Shenmue III Release Topic

[Reprise]

Another interesting interview from a number of years ago. I always find these interesting, because I forget what has and hasn't been explicitly stated and what's merely fan speculation and conjecture.

[pierrot]

Oh yeah, that's the stuff. That's some highly uncommon info. It can be pretty difficult to pool all the info at times. Yu always seems to have it straight in his head, but getting the details right, from a fan perspective, can be tough at times. I noticed a couple things from that interview, and I wasn't looking at the translation at all until the subtitles in the last question kind of caught my eye, so I'm not sure if there were a lot of inaccuracies throughout. Particularly with the last question, though, Yu was basically saying that there's a very important tale hidden in later chapters beyond SII (maybe even beyond chapter 11, it wasn't totally clear which he meant). The subtitles seemed to suggest that he was saying that Shenmue II was his favorite part of the story, but that wasn't what he was talking about. Speaking of the 11 chapters, when Yu brought it up in that interview, he was actually saying that it was as far as had been written down, insinuating that there could potentially be much more to the story beyond those 11 chapters. I have this suspicion that those 11 chapters cover the Lan Di arc, with more for a sequel (considering those 11 chapters were originally supposed to be for one game) later on. It kind of sounds like scoping the work was always a bit of an issue with Shenmue.

I had actually forgotten, until watching Adam Koralik's review the other day, that disc 4 of Shenmue II was basically only the first half of Chapter 5, and if the chapters were still really meaningful (which they probably aren't at this point), the Bailu section of Shenmue III would have pretty much just been finishing up that chapter.

I am going to be jonesing for some DLC here for a while. Apparently one of them is supposed to be casino related. I'm also hoping Fangamer decides to grace us with physical backer rewards at some point--.

EDIT: Oh my god, I forgot about the chapter outline from the postmortem in 2014. (I guess that was a little premature. ) --Okay, and the original intent for the Dreamcast game was eleven chapters broken up into two releases: A part 1 and a part 2. (The interpreter kind of messed up on this, but I don't really blame him. That's hard work.)

[Reprise]

As I said, it's hard to keep up with all the fan theories and what Yu Suzuki has and hasn't actually said (as well as mistranslations apparently), but supposedly he has said within the last few years that there is another story he could tell that goes beyond chapter 11. Chapter 11 would provide a complete and satisfactory conclusion, but then there's another story that takes place after that that Suzuki would like to tell if given the opportunity. I wonder if that's where the initial confusion surrounding whether there are 11 or 15 chapters came from.

Maybe that's why it's always been maintained the series will be "4 or 5 games" or if the extra story is kept completely separate for now. Although it's hard to know whether the whole of Baisha being cut and huge parts of that story either being cut or rushed through the final act have impacted on how many games Yu Suzuki needs to fulfill the story in a satisfactory manner. Part of me feels Yu Suzuki won't get an opportunity to do 5 games and so 4 games is his opportunity to finally conclude it, but I can't help feeling it would all feel really rushed, even though 3 is criticised for its slow and uneventful plot and uneven pacing.

Edit: Forgot to mention some people have started receiving some of the physical rewards, so they are being shipped at the moment. I'm still waiting too.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I'm in America at my mom's place, so I reiceved the copy of Shenmue 3 that Pierrot so graciously bought for me!

It won't be for a while, of course (I'm not even in the country my PS4 is in right now), but Shenmue 3 is on the docket for next year, that's for sure!

[Ack]

I think it's safe to say that we are all looking forward to your thoughts, Pidge.

[Cafeman]

Hello, all.

I've been playing Shenmue III for a month now and it is certainly "an authentic Shenmue experiene" and I mean that in a good way. I had to put the game down before finishing it. I'm in the Niaowu for 10 to 20 days so far. Lost my first battle with red snakes gang at their hideout; drove the glorious forklift a few times and ate a lot of stuff. That Ryo is ravenous. I'm very satisfied with the game and I do enjoy the real-world earthiness of fishing, chopping wood, exploring looking for Chobu Chan and herbs as well as leveling up and fighting, etc etc.

Bailu village was so tranquil. From the first erhu music strains, I had a warm and nostalgic feeling. Thanks Yu.

[Blu]

Hey, did anyone ever get their physical rewards from backing? Still missing my art book, capsule toy, and T-Shirt I think?

[Reprise]

Hey, did anyone ever get their physical rewards from backing? Still missing my art book, capsule toy, and T-Shirt I think?

They're coming soon, as far as I know. The last update just before Christmas apologised for the delay. Someone at the Shenmue Dojo received some of their physical rewards (but not all) last week, so I think Fangamer is working their way through them.

[Cafeman]

I finished the game yesterday, then read most of the earlier discussion in this thread about the ending and the cut final village, etc. So much excitement all of a sudden compared to my last few weeks of more sedate exploring around Naiowu!

I really did t expect the 3 Naiowu associates of Ryo to accompany him, and it was humorous to see them effortlessly defeat so many minor thugs. The road up to Lan Di's castle was like 70 man battle, but I was disappointed how easy it was. Then I realized there is a difficulty setting and I had been playing on Normal. I will have to search for info on what changes when you bump up the challenge. What difficulty did you guys use?

[Reprise]

I played on normal and also found it pretty easy. To be fair, Yu Suzuki said hard is for fans of the series who have played the original games lots, so maybe we should have picked hard.