Phew, that's a tough one to review. I liked a lot about the game, the graphics, mood and general vibes were very good and very Shemue. The way you slowly build up the relationship with Shenua and how she changes her behavior towards Ryo was very sweet. I also liked the city of Niaowu, a beautiful place with some nice quests.

However, the game has glaring weaknesses. The stamina system is a real pain. Who thought it was a good idea to use up stamina for every action (even just running), which is then no longer available in battles, in a game that actually invites you to explore? What a stupid idea! The fighting itself was also not as well implemented as in the predecessors, the Virtua Fighter license was unfortunately not available here.

Story-wise, almost nothing of relevance happens in this part. It's a mystery to me that they didn't take the opportunity to advance the story after such a long time. The ending is also totally sudden and Landi's appearance seems totally random and out of place, much like the Kickstarter fighters in the last section of the game. Overall, I had fun with the game, but came away from the experience somewhat disappointed.

GOTY 2019 - NUMBER FOUR
Video version

I went into this year’s GOTY coverage thinking it would be pretty easy. There’s no 3DS games, no mobile games, no Switch games that don’t support the system’s built-in video capture. So many of these games are so meaningful to me, personally, that it’s been really difficult to know how to cover them. With that in mind, let’s spend a couple minutes on Shenmue-fucking-Three.

It’s barely worth identifying each entry in the series as a separate game. They’re just parts of one story. Its mechanics, tone, presentation and quirks are just the same as they were twenty years ago, and I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

Shenmue tends to be thought of as a more archaic Yakuza, but that really overlooks what’s so special about the series. They’re gentle, simple games. Sweeping scope, but the player’s approach is in any moment always small and modest. There was a subsection of its audience who played it solely because it was a massive technical achievement for the Dreamcast, but I don’t believe those were the ones who stuck with it. The persistent fans were the ones who fell in love with the quirks and eccentricities of its cast, the intricate detail of its recreation of south-east Asia in the eighties, and its approach to dutifully acting out the minute tasks of Ryo Hazuki’s life. Shenmue is about the small things, and Ys Net have never forgotten that.

Shenmue has always felt nostalgic. They’re games about a very specific point in history. Before the internet and mobile phones. A time where the young still stayed in their parents’ small towns, and could help operate their little businesses. Playing a new entry in the series, nearly two decades after where it last left off, adds to that feeling of nostalgia intensely. Not just getting sucked into that setting again, but being challenged to work with Dreamcast-era gameplay loops and structure. This is Pokémon Red, Donkey Kong 64, Tomb Raider III stuff. Things you’d never freely think you’d ever feel nostalgic for, but being brought back into that way of thinking can be a powerful reminder of what life was 20 years ago.

I don’t want to make it sound like Shenmue III is a backwards-facing game though. This is definitely the next part of the story, and it feels really good to finally be able to push it forward. The first two games were largely about the struggle to travel to Guilin – the Chinese village that was such a crucial part of Iwao Hazuki’s life and the mystery of the Phoenix and Dragon Mirrors. In this entry, we finally arrive there and start to understand what was going on.

Some of my favourite parts of the game were the conversations between Ryo and Shenhua, as they discuss their lives, and begin to relate to each other more deeply. They’re stiff, wooden conversations, but I wouldn’t appreciate them if they weren’t. It feels like we’re still travelling with those old Dreamcast characters, and only now getting to know who they really are. It’s another meaningful, intimate, step on the journey.

Nope. I barely had enough patience for Shenmue and Shenmue II's meandering bullshit, I am tapping out here.

I played about three or four hours of this, maybe less. Might've just felt like I put that amount of time in, it's hard to tell when you're stuck in the Shenmue time-dilation chamber. Not that you need to play much to get a sense of what this game is going for. Shenmue III is incredibly faithful to the previous two entries, and so authentically captures the feeling of those games that you could tell me it's a cleaned-up build of an unreleased 2003 game and I might just buy it. Ryo still controls like a car, you still spend an inordinate amount of time running around asking people for information, and characters still talk in a way that feels like they're engaging in two disparate conversations at once.

"Hi there. Do you know where Shenhua is?"

"Ah, don't tell me that!"

"I am looking for Shenhua, have you seen her lately?"

"I go to bed at 7pm."

"Ok. Thank you."

That may not be line-for-line, but it should give you an idea of what I mean. Yu Suzuki's writing hasn't aged a day, and whoever the voice director is clearly still has The Touch, too. None of the actors sound like they were ever in the same room as one another, even Johnny Young Bosch is giving a performance that feels plucked from the original game. Toe to tip, this is a Shenmue!

That's not to say there haven't been any changes to the formula, however. The Virtua Fighter-style combat is much stiffer this time around, and there exists a sort of disassociation between input and action that really makes it feel crummy. Juggling a ton of enemies at once with Shenmue's lousy camera was never fun, and actually lining yourself up with a target was clumsy, but I actually felt like I embodied Ryo more than I do here.

Ryo also suffers from stamina drain now, and if he doesn't eat eight god damn pears every five minutes he'll whittle away to bone. This is the mechanic that threw me off Shenmue III, and I can't imagine anyone actually likes it. I haven't run across anyone posting apologia for it in the wild, and I'm not going to seek out stamina defenders if they even exist at all. Running around, fighting, and breathing chews away at Ryo's health at a pace I've never encountered in a video game before, the man is straight up hemorrhaging energy. I get it, Shenmue is a series that seeks to emulate the mundanity of life, so naturally Ryo needs to have himself a little snack every now and then, but if someone out there is pulling whole cloves of garlic from their pocket and eating them with half the same voracity as Ryo, I'm gonna assume they have a medical condition.

Early in the game, you have to beat up a carny to get intel, but the dude can chip off nearly a quarter of your health with every blow. Ryo practically destroyed the Kowloon Walled City with his bare hands in the last game, so this dude is just jacked, he's a genetic freak and he's not normal. Every time I lost to him, I had to restore my health before trying again, which meant going back to the store to buy more food that barely heals a pip of energy. Only now Ryo is so low on health I can't run, so I get to take an excruciating stroll up the hill, back and forth, hoping to God I don't run out of money and get forced into a shitty wood chopping minigame so I can earn a few bucks. I'm not Goku, I shouldn't be undergoing intense physical and spiritual training disguised as errands so I can defeat Shenmue's version of Cell, who is some fuckass running an illegal Lucky Hit booth.

A few hours of this and I realized I had to make a choice. I could stick with Shenmue III for another 20 hours or whatever, or accept that the likelihood of the game improving mechanically or actually going anywhere meaningful narratively is slim and that I could spend that time doing something else. Like playing Final Fantasy II. I've slogged my way through two Shenmue games, what do I have to prove at this point? I spent three dollars on this, the price of a delicious hot dog from Tom's, is it really so bad to be out that much money?

I can't imagine Yu Suzuki is ever going to make another one of these, I don't see there being a resolution to Shenmue in my lifetime, and while I do appreciate that he was so uncompromising on his vision that he didn't truncate the story, the fact that all roads out of Bailu Village lead to a dead end is a compelling reason to drop Shenmue III. Helps too that it's just a bad game.

Backed the game as a support to Suzuki-san who made Shenmue I & II that are my all time fav games.

I actually think now that Shenmue III should have never came out it this state, and let us dream about the Shenmue III we were imagining for more than 10y.

So many weird gameplay decision, until this day I am still confused.

The combat system is absolutely horrendous and it doesnt make any sense. As a vs fighting competitor, I was shocked beyond recovery. Especially as the virtua fighter gameplay was perfect. Why change for this ... thing?

Another example is the game forcing your character to ALWAYS go to sleep from in game 8pm, wtf is that??
I laughed my ass off when I realized it was a thing, and then clench my teeth knowing I can never enjoy the night setup of the game for ridiculous reason.
And dont let me start with the pacing of the game .. Anyways the list goes on and on.

There is some great ideas (kung fu "realistic" training, mini tournament ranking system in dojo, calling old friends etc ..) and time to time, I could feel the real Shenmue vibes that were so precious to me. Visual and music were good as well.

But honestly the game is so full of flaws that it feels more like ... a fan project.

My biggest deception of the decade, if not of my gamer's life. Cant help be feel sad about it.

Eu digo de boca cheia que Shenmue 3 é uma das experiências mais grotescamente massantes e decepcionantes que já tive com qualquer videogame, e olha que eu sou um fã novo, imagina quem foi fã a vida inteira e teve que esperar 18 FUCKING ANOS PRA ESSE PEDAÇO DE MERDA.

Vou começar com os elogios. A olho nu o jogo é bem bonito, os cenários são extremamente vivos, e o modelo dos protagonistas até que são bonitinhos e encaixam no meio, a OST é boa e tem momentos extremamente épicos assim como no segundo jogo. E... só.

Percebeu que pra cada elogio tinha um ?

Isso é por que tudo que esse jogo tem de elogio vem com um PORÉM ENORME, chega a der ridículo, fica impossível de gostar do jogo. Enquanto jogava, me perguntava se estava jogando um bom jogo com momentos ruins ou um jogo HORRÍVEL com momentos INCRÍVEIS. No fim, é um jogo HORROROSO com momentos "legaizinhos"... O que é frustrante pra uma franquia tão influente pra história dos video-games como Shenmue. Vou fazer uma listinha desses poréns ridículos...

1. Os cenários são bonitos, mas no geral realmente parece um template de Unreal, pra cada personagem ligeiramente bonito tem um NPC GROTESCO, que parece que saiu de um design de TITÃ do Shingeki no Kyojin, além do Ryo parecer MUITO GOOFY as vezes, tipo, MTO GOOFY (+)

2. A OST é bacana e tals, mas nem 1% TÃO APROPRIADA ao momento quanto os jogos anteriores. Os loops das músicas são torturantes, a musica falta impacto nas horas certas, além da direção das cenas serem pobres a orquestra também não ajuda em BOSTA NENHUMA.

3*. Tem momentos legais, mas eu consigo CONTAR NOS DEDOS, enquanto os jogos anteriores eu podia ficar horas e horas falando dos momentos marcantes da jornada. No fim, a história realmente parece a porra de um episódio filler, e olha que o jogo cobre 2 CAPÍTULOS...

E de resto, o jogo faz tudo errado. O passing é todo deformado, a movimentação é tediosa, tem a encheção de linguiça MAIS RIDICULA QUE JÁ VI EM QUALQUER JOGO, eu não estou nem brincando, o jogo tem a plotline mais RÍDICULA e DESNECESSÁRIA pra você aprender UM GOLPE.

Oh meu deus, os habitantes viraram reféms oq faremos, a vila tem tipo, 50 artistas marciais pra quebrar a cara deles, mas foda-se, cabe ao Ryo tomar um pau, daí passar 20 anos pra descobrir que ele tem que aprender um novo golpe (Tetsuzanko). Ah, você descobriu? Só o véio cachaceiro pode te ensinar, mas ah, só se você der coxinha e pinga pra esse bosta.

Então tá, você dá coxinha e pinga pra ele, daí ele responde uma pergunta sua... Ah, quer saber outra coisa? Tem que voltar pra vila e comprar mais coxinha e pinga. Daí tá, você volta andando naquele caminho de merda, busca mais coxinha e pinga pra esse bosta, e ele te responde outra pergunta... Ah, quer que eu te ouça sobre o problema dos habitantes? Volta outro dia, e não esquece da coxinha e pinga, por favor.

Ok, velho fodido. Pera, você quer que eu te ensine o golpe? Como assim???? isso é mto difícil pra um velho fodido de merda que nem eu, vai precisar de muita coxinha e pinga, ah, mas ele não quer qualquer pinga, ele quer a pinga pica banhada pelas bolas do Yu Suzuki. Depois de 20 anos procurando onde fica a merda da loja da pinga banhada à bolas, fica na casa do krl, e custa 2000 kwanzas...

Pode não parecer, mas 2000 kwanzas nesse jogo, no começo do jogo, É UM NÚMERO RIDÍCULO, você vai ter no MÁXIMO 100 à essa altura do jogo. Cortar madeira, ou coletar maconha não dá nem 1% DO QUE VOCÊ PRECISA, tem que ter uma maneira mais rápida né? E tem, apostando. NESSE JOGO DE MERDA DA BOLINHA QUE NÃO É NEM 0,0000001% TÃO DIVERTIDO COMO O LUCKY DOS ULTIMOS JOGOS, E PRATICAMENTE NUNCA ACERTA. Ok, tem que ter uma maneira melhor, E TEM, a vidente, a vadia da vidente. Que olha que legal, ELA SÓ AUMENTA A >>PROBABILIDADE<< DA COR QUE ELA FALAR CAIR, NÃO É CERTEZA, e se você for CUZUDO de ganhar, é um rolo DO KRL pra você resgatar o prêmio em dinheiro... Diferente dos jogos antigos, você só pode apostar com tokens, então você compra esses tokens, aposta, tenha o cu virado pra lua pra ganhar, ganhe mais tokens, troca esses tokens por prêmios lá na puta que pariu, daí FINALMENTE você vende esses prêmios por dinheiro. E você não tem noção do quanto isso demora, demora muito, demora praticamente umas 6 horas PRA CIMA por causa da VADIA DA VIDENTE QUE DÁ O RESULTADO ERRADO, e soma com esse processo lento do caralho.

Então tá, você pega a pinga pica banhada pelas bolas do Yu Suzuki. E o véio?

"Ah, vlw, mas só vou te ensinar o golpe do Virtua Fighter quando você pegar galinha hoje, amanhã, depois de amanhã e depois de amanhã, então depois de amanhã de novo, pra variar depois de amanhã de novo, e depois disso pegar mais galinha amanhã, e amanha já sabe né?"
-Véio bafo de coxinha, (2019)

No meio disso tudo você obviamente tem que fazer o caminho inteiro pra chegar na casa do krl, que é onde esse bosta fica, e fazer o mini-game de mario party horroroso que esse jogo chama de treinamento:

1.Pose de chavalo
2.Soco de uma pedalada
3.Gira gira jequiti

E O PIOR DE TODOS:

4. COMBATE.

De todas as coisas desse pedaço de bosta que chamam de jogo, acho que o combate é a gota d'gua. Ele não faz sentido, e eu nem tô brincando, ele simplesmente

NÃO
FAZ
SENTIDO

Não só visivelmente parece dois bonecos Max Steel se batendo,

Como na prática ele literalmente NÃO É FUNCIONAL, não tem lógica por trás de nada, é literalmente um esmaga botão, você nunca sabe quando um golpe conecta pois os efeitos são tão presentes quanto a porra do Mortal Kombat, tem horas que o jogo realmente parece um RTS, E ELE É A PORRA DE UM RTS, por que toda vez que você perde pra um rola bosta, ele fala "hehe, vai pro dojo treinar lixo", PQ IR PRO DOJO JOGAR AQUELES MINI-GAMES DE MARIO PARTY É O QUE AUMENTA OS SEUS ATRIBUTOS DE HP E ATAQUE. SHENMUE VIROU A PORRA DE UM FARM HELL.

...

Enfim.

Depois de derrotar todos os putões daquele dojo de merda, você volta pro bafo de coxinha e ele FINALMENTE TE ENSINA A MERDA DO GOLPE DO VIRTUA FIGHTER (é um dos poucos momentos legaizinhos que eu citei anteriormente).

Daí você volta pra história principal. Você vai e derrota o titã do shingeki, e o jogo começa a andar novamente... E o jogo até que fica tolerável, a nova cidade é linda e tals, mas como eu disse antes, pra toda coisa REMOTAMENTE >LEGALZINHA< tem um adendo DE MERDA, mas eu vou ser curto e grosso. Depois do jogo dar um traço de esperança com >>UM CERTO PERSONAGEM PICA VOLTANDO<<, um quick time muito bem feito de perseguição que parece que saiu de um filme do Jackie-chan de TÃO BEM coreografado... a gente encontra outro titã do shingeki, que destrói o Ryo... Soa familiar? É o por que é a mesma plotline. Você revira a cidade inteira pra achar um pergaminho, e é 5000 KWANZAS. Então você já sabe.

EU NÃO AGUENTO MAIS

>Vidente
>Aposta
>Token
>Gira gira
>Cu virado pra lua
>Mais token
>Retorna o token
>Prêmio
>Vende prêmio
>Dinheiro
>Repete...

Ah mas o pergaminho que custou tudo isso tá com uma página faltando kk, mas um véio num barco fala "ah, te ensino o golpe, foda-se" kk, e olha que daora, É O MESMO GOLPE 2™️ :D (vou me matar). É literalmente o mesmo golpe, mesma animação, só que com prefixo reverse. Essa plotline me faz perguntar se Shenmue era um jogo bom pra início de conversa, e isso é horripilante de se pensar.

E sobre o desfecho... ah o desfecho. Eu não vou entrar em detalhes pois é "spoiler", mas novamente, novamente... eu vou ser curto e grosso. É inconclusívo. Simplesmente faz com que o jogo seja um episódio filler na história, eu bato palma, por que isso é impressionante, parabéns Ys Net, seus pedaços de merda, vocês conseguiram dar um tiro num cavalo que tava em COMA por fucking 18 anos, 18 FUCKING ANOS. Falo novamente, eu não consigo NEM IMAGINAR O DESGOSTO DESSES FÃS QUE AMARAM SHENMUE A VIDA INTEIRA, ESPERARAM A VIDA INTEIRA PRA VER SHENMUE SER JOGADO NO LIXO, VER UM EPISÓDIO FILLER.

Agora chega, vou terminar essa review por que eu não aguento mais, esse jogo foi torturante, cada segundo dele, a Ys Net só precisava fazer o MÍNIMO, e eles fizeram tudo que devia fazer SÓ QUE AO CONTRÁRIO com esse pedaço de barro com o nome de Shenmue.

Que nojo.

A pretty big disappointment unfortunately, which isn't entirely surprising given this game had a fraction of the budget afforded to the two previous installments. It actually starts off pretty decently, but as things progress, you gradually notice all the corners that have been cut. There's barely an advancement in the overarching story, which is borderline unforgivable quite frankly, given how long fans have had to wait. The events of Shenmue 3 feel like a stopgap between 2 and the next mainline entry. And the combat is shockingly poor. It's honestly a major regression compared to I & II, and those are nearly 20 year old games. There's no excuse for how bad the fighting is in this.

At least it manages to do a fairly good job of replicating the original Shenmue atmosphere and 'vibe' on a shoestring budget. But yeah, definitely not a worthy sequel. And it makes me worried about how 4 will turn out.

Last year, I mentioned in our Shenmue 3 thread that Shenmue 3 didn't seem like a game I'd feel comfortable paying money for, but one I might enjoy. Our very own Pierrot offered to buy me a copy, and he did and sent a copy to my mom's place in America. I picked it up when I visited the States back in December, and have been waiting for the inspiration to strike since then. Last week, it finally felt like the right time to play through Shenmue 3, and four days and 25-ish hours (I think) of playtime later, I've finished it on my PS4 Slim. While I'm certainly far from a converted fan, I do wanna open this review by clarifying that while I have never played Shenmue 1 or 2 to any significant extent, I never really hated my time with this game, and I enjoyed my time with it well enough that it wasn't ever a slog to get through it. As one last warning, I do get into some light spoiler talk here about certain characters who appear as well as things to do with the pacing.

Shenmue 3 picks up right where Shenmue 2 left off with Ryo and Shenhua entering the cave with the big mirrors and the prophecy in it. Shenmue 3 follows Ryo's story in his quest for revenge another couple of steps through Bailu Village and the port city of Niaowu. While Shenmue does have combat in it, it is far more an adventure game that happens to have combat rather than more of an brawler-RPG like Yakuza is. That being the case, I weigh the story in the game pretty heavily as an aspect of recommending it, and it doesn't hold up very well there.

Shenmue 3, being a larger part in a story (that is allegedly still not even close to being finished) only encompass a small section of Ryo's overall quest for revenge. However, rather than feeling like a self-contained episode that is narratively satisfying in and of itself, Shenmue 3 feels more like a section cut out of a larger story with little care given to pacing or payoff. While I do understand that Shenmue is a series far more about the journey than the destination, compared to most other games, this still leaves Shenmue 3 feeling like an unsatisfying and shallow adventure.

Characters have interesting aspects to them, and some very interesting themes (like a father's relationship to their child, how a single-minded quest for revenge can affect a person's worldview and behavior, the dangers of cycles of violence) are present and interesting, they're never meaningfully commented on or evolved. Most characters in the street you talk to (especially in Bailu Village) are boring and dull, and the best most characters ever get are "entertainingly weird". Even that "entertainingly weird" nature can still leave many characters (some very tertiary, some very well established) falling into some harmful and outdated stereotypes. As a result, it's somewhat of a blessing in disguise that characters like Chai have such small roles in the narrative.

The most entertaining characters (for me, Ren and Mr. Hsu) are largely so interesting in no small part because of how good their voice acting is. I played the first few hours of the game with the English voice track on, and then switched it to Japanese for the rest of my playthrough. It is no secret that Shenmue 3 has an embarrassingly poor localization for a game released in 2019. Nonsensical conversations and flat, unemotional delivery are as iconic as Ryo in his forklift. This can be slightly remedied by turning the voice lines to the Japanese voice track, but you're still left with the awkward and poorly done subtitles of the English voice track. The almost non-existent marketing aside, the awful localization is the #1 thing I chalk the commercial under-performance of this game up to. To the uninitiated, Shenmue 3 looks more like a bad joke than a genuine attempt at a sincere story. And even then, the Japanese voice track isn't terribly good either. Most characters still have fairly flat delivery and uninteresting dialogue with only a few exceptions. At most, the Japanese VA provides a story that at least makes better grammatical sense for players who can understand Japanese.

Regardless, even the best VA in the world would have a hard time making up for the too often poorly written dialogue and missteps in setup and payoff in the story's general construction. The fact that the climaxes of both sections of the game revolve around earning a ton of money to get a nearly identical move needed to progress the story makes for a very underwhelming end to the arc in Niaowu. Not to mention that those giant piles of money you need offer nothing but massive roadblocks to the pacing even if (like me) you were enjoying the smaller mysteries outside of the larger revenge plot. I'm really glad that I went into the game knowing that I'd need 2000 and then 5000 yuan, because if I didn't those would've been some awfully demoralizing progress stoppages.

On the topic of money, lets move on from the story and onto the main gameplay loop. Shenmue 3 is still as Shenmue as ever in most regards there. Ryo needs information, and people have information. A lot of the game is going around asking the same question to everyone you meet, trying to get an idea of where to go. This is the bread and butter of Shenmue, and it's hard to fault the game for it given that it's such a staple of the game. It's an adventure game, not an action RPG, so most of the game is talking to people. That said, a lot of the people you talk to are really boring and have little interesting to say (especially in Bailu Village), so this can get a bit dull after a while. Thankfully, you can press square to hurry through dialogue a bit if you're fine just reading the subtitles.

Everything outside of the talking comes back to making money though. In a change from prior Shenmue games, Ryo has a health bar that's also his stamina meter, and you need to eat food to keep it higher so you can run instead of walk (although walking is fast enough that I found myself doing it a lot of the game anyhow), and you'll also wanna have it at least a little high so you can survive a fight should you get into one. To keep that stamina up, you'll need to buy food, and that costs money.

In another change from prior Shenmue games, you don't just get better at fighting in a Virtua Fighter-style. Ryo has attack and HP stats that will go up as he masters different martial arts moves and does simple endurance mini-games respectively. Being at high health means these things level up faster, and (as we'll get to later) the combat isn't technical enough for you to simply win most story fights with technique rather than stats. As a result, there is a lot of actual grinding these mini-games and martial arts moves (just repeating them over and over during sparing) to get past a fight you simply aren't strong enough to beat. However, you can't get new martial arts moves to master just out of thin air: you need skill books. You get skill books by trading items (especially capsule toys) for them at pawn shops or outright buying them at martial arts stores, and that'll cost a lot of money as well. All this adds up to a gameplay loop that means that if you're not talking to people to solve the mystery, you're grinding out cash to get your stats up so you can win a fight to progress the story (or buy the super item you need to progress the story, as mentioned previously).

This wouldn't all be so bad if the combat were actually good, but it is not good at all. The biggest change from the prior Shenmue games is that you no longer have that Virtua Fighter-lite style of fighting. In an attempt to open up the game to more players, Yu Suzuki has opted to change the combat to no longer use directional inputs at all, and all moves are now on the four face buttons of circle, triangle, X, and square. By inputting sequences of 2-5 buttons, you'll pull off a special move. While I believe it is possible to execute a move you don't have the skill book for, you can't level up that move outside of sparing, so you do need those skill books to increase your attack power if you wanna survive the later fights in the game.

Where this really becomes a problem is how the button combo presses are just a sequence of buttons, and because there are only four buttons, the game doesn't know if you're only inputting two buttons, or if you simply haven't finished a four-button move set. This makes it almost impossible to react to opponents moves through anything outside of using the control stick to dodge, because there is a massive lag between your inputs and Ryo's attacks as he "waits" to see if you're done inputting a move or not. This makes the combat very frustrating and unrewarding to try and get good at, although it does mean that the combat itself being more about stats than technique is a small but welcome mercy.

The ways you earn money in the first place can be quite entertaining though. I mostly earned my fortune going around and collecting herbs that I'd then sell, but I also did a button pressing mini-game to earn money chopping wood quite often. Aside from that, you can gamble on all sorts of games of chance to earn money, as well as perform the iconic forklifting job once you get to Niaowu (which I'll admit I never had the patience to try). Earning money through gambling is fairly annoying, as you can't gamble directly for cash. You first need to buy tokens, then gamble (in quite small amounts) for more tokens, and you then exchange those tokens for prizes which you can THEN sell at a pawn shop for actual money. Given that you could apparently just gamble for money in Shenmue 2, this is mechanically a really annoying step back, and I was super excited when I realized that I basically never needed to gamble and could just collect herbs to get past those money-based progress barriers.

The final part of the gameplay that I think annoyed me more than anything were the quick time events. I know this is Shenmue and QTEs are a fairly iconic part of it, but they're not fun in 2019 and they frankly never were (and I'm really glad that the industry as a whole is moving away from them). If you fail a QTE, the cutscene immediately replays and you get another chance to hit the exact same button. The only actual penalty for missing a QTE is the time you lose watching the cutscene again, some of these cutscenes are really long (one near the end of the game is easily over a minute long and has only two button presses in it). I would've much rather they had no QTEs at all, or at least done what a lot of games have done recently and given you the option to turn them off. Shenmue is a very slow series to begin with, but the QTEs more than anything feel outright disrespectful of the player's time.

The last thing we'll talk about is the presentation. For reference, I played this on a PS4 Slim, so this is the base PS4 experience of the game. One of the best things the game has going for it is that it's quite pretty if you stand still and look around, particularly at the environments. Some of the NPCs look a bit uncanny valley in just how stylized they are compared to a lot of the main characters like Ryo and Shenhua, and they can also look pretty creepy when they open their mouths to talk, but it's far from a deal breaker and the game overall holds up visually just fine. The game also has some quite nice music, especially during the final battle and the chicken catching game. It's not without its odd performance issues though.

If you run around an area, NPCs take quite a few seconds to load in, although they still exist, meaning Ryo will just be bumping into air until the NPC loads in and you can interact with them. There are also many areas in Naiowu where you are forced to walk through an area to let the area ahead of you load, and this can get annoying given how often you need to run from one end of the city to the other. There are also a lot of (admittedly quite fast) loading times within cutscenes, and some of them are just these weird fades to black that happen constantly in longer cutscenes. They make for very jarring dialogue exchanges where you keep thinking the scene has ended, but in fact it's just a fade to black that could've been a quick cut, and that's a problem that the whole game is plagued with from the word 'go'.

Verdict: Not Recommended. Though I did not hate my time with Shenmue 3, and actually quite enjoyed most of it, it is not a game that I could actually recommend in good faith to anyone who doesn't already like it. The main reason I enjoyed Shenmue 3 was just down to it being an open world game, and having the same "number go up" dopamine hits of progression that any open world game has. Everything Shenmue 3 does ranges from mediocre at best to outright bad. Shenmue 3 didn't have to feel like a poor man's Yakuza, but the production decisions made along the way make it feel like precisely that. Shenmue as a series has very different goals narratively and mechanically from Yakuza, so steps could've been taken to lean into the mundanity and slow pace to bring Shenmue into the 8th generation of gaming, but that is not what YsNet did. Shenmue 3 is a game that turns its nose up at the decade and a half of innovation in the open world genre since Shenmue 2's release and the start of Shenmue 3's development. It not only refuses to imagine that Shenmue could be anything more than what it always was, but when it does try to change it's actively taking steps backwards. Shenmue 3 had the potential to be an interesting niche entry to an ever expanding genre, and is instead a nostalgia piece that simply can't imagine a world beyond itself.

Shenmue 3 is mostly a disappointment, a shell of the former heydays of the two earlier games. There is a certain old-world charm to it all, and the game’s largely static world is fun to explore and take in. However, there are a few moments where the game’s pacing blocks story progression with tedious money-collecting and lackluster design choices. The story also barely moves forward an inch, resulting in what feels like an elongated chapter one of Shenmue 3 rather than a true sequel that fans have been anticipating for 20 years.

Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2020/02/28/now-playing-february-2020-edition/

Shenmue III spans two slow chapters past Ryu's journey through Guilin, with sights and characters to behold constricted by a more modest budget and story direction.

The Bailu chapter hits it fine and plays it slow on the mysteries from the series while adding on a couple more, the chemistry between Ryu and Shenhua is fun and there is a lot of different dialogues to dig up even through several playthroughs, meanwhile Niawou is a majour pitstop doing very little to progress the story, even leaving shenhua almost completely for dust.

Sadly towards the end of the game, the budget final strings starts to show, as there's so much padding through forced backtracking and longwinded requisites right before the finale that almost sinks the ship and when at last the cutscenes while wonderfully displayed appears, go by so fast before the sudden - the story goes on- shamelessly dances on the screen cue credits.

There was intended to be one more area in the game for the climax which apparently was cut, and sadly it does leave a stain on the game,
hopefully if the 4th game ever comes out Shenmue III might get more recognised for being the middle bridge that it is, into whatever Yu Suzuki has in store for his next chapters..

For what it is now, Shenmue III is for its better half a faithful adaption of the prior entries formulaic gameplay despite being more narrow with its line of progression.

Both Bailu and Niawou are beautifully crafted locales with lots to see and a few decent minigames.
The places you visit are filled to the brim with details, throwbacks and fun nudges to all the backers which is definitely the strongest aspect of Shenmue III.
Throughout Shenmue III there are namedrops, models, quotes and pictures to be found of backers that gives the game a very unique touch of care for its community.

It is in benefit for its slow nature a very relaxing game to play with excellent ambience and a great soundtrack mostly remixing or recomposed tracks of songs from prior entries while the few new ones are absolutely earmelting. Helping out locales with sidequests, going fishing, picking up herbs all over the place, searching for hidden choobus or other side activities are all comfort addictions good for weary old bones.

Shenmue III does retain the same spirit as its predecessors, following the core formula faithfully to a tee (outside of the combat), and while budget constraints definitely rears its ugly head, there's still good moments of care and detail within the game with fun and heartwarming discoveries to be made. Just don't expect much more than a stretched out resort trip.

The game is a Shenmue game, but it's a filler episode where despite people really really really wanting the plot to advance, it does not advance. I have no idea why it was thought to be a good idea. Even if you had 7 or 8 Shenmues planned out, this is a crowdfunded game. You better abridge your shit and get Ryo to kick Lan Di's ass and get back the Phoenix Mirror because strong reality that even if this succeeded, there wasn't gonna be a Shenmue IV. And thanks to this flop, there's absolutely not gonna be a Shenmue IV!

You can really tell that Yu Suzuki had not so much as looked at a game in the almost 20 years between Shenmue 2 and 3. Everything moves slow, is clunky, and is almost designed to waste the player's time. I absolutely will not be playing this incredible tedium any longer because I honestly have more respect for myself than that.

Bruh I can't take this game anymore. There's hints of the original Shenmue spirit here but it's utterly twisted by a lack of honesty in its core component. You can tell this story in a better way if you just make a smaller, shorter game. Why delude yourself into thinking that you're an epic? I never seen a game try to pad its length out as hard as this, and I am not even the kind of person who slowly dies inside anytime a piece of entertainment media meanders in its pacing and such. Everything in the game is designed to be make the game longer, and there's barely enough rewarding moments to make it worthwhile. Having to train by learning new moves and improving your stamina is a nice idea, but the constantly meaningless prolongement of the main story is nowhere near good enough to justify the effort and time being put into said training. Not to mention the combat feels pretty unsatisfying by itself, it feels more like watching a bunch of hollow doll puppets flinging their appendages around. They did nail the nostalgic Dreamcast vibes through the environment visuals, the music is as good as always, and I like that you can call characters from the previous games and just chat for a bit. Still, as a massive enjoyer of the first two Shenmues (Shenmue 1 is very high on my list of favorite games), I can't help but be a little sad right now.

The game had a lot of smart changes to it. They dropped the directional-input system from Virtua Fighter 3 that Shenmue 1 and 2 were based off of for dial-combos. That along with a target-switch made fighting crowds a much more dynamic experience. Throws were also removed so you can't i-frame out of trouble, and the guard-in-place was given a stamina-gauge so it isn't free.

I also like how its systems feed each other. Your level cap raises with the number of moves you have unlocked, so it's in your best interest to acquire scrolls. The scrolls are deliberately exorbitantly priced, but can be acquired by trading prizes won from mini-games that are much cheaper to play and can usually be won with skill. That way, the mini-games can be incorporated into the larger game. Shenmue 3 is an excellently-designed game.

My only gripe is that I feel like Suzuki rushed the pacing to put in more story than he was able to with the relatively small budget. I wish he'd cut back a bit as the second area was rushed. Still an outstanding title.

I had known of Shenmue 3's reputation before going in. I thought maybe it was overblown as just an average game after an 18 year wait of expecting something incredible.

I was wrong, they were exactly right Shenmue 3 is horrible.

The story is cute enough but really, really slow. I knew the walk with Shenhua in Shenmue 2 was slow, but this feels like more of that. Not even much action right away as a lot of it is walking around asking people about thugs to get details you already knew about the thugs several times before encountering them, rarely learning anything new beyond where they've been in an attempt to tutorial the game's locations without allowing for player discovery. Then on the occasions you do get into fights, they will mop the floor with you multiple times because you expect Shenmue 1 and 2 difficulty but no 3 wants to kick your ass with its worse combat system without any grabs (which is baffling as 2's story has Ryo specifically learn some grabs), then nope hit the dojo back to square one for you!

The graphics are "improved" but they have that standard Unity lighting that makes it feel clay-like and take away its identity. The music is very Shenmue with nothing more to say about it. The gameplay is incredibly Shenmue, to much of a fault. Video Games have developed much in the years between Shenmue 2 and 3, most notably in Sega's own Yakuza series that feels like an evolution of Shenmue, but Shenmue stays in 2002 and it only hurts it. Even worse, they added a new stamina system, that is the crux of a lot of the game. You walk, your health drains. You run, your health drains absurdly fast. How dare you want to navigate the world quicker. You need food to recover your stamina. You need money to buy the food. You do jobs to get the money for the food. Unlike Shenmue where working was something you could get into a flow with, these jobs are Warioware micro games that go on for way too long. Same goes with how you train Ryo's Horse Stance/One Inch Punch. It's all a cycle that slows the game down to a crawl in a way that was not present in Shenmue or Shenmue 2 where you had an area to practice your moves, but you never had to grind to play Shenmue. Now that grind is the bulk of the game. There are mods to remove it, but said mods crash the game when I inspect certain elements so I have to constantly add and remove them.

I hadn't completed the story but I hear the plot hasn't advanced much in any notable way. Maybe with the recap movie in Shenmue 4 (assuming 3 didn't just obliterate 4's chances of existing) will fill in the details, but Shenmue 3 needs a complete overhaul before I'd ever give it a shot again.