This, together with the success of Shenmue the Animation (which has consistently outperformed more established anime series like Attack on Titan while attracting an average weekly viewership of over 240,000 people on Toonami), suggests that the future is actually looking pretty bright for this once dormant franchise.It took me a long time to get to this point – the point where I could actually put my thoughts to words in regards to Shenmue 3. It probably shouldn’t have taken a long time, but it did. It probably shouldn’t have felt quite so tedious, but it did. And I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed my time, but somehow… I did. This really sums my experience with Shenmue 3 up. ![]() It’s long and it’s tedious, but that doesn’t make it bad… Although perhaps it should. Part of the problem – and it is a problem – is that this is the continuation of a story started twenty years ago. Not only that, but the last title in the series was itself released 18 years ago. At the time, they were some of the most advanced games of their kind that were available in the market.Īn epic RPG that told a real-world story in real-world terms, albeit restricted by the technology of the time.įurther, the story that was started in Shenmue and Shenmue 2 was never completed and so fans were clamouring for the story to be completed for around 15 years before finally they were told they would get their wish. However, Shenmue 3 does NOT tie up all loose ends, instead choosing to simply continue the story, leaving it still unfinished, and the door open for more titles. Or… to be clear – I’m not sure I care enough to go through this again. Twenty years ago, the artistic design of the towns in which Shenmue was set was what first piqued the interest of the fans. Going about your business in these towns really felt like living within these towns. Those of you that may have travelled to Japan would likely lament that Japanese towns were captured so faithfully therein. In terms of game mechanics, players could talk to virtually any NPC, shop at almost any of the shops, work, and train. Perhaps a game that takes these advances into consideration, and perhaps even tries to push the boundaries once again? Now, 18 years later, players have Shenmue 3 in their hands, and what should they perhaps expect, given the multiple advances in technology and game mechanics that have occurred since? In some ways, it was just as tedious as real life. Shenmue 3, while graphically beautiful, is faithful to its predecessors, still including such archaic gems as lengthy discussions that can not be skipped, a lack of fast travel, a difficult to navigate (some may say virtually non-existent) map system, an unintuitive control system, and some very questionable design decisions. ![]() Want to pick up a plant to use it as medicine? Switch the UI to first person, point the reticule that appears on the screen at the herb, wait for an animation to bring your view up close and personal to the plant in question, then wait for the GUI to tell you that you can press the button to pick it up.
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