Shenmue III Release Topic

[Segata]

Nah. Had the Tshirt a few years,I ca't remember how I got it tho. The case is a custom case for DC games. I have a few and it does hold all the Shenmue Discs and standard DVD size. I planned to replace all of them but got expensive and the seller quit selling them.

[pierrot]

Cool, are you waiting on any of the other kickstarter incentives to add to the collection, though?


I'm not sure how long this is going on for, but for anyone who has a MyBestBuy rewards account, the physical PS4 version of Shenmue III is available online for $34.99, with the steelbook as a free add on, when you log in. Just wanted to let people know, just in case anyone wanted to get in on that.

[Reprise]

I'm on April 14th and just arrived in Niowu. First thing I do is go and try to find the chicken mascot thing in every shop. This place seems huge by the way, to say I'm overwhelmed in an understatement.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I'm not sure how long this is going on for, but for anyone who has a MyBestBuy rewards account, the physical PS4 version of Shenmue III is available online for $34.99, with the steelbook as a free add on, when you log in. Just wanted to let people know, just in case anyone wanted to get in on that.

On the topic of letting people know about a deal, it doesn't have the steelbook or anything I think, but it's also $34.99 on Amazon right now~

[pierrot]

Brought the family together for a group shot:

The slip cover for my backer edition got a little damaged in shipping. I kind of can't believe Fangamer didn't even put the slip cover over the game box, honestly. I didn't really feel like it was worth bothering to try to get a replacement for, though. I'm also a little surprised the backer rewards from Fangamer haven't made it out yet. Is this how they've been in the past with other Kickstarters? It seemed like the materials were finished quite a while ago, on YSNet's end. It's been a bit over fours years. I'm not really sure how Fangamer wouldn't have been ready for production.


Anyway, I'm into May, and still maybe only halfway into the story in Choubu. I've been really enjoying this part of the game, but differently from Hakkason. Two main disappointments for me with Shenmue III, that will probably be there by the time I finish it, are that the narrative elements took a real backseat to everything else in this game, compared with Shenmue II. It seems pretty spartan, story-wise, more like the original game. I like the first game, but my preference is Shenmue II all day, every day. Although, to be fair, it feels kind of similar to the Hong Kong section of the second game. It also feels a bit like there aren't as many cinematic action sequences, to this point, and probably fewer QTE segments as well. Not that I love QTEs, and actually the timing for them in this game seems even tighter. I fail them a lot, but that also gave me the opportunity to see:

during the segment where Ryo is chasing after the two Red Snakes, after punching their faces in, the girl getting knocked off the top of the ladder does this amazing thing when you fail to catch her: She does a great kung fu flip in mid air; lands on her feet like a cat; then she's in the foreground of the frame, sort of flexing on Ryo with her kung fu. I 'bout laughed my butt off.

This game is full of really great humor in unsuspecting places. Way more than either of the other two games. The other thing is that after seemingly getting so close to Shenhua during the first half of the game, the game feels like it puts up a wall between her and Ryo (literally and figuratively) while in Choubu. I think they kind of had this idea of replacing the late night talks with Shenhua in Hakkason with the international phone calls in Choubu, but why can't we have both. I went really hard on them, and I'm not totally sure I actually got all the conversations with Shenhua.

Another thing that bugs me a little bit is the amber necklace I got as a reward for a sidequest in Hakkason.

Yo said I could just sell it, or give it to someone, so I thought there was the possibility that I could give it to Shenhua at some point. I later had the conversation with Shenhua about her most prized possession: an amber necklace she got from her father. It seems like there's very little chance that I could actually give it to her, but I just can't bring myself to pawn it, even though it's worth a fair amount of cash. I'm guessing Yo probably got it from that old man Su, dude.

It's a little unrelated, but did anyone hear from the old lady in Bokusen about her infidelity with Master Hou?

Let me just drop some more screenshots in here.

Totally looks like Game.com graphics.

As always, night scenes in Shenmue are gorgeous.




Imagine walking out to this scenery every night.


Hey, Ren! The fuck you doin', man?




I really enjoy the artwork around the Choubu Hotel for some reason.


Sandai Bijin? The one on the right looks kind of like it's meant to be Chun Li. I wonder which one is the Hotel owner. My guess would be the one on the left.

I so love the music in this game. A lot of amazing tracks aren't on the backer soundtrack, which is a little upsetting, though, like the investigation music in Ryo's room during the day, the Kickstarter theme in the Choubu Clinic, or one of the fight themes that plays during an early Choubu thug encounter. Listening to Isshin Furan on the soundtrack makes my ears practically explode with joy, though. The friggin' massive drums, mixed with the marimba, and some whaling shit I've never even heard before. I'm sort of wondering if it's a gong. I've seen some people makes some pretty wild sounds while playing a gong.

I also can't really believe that Yu was, once again, able to create one of the most amazing game worlds ever. I've had to kind of make a pact with myself to do one thing toward the main quest each day, because I just spend all this time unloading astro city arcade cabinets at the docks; sparring and training moves; fighting virtua choubu chan characters for prizes; plunking panchinko balls; choubu chan hunting in the shops; item hunting in shops for skillbook trade-ins; gambling; winning prizes in the Super Ball parlors; mini golf; making Ryo look fly af; chatting with other Choubu Hotel patrons in the middle of Choubu; shooting the shit with Ren; making bank off herbs; chopping wood; completing gacha sets; and throw in some chicken stepping for good measure. (That's not even mentioning fishing, which I really don't bother with because it's not even as good of a cash per hour endeavor as wood chopping.) There's barely any time to spend progressing the story! Which is kind of good, since there's not really much story to progress. If I'm honest, I kind of would have liked a little less emphasis on the game world, and a little more on the plot, but I'm pretty obsessed with the game at this point.

I've really been getting more into the fighting system, since pushing the difficulty level down to Hard when I couldn't get past the last major fight in Hakkason on Hardest. I think Hardest is really for NG+ only. On hard, though, it's a pretty interesting system. There are so many basic combos, and consistently timing dodges to punish the hell out of the opponent feels really good. I think it's really odd that there are some moves that share the same inputs, though. There's quite a few of the two-button inputs that can result in one of two moves, and I don't really know what determines which one comes out. They seem to be pretty similar to each other, but it's still kind of puzzling to me.

Time for spoilery thoughts:

So, I'm actually really happy that a lot of the foreshadowing details in the end of Shenmue II reappear in this game. Particularly with the mountains on the wall scroll in Shenhua's house, at the end of II, being revealed as the probable location of the treasure that the mirrors point to (although I wish that wall scroll had just been left up there in this game), and Shenhua talking about her dream of her parents standing over her when she's a baby, calling back to the scene at the end of the previous game. Obviously she's way more than she seems. I wouldn't be surprised if she were actually 100+ years old, or something, and I really want to know what the hell she did to that thug in Bokusen.

I was pretty amazed by some of the conversations with characters from the first two games. Especially with Nozomi. Those twos is getting married, probably. That conversation about the charm she gave Ryo was the most emotion I have ever seen that dude display. Was it just a fan theory that Yu was going to kind of make the player eventually choose between Nozomi and Shenhua, or was that actually something he had mentioned himself at one point? That feels very real to me now.

[Ack]

Pierrot's got one of them high end Game.coms I see.

[pierrot]

You know it, man. Cost me pretty penny. I call it a "Game.computer." Pretty catchy, right?

[Reprise]

Two main disappointments for me with Shenmue III, that will probably be there by the time I finish it, are that the narrative elements took a real backseat to everything else in this game, compared with Shenmue II. It seems pretty spartan, story-wise, more like the original game. I like the first game, but my preference is Shenmue II all day, every day. Although, to be fair, it feels kind of similar to the Hong Kong section of the second game. It also feels a bit like there aren't as many cinematic action sequences, to this point, and probably fewer QTE segments as well.

Yeah, I actually agree with this to be honest.

I loved a lot about Bailu, but by the time I got to Niaowu I was ready for the plot to really start to take off... except, it didn't... You know, you're still looking for the same thugs and the story beats are similar to the experiences in Bailu (there's one part that is more or less a carbon copy of something that occurs in Bailu). I don't know, something about the writing and pacing feels really off at times. Shenmue II was definitely much better and full of far more interesting characters that enrichen that game's story.

I absolutely adore the world Yu Suzuki created in Shenmue III and how he built upon the foundations of what made the originals great, with some really interesting ideas, but I do feel the story needed a bit of work. It definitely loses a bit of momentum at times. You have some really great inward looking, introspective moments with the conversations with Shenhua at night and she feels like a part of your story, but she's kinda sidelined in Niaowu.

[pierrot]

Yeah, I actually don't mind the very minimal narrative progression in Bailu as much because it feels like that section is meant to be more about conversing with Shenhua, and for the most part I felt like that was done really well. I kind of would have liked to see the affinity system implemented, but it was still nicely done, regardless. It's just a little weird to me that it was abandoned with the change of scenery. I always get a little excited when I see Shenhua standing on the balcony, though, thinking that maybe I'll get another conversation kind of like in Bailu, but it always ends up being something about an aspect of Choubu that I already picked up on way earlier from the fliers and just exploring.

The international telephone is almost a substitute, in my mind. Some of the conversations with past characters feel like they add more to those relationships than was even built over the course of the entirety of the first two games. Makes me wish I had access to the extra (one, I'm assuming) conversation option with the backer telephone card, though. I just kind of wish calling up those people led to conversations with Shenhua about them, kind of like at the end of Shenmue II.

[Michi]

The slip cover for my backer edition got a little damaged in shipping.

Mine, thankfully, was not. Though I fully expected it to be when I realized they hadn't put it around the game and shipped everything in a bubble mailer.

The bigger issue I have with it though, is that the name isn't printed on the spine. It's just a big, blank, blue rectangle. Will I still know what it is? Sure. But really, how hard would it have been to put the name on the sides?