Shenmue III General Thread

I get it, but the beauty of Shenmue series is the AI. All the NPCs have a set schedule. Some of them work in the docks or Man Yue cafe, then at a certain time they are fighters in Rosr Garden. The girl works at the tomato mart, then at a certain time you see her wandering around town. Maybe you reached a certain point in the game, and the NPC you needed to talk to had a doctors appointment. A funny story Yu Suzuki-san told at GDC, is one time during devolpment of Shenmue 1, the were testing the harbor. For some reason all the NPCs were gone. They went from warehouse to warehouse and couldnt find them. Then at one point they checked the warehouse cinvenience store. All the NPCs were stuck in there in a traffic jam! After thst they programmed the NPCs AI so only two of them could enter the convenience store at a time.

 

Lol! Now that's a cool story.

 

That's an awesome story that I never knew.

 

Sorry Mademan, but you're Fakenews.

Gotta call you on a few points here.


MADEMAN:
THE BAD


Combat - No way around this, the combat plain sucks. This game has bad combat not only by Shenmue standards (which admittedly is a tough bar to clear for a low budget game), but even by industry standards. Jank animations, shitty collision detection, horrible inputs that don’t have any relevance (press AAB to do an elbow for example has no correlation to the move itself) and even a poorly implemented lock on system (which you would think wouldn’t be required if they took out directional inputs.

The old system was far more intuitive and fun, with moves that developed as you mastered them and better collision with far more defensive options too. Dodging by double tapping an analogue stick is awkward and the block isn’t as active or as fun as the parry. Enemy attacks are inconsistent to avoid and sometimes the answer is just blocking and trying to learn an attack pattern, but even that isn’t a guarantee they won’t block your counter strike. Without throws, the enemy blocking your counter attacks means a long and drawn out stalemate. The combat being so poor really affected the end game in a negative way.


ICHIBAN:


It depends on whether or not you actually mastered the combat in this game. In Zen , you accept and look at things the way they are, not how you'd like them to be. The jank is actually one of my favorite parts of the combat. If by jank you mean those bone stattering counter hit animations. They are obviously hand drawn, but they look hilarious when you land a MC on an opponent. Yes, actually, the combat inputs DO make sense: Twin blades is a downward shuto slash, the input is triangle,X. Big wheel is a hook punch, a horizontal strike, and your input is RT, Square, circle. If you play combat logically, you could find a decent counterhit after blocking. Hidden sandstorm ,xO,x. Or Backfist Circle , X ,X is consistently a devastating counterhit if the opponent is dumb enough to abate after being blocked. Saying there is no parry, 100% wrong, you can parry any heavy punch or shoulder ram so long as you just frame block. You can combo certain moves domino style, so long and one moves ending input matches the next move's starting input. For example you can combo Backfist into Mud Spider.

MADEMAN:

QTEs - I don’t know how a series with such good QTEs ended up like this. Instant-fail states rather than branching scenarios I can understand (partly) due to a restrictive budget, but the buttons have no correlation to the actions anymore, making them feel so arbitrary. The timing is also much stricter than the previous games from what I can tell, making the whole process tedious for me. I don’t know who missed the point of the QTE so hard that they screwed it up so badly with 3, one of the most disappointing aspects of the game.

ICHIBAN:


This sounds more like an example of not accepting the game as is and learning the actual system. There is a definite strategy to successfully passing QTE's . You have to have your thumb flush against the pad , and just flick up down left or right depending on the que being Triangle , X, square or circle. If you spent a few sessions catching ducks for Mr Wen, you would have got the timing down. Or were duck farms not historically accurrate for Nioawu in 1987?? Lol. Not only that, but why should Yu Suzuki coddle you with "branching paths"? You don't get to fail upwards, ok? Thats not how life works. Not only that but you are claiming the creator missed the point of QTEs, no, buddy, you did. The whole point of this game is that besides the warlords and thugs, your enemy is TIME. If you dont beat the game by a certain date, you fail and its game over. Yes , you get to retry a QTE if you fail it, all the while the clock is ticking. Thats the point of instant fails. Drink a coffee and get your reflexes up.

MADEMAN:

Stamina/Health - Like combat, there’s no real positive aspect to this, the health system is just pointless busy-work and not fun or interesting. I can understand why they implemented it, maybe to give shops more relevance and more incentive to browse stores or use vending machines, but it’s just slowing down the game and progress. Energy drinks during fights are another weirdly out of place feature for the game that’s meant to be grounded in reality and kung-fu. I can’t imagine Ryo slamming a Monster Energy Drink to regain health mid fight in 1980’s china. It doesn’t fit the time, locations or the game, and it just feels tacky and lazy.

ICHIBAN:

Dude, its "Snake Venom Elixir" not Monster Energy Drink. Saying its not historically accurate for 1985 having fighters use herbal remedies to help them in combat. Ever heard of ginseng? It is clinically proven to have a steroidal effect on the user and has been around
for 2,000 years. Do some research.

MADEMAN:


Side Quests - These felt so out of place in Shenmue, with Ryo doing random good deeds for complete strangers. It really didn’t have a place in this game and most were not particularly interesting or fun, or straight bugged and didn’t work (Ren disappearing when I need to find him for example).

ICHIBAN:

Ever heard of Fangmei's Birthday? Its a fan favorite quest and Fangmei is a "complete stranger" Ryo did a favor for. I will admit that Lin Shiling's side quest reward was so shitty , I wanted to smack her. That in no way means "sidequests are out of place in Shenmue" . WTF.


MADEMAN:

Railroading - The game would force me to solve problems in a very particular way, unlike previous games where you could talk to so many people and get pieces of information, or even use logic to find alternative routes. The worse offender is a character actually straight up being removed from the game world so I could follow the pre-determined path before talking to him, even though I’d already realised he was the key to the solution. Very weak design and really disappointing for a series that had such an excellent progression system before. One of the most disappointing aspects for sure.

ICHIBAN:

I gotta call BS on this. It just sounds like backseat driving the internet is notorious for. Accusing weak game design being perpetrated by the man who designed Afterburner , Outrun , Shinobi and Virtua Fighter, man, facepalm. How many hit arcade games have you designed, honestly. It sounds like you just wanted to rush through the game and not play it properly. No matter what you figure out in Shenmue 2, there is no way around navigating the planks in the condemned buildings to get to Zhu Yunda faster. No matter how clever you are , you cant skip ahead in the game. There is only one path to progressing the story. Just deal with it. Its Shenmue, not Hitman. You always have to talk to NPC A to get to person B. Even if you figure out the Red Snakes hideout is at the top of the hill next to Niao Hotel, its blocked off until you progess the story further.


Spoilers, I'm glad and relieved Niao Sun showed up, she was always hinted at being a big part of Shenmue III. Turns out she was hiding in plain sight!! Nice touch. She has everything to do with the plot. She is one of the leaders of the Chi Yo Men!!! I was surprised you almost get to actually fight Lan Di. I was a little pissed you have to pay 5,000 yuan for a Reverse bodycheck scroll, then you can't use the move at will. As bad as people say the combat is with no throws. There are several combo moves you can use which bait the opponent into trying to counter hit and instead gets them counter hit instead. Grievious Strike, Chained Pit Slash, and Rending Palm. A lot of VF5 Sarah Bryants so-called "throws" are just canned kick combos the way Grievous Strike is a canned strike combo. Do the work and earn the moves. On every point here, it sounds like you consistently keep butting heads with the game system or currency economy instead of learning it, applying it and maximizing the most efficient way of using it. Complaining about arcades being in a fake representation of a Chinese town, in a game PRIMARILY about minigames, you have some problem with a minigame center being placed in Niaowu? Makes perfect sense, in Bizzarro world.

Anyway, complaining about the Shenmue Backers having a save Shenmue Temple or having their face mapped to characters, they PAID for that privaledge and if they didn't there would be no Shenmue III. I thought the backers faces on that squad of thugs was so happily lol that I wish I donated that much cash for the Kickstarter.

 

And 1. https://navgtr.org/2019-winners/

 

I'm on my 3rd playthrough on this game in new game plus and I'm loving it. (The game is designed for new game plus because there are moves you need items from Niaowu to exchange for, but you can only aquire them in Bailu Village.) There are still new moves I'm aquiring and learning to apply. (Because they were too damn expensive in the first playthrough.) Shenmue III is a huge game , there are tons of quests, the DLC adds some much needed new story fights. Plus after you do all that, you can still fight to your hearts content in Battle Rally Dlc. ( Anyway, Ive gotten the hang of the combat, so I put this little analysis video together.

https://youtu.be/OGCGNRba2dQ

 

Battle Rally , easily. Ren is gangsta. They only need to go one step further and make a Ryo/Ren 2player vs mode and Streets of Rage Co-op Battle rally course. The story DLC adds depth to the main game and the Big Merry Cruise has its own story mission that highlights Suzuki-san's eccentric sense of humor.

 

@ICHIBANin10000 I just watched your ultimate guide. I thought it was pretty good. I own Shenmue I & II and was bout to get Shemue III but there was so many ho hum reviews and bad comments about the combat, so I've been holding off. Your guide though might of just changed my mind. Also didn't know there was DLC hmmm.... interesting.

Is the fighting system as good as Sleeping Dogs?

 

I don't think this game's combat system can even be compared to Sleeping Dog's which I think had a very underrated system.

That game was pure gold.

 

@MadeManG74 thanx didn't know there was a demo, I'll grab it.

@Ali I definitely enjoy the fighting system in sleeping dogs actually the whole damn game is good. I wish the AI was a little less predictable and a little more difficult that would've made the game perfect. But I still play it on PS4. So you Shenmue III's combat is not as good as Sleeping Dogs

 

Sleeping Dogs is known for a lot of things , and it's fighting engine is NOT one of them. That game is primarily a shooting game. I got bored with it before completing the demo. My nephew used to play that shit when he was ten. I always thought Sleeping Dogs was low budget and janky looking. Its know for being a poor mans version of GTA and True Crime Streets of LA . If I dont even remember the fighting engine, I must of thought it sucked at the time.

 

Can you stop shitting at everything or every poster who isn't a fan of Shenmue ? Like there is no argument here... Sleeping Dogs is tooooons better than Shenmue 3.

 

You can do what I'm going to do to you: put you on ignore. I'm not shitting on anybody in that post . I said Sleeping Dogs was a medoicre game and the demo didn't compell me to buy it. Learn how to fucking read.

 

Maybe you can get checked for early dementia if you forgot how a game plays rather than just shit on it. Tons of people/journalists like the fighting engine. You can have an opinion and think Shenmue 3 is the best game ever but be more entitled to that.

 

Looks like some scrub is trying to clap back . Too bad I have a policy of ignoring content from morons. Who is Ali Hayas again? How many offline tournament matches has he won? Oh right , zero. Youre a nobody, dude. Know your role.

I looked at a combat video of,Sleeping Dogs just now, the animation is as shitty as I remember . It has a lot of grapples , but anemic weak looking punches that don't even reach the target. The kicks look like Wei Chen has take a dump, and he's holding it in.
It looks like the Devs of Sleeping dogs knew they had a shitty third person shooter on their hands , so they added grappling to the mix to try to distract people from the sub-par quality.

Name one iconic signature move in Sleeping Dogs. Double Blow, Mud Spider, Pit Blow , Twin Blades all iconic
Moves from Shenmue I remember 20 years later.

Ali Hayas or whatever your nobody name is, if you have a problem you can get on PSN or XBL VF FS when Im streaming and I'll gladly add you to the long list of scrubs I've Krush Grooved off the fucking screen. Or you can make lame excuses and hide offline for four months like Master Po.