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Shenmue 3: The Digital Foundry Tech Review - A Quality Sequel To A Timeless Classic?

Bullet Club

Member



It's taken 18 years for a sequel to be delivered to Shenmue 2 - a genuine classic for sure, but also a major flop when it launched. By all rights, this sequel shouldn't exist - especially when it's created with a fraction of the resources enjoyed by the original games. But exist it does! So how did Yu Suzuki bring this game to market and crucially, how good is it? Is this a worthy sequel? John Linneman has answers.

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stranno

Member
Pretty landscapes but terrible character models, almost no animations (this is the real Fade to Black game, and not the Flashback sequel), unpolished details overall and still the same clumsy flow between combats, exploration and conversations. It made sense in Shenmue, since it was an adventure game built around a Virtua Fighter engine, but nowdays, after games like Yakuza, come on..

Is this totally blurred geometry or ultra-low quality bitmaps?

8Od2e1d.gif


BTW: Not a big fan of the text clickbait DF has been using in the latest months on the thumbnail, it looked way better with a clean image and the gears stuff. DF videos dont really need that..
 
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Kazza

Member
The details on the individual items (the products in the shops etc) is just incredible! The environments are beautiful too. It's just the character models that range from good (main characters), to decent (secondary NPCs), to bad (random NPCs). A great looking game for a open(ish) world kickstarted project.
 

Fake

Member
I missed this thread and create another, sry.

Still a good game for a kickstarter game.
 

Stuart360

Member
Gave the game a fair shot, but could only manage 6 hours before giving up. The game is awful imo. Bad mini games and gameplay, mindnumbingly awful dialogue and voice acting, the same gameplay loops through the whole game, dialogue that sometimes you can skip but most of the time you cant.
Sure i liked Shenmue 1 20 years ago on the Dreamcast, but even back then, the game felt weird and limited. Imo Shenmue 3 sticks too closely to the orig formula, although i suppose if they had changed it too much, fans would of been annoyed.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Everything about this game looks dated and bad to me. The only thing that holds up is the texture quality. Everything else looks terrible.
 

Soltype

Member
The game looks fine for the most part, but I think they should have just made it as a new Dreamcast game. That would have kept development costs down and they could have used more of that money elsewhere.
 

Saber

Gold Member
If anything I could say about this game is...well, clearly a Shemmue in its roots, if you guys know what I mean(mechanics and overall presentation).

And thats maybe its biggest drawback. Its a miracle this thing to even exist, which I really appretiate.
 

McCheese

Member
"Designed from the ground up for the SEGA Dreamcast"

Weird slip-up from DF, as I'm sure they've mentioned it many times before, but Shenmue I & II were both originally planned and built for the SEGA Saturn, and were (rumoured to be) around 50% complete before they re-tooled and ported/finished it up on the Dreamcast instead. There is quite a lot of footage of the Saturn version, and some of the technology decisions still had a lasting impact on the Dreamcast version. heck, some footage from the Saturn version showed content that is set after the events of the Dreamcast's Shenmue 2.

There was an interview where they said they were using the multi-cpu setup of the Saturn to handle the various different systems simultaneously (weather / time of day / AI routines etc).
 
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VGEsoterica

Member
It’s so hard to judge something like this. Is it bad design? Intentional callback? Shenmue III was always destined to either be loved or hated, and nothing in between
 
People who backed this project:

Did you not get what you wanted? A simple sequel to a now-trilogy that you love(d)? Of course it plays like the Dreamcast games, had they done too many things different there would be even worse criticisms.
 

Kazza

Member
People who backed this project:

Did you not get what you wanted? A simple sequel to a now-trilogy that you love(d)? Of course it plays like the Dreamcast games, had they done too many things different there would be even worse criticisms.

It seems to be getting a very good reception at the Shenmue Dojo, so I think it's fair to say that the hard-core fans are very happy with it. It's got a very good user rating so far too:

etmBSs4.png
 
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VertigoOA

Banned
The use of vibrant colors is great to see. Classic SEGA.

I kinda all works for me. Looks like shenmue... and I wasn’t even a fan.
 
Hey too anyone that has the game.

Do the people still pop up out of nowhere 4 feet in front of you, or did they actually fix that this time? ;)
 
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