Shenmue 3

[radiofloyd]

Played the opening couple of hours. It’s a beautiful looking game that is graphically far ahead of Shenmue 2. If Shenmue 3 had been released soon after Shenmue 2, it wouldn’t have looked as pretty as this. Ryo sounds the same, pretty impressive given that the voice actor is 20 years older. Shenhua obviously doesn’t, which is a shame. But there’s nothing wrong with the new voice actress either.

 

The music is gorgeous, especially the Bailu Village theme. The gameplay has many returning features, and some things looked to have changed, but I won’t comment on that until I’ve played some more (and everyone else has had a chance to play it). Looking forward to playing more tomorrow.

 

Trophies aren’t available yet, but I assume the game has them.

[one-armed dwarf]

I feel kind of sad that I couldn't get through the first two before this came out. I hope it continues the story in a meaningful way for people who are into these games (and that they work out a good way to continue it from here..)

 

Edit, I played a bit of this. Still not for me I'm afraid but I'm still glad I backed it ?

 

Game looks nice asset wise but cutscenes have strange editing/transitions sometimes

[AndyKurosaki]

Played a few minutes so far. The voice acting is on par with the series. By that, I mean painful at times. Ryo sounds gormless, or just says “I see” to everything. 
 

Still. It was bad in the other games. So at least it’s consistent.

[DisturbedSwan]

I had to restart and turn to Japanese after hearing the intro in English @AndyKurosaki, I would suggest you do the same. 

[Maf]

I watched a bit of this on Twitch and even though not for me, I am both surprised and have a lot of respect for them sticking to the idea of making a Shenmue 3. In my mind it was going to be a small budget version of Yakuza or something and be influenced by that series. But it kind of looks like they ignored the last 18 years of games or whatever and just made a sequel like no other video games had happened in the meantime. I also don’t mean that as a backhanded compliment I’m actually really impressed they made, to my eyes at least, a faithful sequel. It is crazy but also respectable. 
 

The only thing that looks ‘new’ about it is the visuals. The environments looks really pleasing. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I want to actually play these games because I like the idea of open world detective game, eg Outer Wilds is kind of that. 

 

But I still get very puzzled by the excitement over things like mini games. Like how in this the first thing you can do is chuck rocks in a bucket. Which is the type of thing that's always made it hard for me to understand these games. 

 

BTW, I chucked the rock in the blue bucket on my first try, so I want it known around here that I am a champ at chucking rocks at things. Won the football, I am so awesome

 

Eurogamer review https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-11-20-shenmue-3-review-a-faithful-follow-up-to-an-all-time-classic

 

'Sealed in a vault' reminds me of the production of My Bloody Valentines's last album, where it was released in 2013 but most of the production occurred in the 90s and it sounds of that era.

 

'There's a somnubalistic quality to the soundtrack' 

????

 

I just wonder going ahead how they will finish this story, the sensible thing would be to leverage all this tech they build putting together S3 in Unreal 4 and make something that they can iterate on quickly.

 

Even that though requires budget, funding, much more than what you would ask for if it was a short DLC expansion. But if they made a sequel which introduced virtually no new features over S3, just new locations. I don't know, maybe that could work out

[AndyKurosaki]

19 hours ago, Blakey said:

I had to restart and turn to Japanese after hearing the intro in English @AndyKurosaki, I would suggest you do the same. 

That’s a good call actually. I shall definitely do that.

[radiofloyd]

Making decent progress in this so far. Maybe around 5-6 hours in.
 

They have improved the combat from the previous games. The camera angle is generally a lot better. There’s no more directional inputs, you mostly just use the four main buttons (the face buttons? I’ve forgotten what you call them). It’s pretty easy to move around opponents and use whatever move you like. At least it’s not the disaster that it was in the first two games.

[radiofloyd]

Played this again after not turning on my PS4 for over a week. Did another story fight which took a few attempts.

 

Story wise

 

Spoiler

I’m to the point where you have to talk to Yanxin at Hermit’s Nest.

 

[radiofloyd]

This game is lovely. I’ve been playing it regularly now. I’m glad that the developers had the conviction to make a game like this, with all its quirks. Today for the first time i experienced heavy rain in the game and the village square was waterlogged. For a game that was criticized in advance for the graphics in its trailers, its one of the most beautiful looking games I’ve played, picturesque, at times like a Ghibli film. And it’s worth saying every time but the music is stunning. The music that plays at the Abandoned Temple makes me stop and listen every time.

[AndyKurosaki]

I’ve yet to go back to this. I’m replaying the Yakuza series, and it’s just so much more fun than this. Ryo is just so laughable, going “I see” to absolutely everything. 
 

I won’t rule out retrying this game eventually. But I can’t be arsed to play it right now, when I’ve so much else I’d rather be playing.

[one-armed dwarf]

I saw this got a patch today and it had me wondering, how did this game turn out for people? Was it all everyone hoped for?

 

Not a snide comment just genuinely curious cause it feels like it left the conversation fairly quick after release (not on here necessarily just in general)

[DisturbedSwan]

I’ve liked what I’ve played of it so far @one-armed dwarf but still very early in (about 3 hours) so I haven’t really formed any major impressions about it one way or another other than it’s very Shenmue and very pretty.

 

I’ve been swimming in games for awhile and get hardly any time to play much nowadays - less for non-Switch/PC games - so have chosen to play those first over it. It’s a bit daunting when I do play it because it’s kind of like the ‘never meet your heroes’ analogy. 

[radiofloyd]

I’ve played a fair bit and I was enjoying it, but then I went to Australia for two weeks and I wanted to start 2020 by playing something  major from my backlog, so it’s gone on the back burner.

[DANGERMAN]

I've not started it yet, my excitement had died off long before release thanks to the Kickstarter, but the start of this year is empty enough that I might get to it 

[AndyKurosaki]

Started it, got bored of it, gave up on it. Will very likely never play it again.

It’s proper dated, and has learned absolutely nothing despite the many years since 2 was released. 
 

I loved the first game back in the day. But the Yakuza series is just massively superior. For one thing, it doesn’t have a charmless dickhead who has to question absolutely everyone for the slightest thing, and go “I see” in every bloody conversation. 
 

Meh.