen. The voice acting is pretty poor from Corey Marshall for much of the game and Brianna Knickerbocker delivers a TERRIBLE performance as Shenhua, which is unfortunate, as Brianna is a good voice actress. Lan Di sounds TERRIBLE. The recasting for most of the older characters that you can call ranges from okay to terrible. The only REALLY solid performances worth a damn are Cam Clarke as Sun and Greg Chun as Ren. The music in Bailu is repetitive, the music has more trouble looping in this game than 20 year-old Shenmue, and there's also a TON of reused music that was formerly used for specific shops in Shenmue 1, or specific scenes in Shenmue 2, thus retroactively undermining the effects those tracks had in their original games. This isn't what I'd call subjective stuff.

As for the Sword of Seven Stars, it's absolutely retconned out of the cave sequence. And then it shows up once more in Bailu for one thing and isn't seen or, to my recollection, even mentioned again.

So, oops, your attempt to destroy everything Rob has said has kinda failed. If you enjoy Shenmue 3, fine, we aren't bothered by that. But Shenmue 3 has a HUGE list of *objective* fuckups in pretty much every department, and we are absolutely justified in our disappointment with Shenmue 3 (and that's ignoring the shit that Yu outright LIED about being in the game, which is an extensive list in and of itself). Stop trying to discredit us just because you're more interested in making yourself seem like a fan than actually being one.
 
Alright Rob listen here you need to play the game again and work on this review a little bit more better you see if you're going to play the game with negative thoughts you're going to have negative reactions and interactions with this game that's how it works. sure you have made a good few points but none of the less you have not appreciated or took the time out of your fucking day to understand that this game was made with a 7 million dollar budget you act like your shit is fucking gold, you act like this game who had a 7 million in a fucking budget to be just like the other two now obviously that's not going to fucking work but let's talk about this. See if you're actually a real fan a true fan of shenmue you would understand and appreciate that it had a $7000000 motherfuking budget you fucking idiot now I agree that yu suzuki could at least worked on it a little bit better to the story as to the intro and some parts later on but I'll give you that ok sure. But now let's talk about the whole bulk of the game it had a 7 million dollar budget why do I keep saying 7 million dollar budget? Well its because you obviously fucking forgot that this game has 7 million dollar budget and you are too f****** stupid to understand that so here are the facts it had a small budget, it's not a AAA game so we can concur that the bulk of what shenmue really is it's going to be a little lackluster and you said that you put $700 for your shenmue 3 Kickstarter copy and then you want to bitch and complain when its finally out and expect it to reach soaring heights and what if you put more money into the game hm? Maybe then the shit you were complaining about might just be a bit better. Oh and before you go into this little childish mode of "I'm a bigger shenmue fan than you! Nyah nyah" no one is you dumb fuck don't think highly of yourself in that level and oh please please bring your fuckbuddy inno here because I would love to slap you two with some fucking sense. Oh and another thing it seems to me you just wanna rush and beat the game I mean why do you think the game is having you to do shit or train or fight at the temple? Its because its to stop people like you who just wants to play it and be over with instead of taking the time and smell the roses.you might give shenmue 3 a 3/10 well you're a 0/10 of a fucking human being and I hope you and your lovable bottom fuck buddy inno have a beautiful relationship.

Learn to write, please. lmao Trying to read this mess hurts my eyes.
 
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. I said often, not always. Sounds like you haven't gotten to Niaowu yet because you would find that generally only one person out of all the vendors will have useful info

No no no, we actually looked into that on Discord. You are outright wrong.

Yes, you can sometimes skip to the end of the day after you do that days story thing. Again, you clearly haven't made it to Niaowu because that stops becoming an option very quickly. You will be forced to wait out entire days there. And yes there is the quick travel but that doesn't cover everything. And when Shenmue 2 had a "Start from Yesterday" option I would expect this game to have it as well.

Again, "boohoo, I have to actually play a game; waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh". Seriously. This is the most minor nitpick of all time. Oh no, you can't magically warp from A to B, and have to actually explore this large detailed environment. What a shame.

$2000 is absolutely a lot of money. Even the best complete herb set which is difficult to find will only net you about $400. And optimal woodchopping only gets you about $50-70 per session. And thats ignoring the other 4 times you have to buy wine and buns for the guy like I said. Sure that doesn't cost *that* much but its still a cost and it adds up.

No... it's really not that much money. You can argue this all you want, but if you can get everything you need inside of half an hour, it's not that much. I was able to do it, you are too.

I know theres a reason hes catching chickens and buying him garbage, doesn't mean I have to like it or think its fun. It's a Karate Kid/Kung Fu Movie rip off, super amazing story dude you got me there.

And if you thought this story was anything else, you clearly weren't paying attention for the last 20 years. This whole series is a love letter to Kung Fu movies. I just don't get how you can use that as a criticism. Oh no, thing is exactly what it's supposed to be.

Shenmue has awkward conversations, I acknowledged that, however it does not get to the point where it literally does not make sense like Ryo greeting someone for a second time midway through or at the end of a conversation or in response to a question. I implore you to find me just one example of exactly what I said in the previous games. I'd love to see it, you won't find it though.

It does happen, particularly in Kowloon, sorry that I don't have a save file that deep in Shenmue II right now, and I'm not going to sift through literally hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue just to appease a whiny child.

If the budget is that small, then don't create a city area.

So you could boohoo harder?

And as for the NPCs that do not speak, they could have easily done what the first game did where the unimportant characters just said they were busy and moved on. It wouldn't have destroyed the budget to get a couple more lines out of all the actors they had already, and there aren't a ton of characters that just don't talk to begin with. And no, when they're obviously using a character creator with the same 20 or so different parts, it would not have been that hard to make a couple more thats the entire point of them doing it that way.

But you're not talking about just making more models. You're talking about making models, writing lines of dialogue, recording lines of dialogue, tying them to specific characters, plus testing, plus lip sync data (which, admittedly, looks odd, but there are reasons for that I just don't have the time or crayons to explain to you right now); all of these take time, effort, and money. It's not as simple as "whoop, made the model, job's done". Even with a character creator, it's just not that simple. To say otherwise is to be either intentionally dishonest, or entirely ignorant of game development. Given everything you've said so far, and how you acted during development, I'm going with "intentionally dishonest".


I paid attention to the "story", if you read my review and finished the game you would know that theres hardly any. 99% of the game is filler and padding. Most of the events that take place are meaningless to the plot whereas a game like Shenmue 2 is nonstop action and plot movement, and the few non story parts it has are actually fun and worth doing anyway

I'm in Niaowu right now. Pretty satisfied with the story so far. Few questions raised, plenty of questions I had have been answered. Sorry that this game is doing exactly what he said and is focusing on the relationship between Ryo and Shenhua as well as not ending the story. So uhh... you wanna cry some more?


Anyways, Im done talking to you as you clearly are not willing to listen to what I have to say. Your bias shows and it shines bright. Everything I just wrote here to refute your claims was already in my review and you did not listen.

My bias is showing? Jesus christ, it's not like I'm saying the game isn't flawed. I'm just saying you're objectively being too rough, and you're going out of your way to nitpick. Every single argument of yours is tainted by your nitpicking. Every. Single. One.

Of course, it's not going to change what you think, we tried all throughout development to explain to you why things are the way they are, and all you did was whine and complain. So whatever; go ahead and live in your fantasy world where everything sucks because it's not perfectly in line with your vision. Sorry that the guy who created the series didn't take your personal tastes into account. We'll make sure that doesn't happen again, sir.
 
On one hand, I can't ever say I found Shenmue terribly interesting. Cool for its time, certainly, but never a game that I was invested in trying out. But then, wow, that score is a harsh one. I can see that if it was a huge crowdfunded disaster of a game, like MN9, it might have cut pretty deep. To be perceived as bad enough for a 2/10 though, yikes. Bubsy 3D better watch out with that kinda score ;O; Might have to watch a Youtube LP of it to see how it turned out.
 
2/10 is kinda reserved for games that are fundamentally broken and unplayable. Having a hate-boner for Shenmue III isn't really a legit reason to dog the score so badly lol
 
R
2/10 is kinda reserved for games that are fundamentally broken and unplayable. Having a hate-boner for Shenmue III isn't really a legit reason to dog the score so badly lol
A game should be fun or have a good story at least. It has neither. Also audiovisually its a generation behind. I think a 2 is quite fair. It failed at everything it set out to do and promised so a low score is warranted, at least imo. Only reason it isn't a 1 is because its at least not super buggy.
 
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I'm just saying you're objectively being too rough, and you're going out of your way to nitpick. Every single argument of yours is tainted by your nitpicking.

Interesting how you failed to respond to me, who you don't have history with, and who responded to you completely calmly. Rather than having a genuine discussion, you continued to pursue this avenue of "WOW, ROB, GOSH, YOU'RE SO BAD." I can tell you're a Dojo member just by the way you talk to Rob. So desperate to look for gotcha's, so desperate to look for ways of discrediting his review. It's pathetic. You and every other Shenmue fan like you, including Virtualpizza101, make this community look absolutely terrible. *This* is why people say Shenmue fans are like a cult. You fucking act like one.

You didn't even properly address his points. You devolved into "you're wrong," "uh i don't find it to be a problem, so that means it isn't a problem," and "cry moar haha." Pointless. The funny part is that your responses to him have been super whiny and pissy. Reminds me of the way my nephews and niece talk to each other. All of this because Rob doesn't like Shenmue 3. It's ridiculous. In the words of a fool... "boohoo harder."
 
it's pretty amusing because the game has around a 70% average score, which in game terms does come out at around 2/10 in real world scoring. can't say i care about shenmue as a series, but hey ho, at least fans got something to play after all this time.
 
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H
I recognize and respect everything written here, I'll say that, but there are things stated here that I don't think are very fair. The biggest one for me was the filler. The previous games were also filled with filler, even if the good stuff wasn't as spread out. The previous games also had plenty of uninteresting characters. I'm not going to go into more detail, but I just think this wasn't completely fair. Again, I'll respect your opinion, but I think you should've taken a bit of a better look at the older games. With that said, this was still a good review, and I was still engaged reading it. Good job, keep up the good work.
 
Review cover
Product Information:
  • Release Date (NA): November 19, 2019
  • Release Date (EU): November 19, 2019
  • Release Date (JP): November 19, 2019
  • Publisher: Deep Silver
  • Developer: Ys Net
  • Genres: Simulation, RPG
  • Also For: Computer
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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