All of the weirdness and jank that came from the first two releases without all of the charm and nostalgia those two had. Shenmue III leads off almost directly where 2 ended, Ryo is back on his revenge tour and there's not a sailor in sight that can stop him.
The game does feature a new coat of paint both visually and design wise. Graphically, the improvements feel still a bit dated for 2019 but the controls have been modernized and goes a long way as a great improvement compared to the original titles. Moving around and looking at things is so much easier, though moving around NPCs can still be a little weird. The game also features some laughable and clear game loading areas where running is just plain not allowed in the city, for reasons that are just not explained in game. It's not game breaking or anything too awful but it's more obvious here than in most modern games.
You will spend the game in two big locations; a small village and a bigger, bustling city. Both have been built to feel completely different from one another and fairly unique, though characters feel more placed and less organic compared to other Shenmue games. Some characters definitely are on a schedule where they come and go from certain locations but they feel fewer than in the past.
These locations, despite looking and feeling a bit different though feature pretty much the same types of things to do with very little difference between them besides places you can buy random stuff in.
Since you need to be constantly making money in order to afford various things, the biggest disappointment is the ways you go about doing that, despite the changes in location and clear differences in their settings (small, quiet village vs. busy city) don't really change how you go about making money. Your choices are fairly limited unless you want to take advantage of some tricks; you can chop wood, you can gamble, or you can fish and that's about it. It would've been nice to get some changes in these money making opportunities to reflect their setting a bit more.
The money making is a chore overall in this game too, even if you take advantage of some loopholes to speed this up. I found myself constantly having to buy food to eat to up my health, especially since your health gradually falls doing literally anything as the day progresses. Wanna train and get stronger in fighting? Your health's gonna go down. Train your stamina so you can block more? Health is gonna go down. Running? Same thing. Sitting there and just letting time go by? Somehow makes your health go down.
On top of that, the story progression will force you to buy expensive items twice in game. So you'll be forced to grind through the few paths you can take to make money over and over and over or take advantage of save scumming in gambling games, which come with their own problems (basically you can only gamble with non-money chips you have to buy. You can then take those chips to buy items that then in turn can be sold at pawn shops for money, so you can technically make money gambling but it's a tedious, multi-step process that feels unnecessary).
Most items only improve a bit of that health too so you'll either be spending more on items that improve it better, which of course costs more money, or you'll just have to hope your day ends without having to do any story focused battles, since all fights in this game start you off at whatever health you started the fight at, so if you're already low just because the day is almost over, your health will be low period and you'll just have to be really good at the fighting aspects of the game, which to me, just aren't very good.
Targeting and the fights in this game were a pretty big downgrade to me. Targeting was always a pain to me and overall fights were a bit more challenging than in previous games. Harder is not really my problem either but with the health factor being a thing, and sometimes fights happening back to back from one another, some of these fights can get really ridiculous unless you are really prepared and aware of what's coming next and stock up beforehand (which is gonna cost ya of course).
You can't heal yourself during fights unless you've bought one specific item. You can buy multiples of these items but they aren't cheap in context to the game economy. They are a one time use item too, so if you use them once, you'll need to buy more.
There are a ton of moves you can learn and add to an auto-use list but that list has a five max limit so you'll have to memorize other moves if you want to diversify your move set or just stick to the handful of moves you've locked to your list. Buying more moves can be a pain too since that will also cost money and that spending can get quite expensive.
There are a slew of other janky things but honestly, some of that jank was expected and fairly charming. Things like the bad voice acting returns and is probably a negative in hindsight but after two games of bad voice acting, it just feels like the Shenmue way and not a major negative.
Awkward back and forth conversations with strangers is also back where the things they say back to you or the things Ryo replies with sometimes doesn't make any sense. Is it bad? Probably, but its return got a laugh from me more than anything.
Basically, Shenmue 3 is definitely a Shenmue game, good and bad. If you remember these games being janky as hell but charming in it's jank, maybe give Shenmue 3 a shot. Some of the newer annoyances may turn you off but the game still brings the janky charm you may look back on fondly. I also respect the hell out of this game ending with a tease for a 4th game. Despite my issues with this game and the continued issues this game still possesses, I'd probably dive right in to a fourth game and see what kind of himbo nonsense Ryo gets himself into.
The game does feature a new coat of paint both visually and design wise. Graphically, the improvements feel still a bit dated for 2019 but the controls have been modernized and goes a long way as a great improvement compared to the original titles. Moving around and looking at things is so much easier, though moving around NPCs can still be a little weird. The game also features some laughable and clear game loading areas where running is just plain not allowed in the city, for reasons that are just not explained in game. It's not game breaking or anything too awful but it's more obvious here than in most modern games.
You will spend the game in two big locations; a small village and a bigger, bustling city. Both have been built to feel completely different from one another and fairly unique, though characters feel more placed and less organic compared to other Shenmue games. Some characters definitely are on a schedule where they come and go from certain locations but they feel fewer than in the past.
These locations, despite looking and feeling a bit different though feature pretty much the same types of things to do with very little difference between them besides places you can buy random stuff in.
Since you need to be constantly making money in order to afford various things, the biggest disappointment is the ways you go about doing that, despite the changes in location and clear differences in their settings (small, quiet village vs. busy city) don't really change how you go about making money. Your choices are fairly limited unless you want to take advantage of some tricks; you can chop wood, you can gamble, or you can fish and that's about it. It would've been nice to get some changes in these money making opportunities to reflect their setting a bit more.
The money making is a chore overall in this game too, even if you take advantage of some loopholes to speed this up. I found myself constantly having to buy food to eat to up my health, especially since your health gradually falls doing literally anything as the day progresses. Wanna train and get stronger in fighting? Your health's gonna go down. Train your stamina so you can block more? Health is gonna go down. Running? Same thing. Sitting there and just letting time go by? Somehow makes your health go down.
On top of that, the story progression will force you to buy expensive items twice in game. So you'll be forced to grind through the few paths you can take to make money over and over and over or take advantage of save scumming in gambling games, which come with their own problems (basically you can only gamble with non-money chips you have to buy. You can then take those chips to buy items that then in turn can be sold at pawn shops for money, so you can technically make money gambling but it's a tedious, multi-step process that feels unnecessary).
Most items only improve a bit of that health too so you'll either be spending more on items that improve it better, which of course costs more money, or you'll just have to hope your day ends without having to do any story focused battles, since all fights in this game start you off at whatever health you started the fight at, so if you're already low just because the day is almost over, your health will be low period and you'll just have to be really good at the fighting aspects of the game, which to me, just aren't very good.
Targeting and the fights in this game were a pretty big downgrade to me. Targeting was always a pain to me and overall fights were a bit more challenging than in previous games. Harder is not really my problem either but with the health factor being a thing, and sometimes fights happening back to back from one another, some of these fights can get really ridiculous unless you are really prepared and aware of what's coming next and stock up beforehand (which is gonna cost ya of course).
You can't heal yourself during fights unless you've bought one specific item. You can buy multiples of these items but they aren't cheap in context to the game economy. They are a one time use item too, so if you use them once, you'll need to buy more.
There are a ton of moves you can learn and add to an auto-use list but that list has a five max limit so you'll have to memorize other moves if you want to diversify your move set or just stick to the handful of moves you've locked to your list. Buying more moves can be a pain too since that will also cost money and that spending can get quite expensive.
There are a slew of other janky things but honestly, some of that jank was expected and fairly charming. Things like the bad voice acting returns and is probably a negative in hindsight but after two games of bad voice acting, it just feels like the Shenmue way and not a major negative.
Awkward back and forth conversations with strangers is also back where the things they say back to you or the things Ryo replies with sometimes doesn't make any sense. Is it bad? Probably, but its return got a laugh from me more than anything.
Basically, Shenmue 3 is definitely a Shenmue game, good and bad. If you remember these games being janky as hell but charming in it's jank, maybe give Shenmue 3 a shot. Some of the newer annoyances may turn you off but the game still brings the janky charm you may look back on fondly. I also respect the hell out of this game ending with a tease for a 4th game. Despite my issues with this game and the continued issues this game still possesses, I'd probably dive right in to a fourth game and see what kind of himbo nonsense Ryo gets himself into.