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It's been a concern the game isn't going to be big enough due to the budget. They are just reassuring backers.
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Shenmue 3 - “We have in effect been able to achieve a scale greater than that of Shenmue II“
- Thread starter bell wood's jet cola
- Start date
Have you played through Shenmue II ? Because that's pretty much a big bar, even by today's standards. Wan Chai by itself is bigger than Kamurocho in Yakuza. That's not counting Kowloon which is even bigger. Then the last chapter in Guilin. That game was massive, pretty much 25 to 30 hours of adventure without padding.
I'm still highly skeptical of this game. Maybe I'll be surprised.
I love Shenmue, but I've seen nothing yet that has alleviated my concerns. I'll believe it when I see it.
I love Shenmue, but I've seen nothing yet that has alleviated my concerns. I'll believe it when I see it.
let me guess any of you ever played shenmue games or knew how much money wnet into them.....because a kickstarter game would be able to make a game of those scales with limited budget. this doesn have AAA money involved with this game, so this is a suprise to most. Also, i thought this forum was supposed to be filled with people on knowledge of game development and crowd-funding to know that it cost alot of money to have big scale games..
It's incredible how much there seems to be in the game now when it was going to be dobuita size originally.
And I remember wondering if it was gonna be some kind of choose your own adventure type thing but now we got a full Shenmue game! Crazy!
Edit: Man a lot of snarky comments in the thread. I wonder if people had some out of wack expectations. I never would have expected anything even remotely close to Shenmue 2 scope until I head this.
And I remember wondering if it was gonna be some kind of choose your own adventure type thing but now we got a full Shenmue game! Crazy!
Edit: Man a lot of snarky comments in the thread. I wonder if people had some out of wack expectations. I never would have expected anything even remotely close to Shenmue 2 scope until I head this.
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But he's not comparing it with any other developer's game, he said the game was larger than Shenmue II, his own game. When setting up the project, he first designed the game he really wanted to make, to truly do the game justice. Then he cut it down to the minimum that would be possible for the minimum budget but still give him a sequel he could be proud of, and added stretch goals to bring it back towards what he wanted. The expanded budget from the publisher allowed him to do that - notice how he pick and chose certain stretch goals to do that hadn't been reached, he picked the ones he wanted to work on, not just things for bragging rights or to make Kickstarters happy.
If you don't understand or appreciate what the scale of the original Shenmue games is all about, then most likely that won't change now no mater what technology the new games use.
It's still a hardsell that doesn't speak to the merits of Shenmue. Every game in 2019 is "big", that's just not what I want to hear being boasted about or it sounds like a cop-out to me.
MMOs have only regressed in terms of complexity since Ultima Online. Action open world games since Elder Scrolls Daggerfall.
Shenmue threads are a trip on this forum, weirdly. Even before the EGS fiasco they were consistently bizarre.
Scale ≠ Graphics quality
Morrowind has a bigger scale than Yakuza 6, for example
The merits of Shenmue? Shenmue II was far larger than Shenmue I (though less dense). Do you think that was a bad game because was was "big"? Notice that the stretch goals aren't just "make the game bigger", they are "extend the area AND add more things to do in the area"
Err... I don't? And I also don't understand how you came to that conclusion based on what I wrote.
There was a couple of hidden things you can find in some buildings. Some are definitely obscure.
For example the hidden Hang On machine on the 2nd floor Yellow Head building:
The Dural Room on the 12th floor of the Thousand White building where you can win a gold Dural capsule toy:
There's also a few rooms with some unique visuals and items.
There's also easter eggs you can find by using an out of bounds glitch which is pretty cool.
There's so much to discover in Shenmue. People are still finding new things or things they didn't know about for almost 20 years. The depth and discovery is pretty crazy.
I imagine the tools must be much better nowadays though, especially like workflows and file format compatibility.
Ok so then why is the article/thread/quote notable?
If it's a given that you thought the scale would be bigger than 2 then why is this a big deal
Vastness often comes at the expense of concentration of quality in games, yeah. I just think it's a dangerous word to throw around. It isn't 1999 anymore but I trust it was said in relation to Shenmue itself and not generally speaking because the last thing I would want is a bloated Shenmue game.
Honestly to me Kowloon felt like a cyberpunk themed area just in a different time period. Tall buildings rising to the top with a desolate look to them. I loved that area even though you couldn't interact with it that much. Was also surprised by the last 2-3 hour segment to reach Bailu Village. I though that the game would definitely end after that rooftop scene but it went on and on.
Shenmue 2 holds up even today in terms of scale. Really excited by this news.
Shenmue 2 holds up even today in terms of scale. Really excited by this news.
This. I would do fine with a Shenmue I sized game, and never expected much more than that. So that they've actually accomplished something much bigger and yet keeping that special Shenmue feeling to it is exciting. For us fans, at least.
Like I said, he made the game he wanted, not a game that was demanded by publishers or a game that was larger just to be larger. He wanted to make a better game. I mean, how does this statement tell you that the game is being thrown together as large as possible without any thought to quality?
"In order to maximize game quality under the adjusted budget, game planning was fundamentally altered and ultimately allowed us to incorporate a number of different elements beyond our original expectations.
...
We have in effect been able to achieve a scale greater than that of Shenmue II and bring the fun of an "open world" to life. To better experience quests and events, NPCs and things to interact with in the cities have been multiplied beyond what was originally envisioned making for a more complete Shenmue experience."
Ah, I see now what you mean. Then yes, I thought the scope would be smaller than Shenmue 2. But that's because right after the Kickstarter campaign ended it wasn't clear if it was possible to deliver a game on the same scope due to budget constrains. Fans know that while the Shenmue 2 maps themselves aren't huge by today's standards, the level of interactivity, systems at play just for the sake of realism, voice work, etc are quite complex. I actually expected a much more simplified experience.
This kickstarter update assures backers that while not all stretch-goals were reached, external funding allowed for expanding the scope of the game to the point that they can now safely state the scope now exceeds that of Shenmue 2. And that is, at least for me, a huge hype factor.
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Every week there's something or someone painting Shenmue 3 in a negative light, just today Jim Sterling released a new Shenmue 3 video adressing how Epic is gonna do refunds and instead of talking about how that is a positive thing, he goes on to rant about how Shenmue is a failed IP that has only covered everyone in debt and has never made any kind of profit (which is completely false). But i'll continue supporting the game since a lot of people doesnt know about its strenghts about how this game has so much heart and wisdom put into it, about how in its core is a beautiful video game, about how at one point it was elected best game of all time. Negativity isnt gonna stop any time soon, and I still love seeing threads like this one trying to show rays of positive light. I'll show support with 2 or 3 or 4 copies bought cause at the end of the day is a Shenmue game, and the gaming world is better for having it.
I'm still hyped for it, all that Epic stuff doesn't bother me, I'm just looking forward to finally playing Shenmue 3, plus as a backer having my name in the credits will be pretty cool too. 😁
I do but we're talking about a 2019 game now and my expectations go beyond "bigger scale that an almost 20 year old groundbreaking game"—I do not want a Shenmue 2+ where I can go to the 16th room of a 46 floors building, I want it to have content that matters and make the experience worthwile
lol tell me about it. It's getting crazy now. It's like every time is news or a backer update, they just find some kinda of way to try and spin it into a negative article. People LOVE to hate on this series, and I have no idea why. It started with the "why do we need a kickstarter, Sony are funding it" which was 100% completely wrong, and has been a long list of "let's see what we can shit on this week" for no reason what so ever.
I honestly think there are so many people who have not tried these games, and thus they don't understand what is special about them, and why Shenmue 3 is such a big deal to the fans. People just drop by and say that the graphics are shit, but honestly the fans don't really care about that lol We just want more of the story and more of what makes Shenmue Shenmue, the feeling, vibe and atmosphere.
I fully expect that the reviews for this game (not that I really care about modern day gaming reviews), to be in 2 very distinct camps. 1 from people who have bothered to play Shenmue 1 & 2, and they will rate the game based on that fact, and then 2, the people who haven't, who are just going to shit all over it, and compare it to something like RDR2, Yakaza, or the like. This is already happening from the previews at E3 2019. The journalists who have played 1 and 2 (thus know what Shenmue is) liked what they played of 3, stating that it is a continuation, whereas, others who have not played, just said that it was dated, unpolished & not ready for release. You'd think if it was your job to review/preview a game, you'd do your homework first and learn about the saga as a whole. Sadly, gaming "journalism" as a whole is a complete mess.
Work involved has exponentially increased in achieving the same amount of scale as well.
I have never been more curious about the fan reaction to a game than what happens when this arrives. (I have no horse in the race. I was a Dreamcast stan but never got into Shenmue.)
There was a couple of hidden things you can find in some buildings. Some are definitely obscure.
For example the hidden Hang On machine on the 2nd floor Yellow Head building:
The Dural Room on the 12th floor of the Thousand White building where you can win a gold Dural capsule toy:
There's also a few rooms with some unique visuals and items.
There's also easter eggs you can find by using an out of bounds glitch which is pretty cool.
There's so much to discover in Shenmue. People are still finding new things or things they didn't know about for almost 20 years. The depth and discovery is pretty crazy.
I remember on my third or fourth playthrough of the game stumbling upon an orphanage on some random floor of a Kowloon building that I never knew was there before. That was awesome. Those Kowloon buildings had such an incredible atmosphere.
(And that Dural room I had no idea about until now)
As usual the thread is filled with ignorant drive-by shit posters. I suppose GTAV isn't impressive to you guys either because its smaller than Daggerfall right ?
2 is bigger than modern Yakuza games. So no its not a given considering this game has 1/7th the budget of the original.
2 is bigger than modern Yakuza games. So no its not a given considering this game has 1/7th the budget of the original.
In a world where we have so many of the SAME games over and over you would think some critics would want something that's unique but instead make weird comparisons to Yakuza. Which as a fan of both series they are not really alike at all. Call Shenmue dated but praise Yakuza? Umm have you been playing Yakuza since ps2 days bc gameplay loop has not changed. 10+ games in Kamurocho yeah that's OK. I am a fan of that series but I'm just calling it how I see it. I just wish guys like Jim would stop bringing up Yakuza. I want a world where both thrive.
Another cool location that can be missed is the Tiger Gate Kung Fu dojo located on the 6th floor of the Thousand White Building. Really liked this place when I stumbled upon it:
The biggest irony that is happening here is that Yakuza went through the very same phase.
When the original came out people criticized it heavily while comparing it to GTA and how there was no freedom. But Yakuza is an entirely different beast altogether.
And now Shenmue "Sucks" because Yakuza is apparently better. As a fan of both series , its just so dumb to see the elitism from Yakuza fans regarding the Shenmue series.
I don't think I ever seen this. Stuff like this is so cool and is really what made Shenmue special to me.
But "hurr durr Shenmue sucks , the scale is so small. Not a very high bar..etc..etc"
Honestly the thing that gets me is how many modern-ish open-world games have numerous cities and skyscrapers and homes and such and, like, they're just there as decoration and you can't go into them. Even the ones I loved like your Just Causes and Saint's Rows had those issues for basically anything that wasn't a story mission. How many buildings can you go into in GTAV?
I honestly think most of the "elitism" are coming from the new fans after being introduced to Yakuza Zero. Let's remember a decent amount of old Yakuza fans were Shenmue fans. For my case I purchased Yakuza (PS2) looking to fill Shenmue's absence. That never happened bc these games are not really alike but I still became a fan of Yakuza.
I DIDN'T KNOW THIS PLACE EXISTED! Now I have to go visit one of my save files and check it out.
That makes a lot of sense. Before Zero I was literally the only person who liked the Yakuza games in my circle of friends who play games but after that everyone jumped on the bandwagon.
Lol they don't know how it feels seeing Kamurocho a million times. It doesn't bother me much. But it looks like a lot of new gen Yakuza fans are feeling the fatigue because of the same location in Judgement.
What do they mean by scale? Physical explorable world size? Or complexity? Because who gives a shit about world size, Shenmue was always impressive by its depth of detail. If it is the former then they are making a mistake. They should focus on polishing the the central elements, the pillars that make up the game. The faces, animation, and general look of everything is awful; they should at least strive to reach the standards of modern AA games.
Honestly, i wasn't expecting that because of the limited budget. SII was a super impressive game in terms of scale.
Man, i am so excited for this.
Man, i am so excited for this.
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It sounds like they're talking about depth.
This immediately follows the statement about scale:
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Or he's a fan of the series and liked what he saw because he's a ... fan?
I don't think I've seen a game get as much hatred as this game around here. Literally everything gets twisted into something negative.
