Hi guys.

I used to be on these forums years upon years ago, when it started. After a very, very long hiatus from Shenmue, I'm now fully immersed in the world again. After being away for so long, and after playing many games of decent calibre, NOTHING compares to Shenmue.

I'm suprised how much this community has grown, there was a lull for a while, but it seems now, with the modding, and such, that the Shenmue commuinty has actually grown, it's amazing.

I'm considering getting myself a new (well, used) Dreamcast, just to replay the game. I've watched ScottishDucks "Lets Play...." on YouTube, which has made me want to play this game again, and again. The amount of new info floating around the net recently is awesome.

It's amazing how much the phrase "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" applies to my situation right now. I've fallen in love with the Shenmue series all over again. It's always been in the back of my mind, but I've always been afraid to dive back in, because we all know how addictive, and mind blowing Shenmue is. I just cant believe I've neglected it for so long.

Anyhoo, rant over, it's been so long since I've been on this forum, I don't even know where to start.

Bleh!

That ScottishDuck guy is a legend, I also watched him play through it around the time that I was trying to find Shenmue, as years before I had played it, and years after that day I suddenly remembered the game and luckily remembered the title so I decided to go on a little hunt, I came across ScottishDuck and man oh man, did it bring back a wave of memories from when I first played it.

Riku wrote:

R3N wrote:

Riku wrote:^Yakuza's better.

Yakuza is for fags like you real men prefer Shenmue ;)

I'd love a friendly debate but at least try to act like your over 10.

Never played Yakuza but I'm getting the third. From what I've seen they only have a few similarities. Why compare them? And why act like girls?

Quite possibly the best update we could get, an expert team focused on character creation, and low cost too.

More and more Shenmue 3 is shaping up to be a "properly" developed game, instead of being limited because its funded mainly by KS.

Shenmue_Legend wrote: For the people asking where Ryo is, he's under the bridge on the right. It's a tiny figure but you can't miss it!

Here he is, in all of his default T-Pose glory...

Lakshya Digital past work:

Games
Full Throttle: Remastered (2017)
NieR: Automata (2017)
WWE 2K16 (2016)
Gemini: Heroes Reborn (2016)
Just Cause 3 (2015)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)
WWE 2K15 (2015)
Bloodborne (2015)
Murdered: Soul Suspect (2014)
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (2014)
Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
Divekick: Addition Edition (2013)
Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (2012)
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (2012)
Starhawk (2012)
NeverDead (2012)
ArcaniA: Fall of Setarrif (2011)
Kinect Adventures! (2010)
ArcaniA: Gothic 4 (2010)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009)
Saw (2009)
On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode Two (2008)
On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One (2008)
Crash of the Titans (2007)

This is great news. Their resume shows an extensive line of visually pleasing titles(Bloodborne, etc.)

And let's be honest--outside of the largest developers out there, outsourcing work has been going on for many years.

One of the latest examples was CyberConnect 2 for the FFVIIR, which didn't end well but that's beside the point. The point is it exists on even the largest of games and budgets.

And there was logically no way that Yu and team could be devoted to intricately crafting 200 NPCs or more with the expanded budget without help and STILL make the late 2018 release, which I'm still on the fence about.

Kingdom Come will hit next year after over four years in development and it began as a Kickstarter as well. I think 2019 may be most reasonable for a fully fleshed Shenmue III and I'm okay with that.

It's about the skin/plastic feel, but I really don't want to keep ranting about it.

Ok. But if we can get models like the Shenhua one I posted, I believe that would be the best path. Rather than going for hyper realism which isn't really a unique direction to take, Shenmue should go for its own interesting and unique look to set it apart from the rest of the crowd. Though I'm definitely curious as to how a hyper realistic Ryo would look like! But I still believe that the colourful and vibrant path is the one to take.

This is great news. Their resume shows an extensive line of visually pleasing titles(Bloodborne, etc.)

It's important to know what their contributions to these projects were, though.
From a glance at the mobygames pages, it seems they only did background props for MGSV. Other games like Bloodborne and Nier did not specify what their involvement is.

I'm sure they are talented individuals, but my concern is that their style with 3D characters might clash with what Ys.net had in mind, and we end up with a stylistically uneven game.

But if they did the model in this update, then there are no worries. It's the best model so far.

shmoozip wrote:

WildManofBorneo wrote: Lakshya is also currently providing art support for Rare's Sea of Thieves.

People are so racist when it comes to overseas countries. Look at their achievements in several games. Big games. Still we see some whine over nothing.

Who is whining?

Yu Suzuki will attend MAGIC Monaco 2018, "in order to share with you the latest cool stuff regarding Shenmue III"

https://twitter.com/MagicMonaco/status/ ... 0133443585

24th Feb! That's not too long away at all!

So I was watching todays AVGN christmas episode and something really surprised me.
The Nerd makes a funny joke about how just reading something fixes his car. He picks up some game magazines and flips through them. And out of all the things he has what is the first one?

https://i.imgur.com/CWNAU23.jpg
I don't know if there is any meaning at all behind this. Could just have been chosen at random. I still find it awesome to see "Shenmue" in one of his videos. Even though in a very strange way. :lol:

lol.

Next time don't post when you're high. Also, when you come back (7 day timeout) please do something about your awful signatures. Cheers.

Little bit confused by the number of characters in the game, here Yu says it's 100 but a few months ago he said it was 200 in Choubu alone?

I always appreciate that they do something to have these regular KS updates, and I don't want to sound like an ungrateful ass, but, to be honest, this was, once again, pretty pointless. Not to mention that this "conversation" was nothing but an obviously scripted interview. I mean, they made it look like "Look, we got Hiroaki Takeuchi (here's his bio, by the way) for a chat with Yu Suzuki. It's gonna be interesting!", but, in fact, any random person could have asked those questions.

Anyway, all this interview did was leaving me a bit worried about the battle system. Yu Suzuki has been (vaguely) talking about his ideas for the game's battle system in several interviews and it seems to me that that will be the biggest change we see in the game, when compared to Shenmue 1 and 2, so I've always been intrigued by what Suzuki-san has in mind, but, this time around, more than intrigued, I'm a bit worried, as he made it sound like the whole thing would be akin to a fight in a point-'n-click game or something...
But I'm hoping he's just having a hard time explaining it (or simply doesn't want to go into too much detail right now, as it's still too early and a lot can change).
Shenmue had a great battle system, which in my opinion, should be refined, not ditched. I mean, in a game which revolves a lot around martial arts, a proper fighting system is paramount, in my opinion. But, of course, this is Suzuki-san's work, not mine, so it's up to him. At the end of the day, I just hope it turns out to be something fun, no matter how different. And, since, so far, Suzuki-san has given me no reason not to trust him, I'll trust him.

Also, once again, I get a strong feeling that there's no way the game won't be delayed once again.

Although everything in this new "update" tells us backers to lower our expectation even more, the dreamy people (as usual) are excited and happy with that ....

In short, what we've just been told is : graphics won't be comparable to AAA titles, it took almost two years to make "acceptable" models of the two main characters, facial expressions and animations are not done yet, we now have fewer characters than what's been initially announced, the new fighting system will be puzzle-based and more aimed towards causal players so we can kiss anything close to the decent fighting system of Shenmue and Shenmue II goodbye, and finally another delay is highly expected.

btw, can someone remind whoever subtitled the video that we're still in 2017 ?

https://i.imgur.com/82MLCiU.png


http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2017/12/commentary-on-kickstarter-update-78.html

Switch's Phantom River Stone blog has an analysis up for the video, including some clarifications about Yu's comments in Japanese that didn't come across as directly as they could in the English subtitles.
Which matches with Yu's comments at Gamescom that Choubu alone could have an NPC count of 200.

Similarly, "puzzle game" is a bit of a translation goof, and is actually "thinking-style game", which is the same phrase Yu has used at Gamescom and (I think) in interviews even earlier than that about the combat. It's obviously not referring literally to puzzle games, but was likely used to evoke a sense of strategy Yu has talked about before in regards to the new combat (splitting enemies into smaller groups, knocking objects and other enemies into each other for an advantage, etc).

Also, the "2018 has been the year..." comment at the end of the video is not just a 2017/2018 typo mix up, but a tense mix up and meant to be "2018 will be the year...".
Thanks a lot to Switch for his contributions in clearing some of the ambiguity up! Spaghetti
Member

On the topic of character models, with character design studio Lakshya Digital now having joined the project , Yu states that this month (December 2017) the number of character models has substantially increased. The English subtitles in the video say that the count

In today's video interview, Yu again uses the same phrase in Japanese ("thinking-style game") to describe the type of battle system he wants to create. This is a description that applies to games such as board games (chess etc), 3D-block puzzles or puzzle video games

In his wrap-up message, Yu talks about the coming year. 2018 will be a crucial year addressing the most important part of Shenmue: the way in which the Shenmue characters go about their daily lives.

This interview has me thinking 2018 is off the table for the first time. I do enjoy the insight, but it sounds like development isn't as far along as anticipated. I could be wrong but the thought of something so integral to the game as the battle system still not having a concrete concept is concerning.

In a nutshell it has to deliver in terms of sales or we will not see another Shenmue game.

In terms of quality purposes what we saw in August was a trailer that was intended (if the rumours are true) for the PSX back in Dec 2016/Magic 2017. We then saw the delay not long after this. In terms of graphical presentation there's no way it can match the triple A titles we see today. It hasn't got the budget, however I would expect the game to be polished and have good tight mechanics.

Think originally this started out as a Kickstarter game backed by Shibuya productions, with some Sony involvement. Now it has eveolved into quite a large project with Deep Silver and now Layksha (excuse the spelling) doing the models. This will allow time to be diverted into the game by Yu and the team. What concerns me slightly is that Yu is caught between keeping us original fans happy, not changing too much and sticking to the routes, and attracting new players. Changes will have to happen but what I don't want is a game that tries to please all, fails and displeases all of us. It needs to be excellent in its own right and then marketing/promotion attracts new players. What woudl help is if SEGA decided to release the HD remasters to bring in new people or even old players who have forgotten about the game.

I firmly believe we will get a quality game given time and constructive feedback. Everyone knows this is last chance saloon here. Shenmue 3 has to deliver or the series is done. Yu is pulling out all the stops in terms of getting a competent team around him and knows the game has to deliver. I worry about the fighting as I'd love it to remain as free as the first 2 games but this is to be seen. I'd also take a delay into 2019 to ensure we get a quality product.

Also as a side note this raises the issue around the use of Kickstarter. Previously we have seen games riase money and be developed by said team and then released with varying quality. Say Shenmue 3 comes out and does well, does this change the view of kickstarter from developers eyes? Does it then say to them lets use this to get the game off the gorund and then seek backing from other sources. This might need to be another topic!

Corey Marshall is extremely liberal and hates Trump. So many Shenmue fans are... inexplicably (to me) Trump supporters. The vast majority of Shenmue fans support and are glad that Corey Marshall is revising his role as the voice actor of Ryo Hazuki. Furthermore, the character Ryo Hazuki himself would be considered pretty damn liberal himself, outside of his whole revenge quest thing which he is honestly expected to give up on at some point and focus on the greater picture of Shenmue world which hasn't really been revealed yet but is probably more important than a few peoples deaths in the grand scheme of things.

And no I am not looking to start a conversation or an argument, I'm just pointing out how I find it quite ironic that so many peoples hero, in real life and in-game they would call a snowflake or a cuck if they personally knew them outside of gaming.

When did Ryo Hazuki being "pretty damn liberal" become apparent to you? Was it when he assumed Lishao Tao was a man, or was it when he beat up that transvestite in the zebra pants?

Ryo’s father was killed by someone who illegally entered the country, quite clear he’d vote for someone who would stop that kinda thing from happening.

Also nice to know that people who lean right can’t be friends with foreigners.

I was thinking the same thing, apparently, it's only liberals who are selfless and help others out, feed orphaned cats and drink cola in two attempts.
Has the world become so black and white that we have to start giving fictional characters a political affiliation.

I play games to get away from politics and how messed up the world is.

Could still be delayed though..

It's established in as much as it's the official line right now - obviously subject to change. Repeating already announced information should not be seen as controversial for a co-producer in a Happy New Year tweet
This is the internet, what should reasonably happen and what does actually happen are often two very different things. We've already seen plenty of crazy media beat-ups surrounding Shenmue 3, starting within hours of the Kickstarter launch. Now even the concept of Kickstarters themselves are on the nose, thanks to a string of high profile failures and scandals. Any sign of weakness or trouble in development will be used against Shenmue 3, like what will happen if the release date gets pushed back into 2019. It's not fair but these are the conditions that Shenmue 3 must operate under.

This isn't really about Shenmue 3 per se but I was watching some of Bluemue's videos and noticed that Megumi literally stands at the Yamanose shrine all day and night staring into a box to look at the cat... yet she is also observed walking the streets in Sakuragaoka until she finally goes home there.

Maybe Shenmue is a horror game and we just haven't realized it yet. Would explain Ryo's random nightmares.
Have you seen this from 3:47 onwards? Horror game confirmed.

Gao Wen running up to Ryo and the plate smash in Old Warehouse #8 are legitimate jumpscares, too.

Japanese website Famitsu.com has carried out their annual survey, interviewing 107 game creators to ask their resolution for the year ahead and personal direction for 2018.

https://i.imgur.com/kxIOEHjm.jpg

I've posted up an English translation of Yu Suzuki's responses on the Phantom River Stone blog. His keyword for the coming year is "immersion" as he will be devoting all his energy to the Shenmue III project.
http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2017/12/yu-suzukis-keyword-for-2018-immersion.html

An English translation of the interview is now up at the Phantom River Stone blog.

http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2018/0 ... iscay.html

^ Damn. With your talent for headhunting investors left and right, Shenmue 4 & 5 should be already a guaranteed green-lit project given time. Have you thought of applying for a position in YsNet or even better, Awesome Japan, as you have this knack of bringing investors in? I'm sure they'd love you over there. TBH your skills are kinda wasted here on the forum with just winning a couple of awards, but congratz anyway!

i would like to see much more villains and interesting characters than ever before.

now what i want in it's world:
i want it to have a proper food system i guess.
all the restaurants in previous games were partially meaningless.
it's not a big deal but it will add more to the authenticity of the overall experience.

i want the exploration to be more rewarding than ever.
i think Yu Suzuki is aiming to do that here based on some of his comments.

No modern map system either. The player should navigate around and figure out where the location is or where they're supposed to go by themselves. If there is a map, it should be exactly like a real world map without any markers or way points.

Thanks a lot for your great work, Switch!

As for the interview itself, I guess I'm just too cynical to get as hyped as some people here. I mean, Cedric Biscay is the game's producer! Of course he's gonna say the game is looking very exciting! That's part of being a producer.
Make no mistake, I'm not saying he's necessarily lying (I certainly hope he's not), but we just can't take this sort of statement at face value.

I seem to remember yu saying he wanted it changed from cursive because he was afraid a younger audience wouldnt be able to read it

It seems that is a big concern for him. Someone better tell these guys...

http://www.coca-cola.com/content/dam/GO/CokeZone/Common/global/logo/logodesktop/coca-cola-logo-260x260.png

https://ceblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/cadillac-logo.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a3/b8/c9/a3b8c9e5523c1fd9e3dff7b6197aa186.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K0GC3z2RsP4/U6iHyPZl6wI/AAAAAAAAA1g/JkT-27aEpX8/s1600/johnson-and-johnson-logo.jpg

https://l93r834irft3s9f0a3lsa6e1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Ford-Logo.jpg

http://cdn1.bigcommerce.com/server200/3v073y/products/911/images/4677/GE_2_inch__02680.1392237486.386.513.jpg?c=2

https://imjustcreative.co.uk/logostack/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/CBS-Era-Fender-logo-design.jpg

https://acimg.auctivacommerce.com/imgdata/0/2/0/4/2/7/webimg/2728406.jpg

I think the logo has been taken out of Yu’s hands. It might be that someone at Deep Silver, Sega or Sony has said they need to change it and that’s just part of the deal they signed. When they’re paying the money to fund it they can demand stuff like that, at the end of the day it’s only Shenmue fans who will care and they will buy the game regardless. If they have data to show it would look better on a store shelf to appeal to non fans then it makes sense.

In all honesty I find Shenmue_Legend hilarious.

Have you ever had Japanese Whisky?, it's hard not to get a drinking habit with that around.

Seeing as it’s 2018 now and unfortunately we didn’t get an HD release for 2017, I’m curious as to whether people think there will be an HD release this year.

On the one hand, I believe it will happen because Shenmue 3’s release date is quickly approaching, and Sega should capitalise on that situation; however, on the other hand, wouldn’t it have been released by now if they were going to release it? They announced a long time ago that they will be looking into Shenmue HD; could it be that they gave up? Maybe because it was too expensive or complicated with all the licensing and legal issues?

Unfortunately SEGA doesn't often do much with any business logic behind it these days. Logically there is an opportunity to make a bit of money off of the remakes, especially if they were released in the same version as the DC games. Any tweaks wouldn't cost too much to do either. I wonder how much they have wasted 'investigating'.

Nobody wants to buy a new game and play the old game bundled with it first. That’s the reason ports HD remakes are so important before Shenmue 3 is released. I honestly don’t expect HD remakes. Ports make more sense from a financial standpoint. I can understand a game like Shadow of the Colossus being completely remade but Shenmue is so much more complicated. A remake would be best but I can’t see SEGA ponying up the money for it.

HD Remaster fervor and nostalgia is at an all-time high as we head into 2018.

Dark Souls Remastered, Shadow of the Colossus HD, Devil May Cry HD Collection, even Assassins Creed: Rogue is getting a paint coat. We also have the Mega Man Collections coming this year. Reception to these announcements has been very positive for the most part..

To me, 2018 is the right year for it based on these trends happening, as well as Shenmue IIIs marketing ramping up as E3 quickly approaches.

Well it's somewhat of a Shenmue item, considering you can buy one and use it in the basement.
But a lightbulb is a very generic thing, symbolising just about any "idea" and there are 1000s of other things that I would rather link with Shenmue.

It's gonna be a simulation game from a company called Two Point. Back to the dream, folks.. :(

Shenmue’s voice acting is legendary…in terms of being shit.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is better
The Room is better.

I feel sorry for all the Xbox owners who had to endure something which warped their experience completely. At least DC owners got a taste of the good stuff when importing Shenmue 2 EU ;)

Whatever…let’s just hope part 3 gives access to both languages on disc…

I don't know about that 70s martial arts film thing. Can you name any halway famous 70s martial arts film with a "revenge fahter's death" story without opening imdb or Google? The only thing which is remotely similar I can think of right now is Fist of Fury but that's his teacher, not his father who gets killed and Bruce Lee learns about that fact halfway through the film. And he's poisoned, not killed while fighting.

Also, I don't think Shenmue is a simple revenge story. It starts off as one but as the plot evolves, whith the introduction of characters such as Xiuying, Ren and Shenhue it evolves into so much more depth.

Looking much better

Basically they have it

Ryo's lines are too soft though. This shot is lesbian Ryo - don't lie, you see it.

Hmm yeah, I suppose I see your point OL. It's a bit hard to pinpoint exactly what it means to be "sim". I suppose flight simulation (and others like) is one end of the scale, but I believe sim can sort of be a gradient--or maybe one aspect, but not the dominating force. Flight Simulators might dominate as purely simulation, but games like Shenmue might have sim aspects to them.

Games like Harvest Moon are at their core an RPG, but with a farming/relationship simulation aspect to differentiate it from other RPGs. ActRaiser is a platforming game, but with a god/citybuilding simulator aspect. This is why I think they were proper responses. I mean, all games do simulate certain things, if we're being literal. But not all games simulate simulation games (to a lesser degree than the pure simulations).

So I suppose I'd call these games less than pure simulations--simulations alongside additional genres. Things like Asura's Wrath, I don't really think it's fair to call a sim, although it worked well to illustrate your point in this problem of definitions, specifically "sim".

I want to see the game in motion.

Anyone find it interesting that Sega themselves are producing interviews related to Shenmue? Given their track record of consistent idiocy towards the series I find this quite fascinating. Good read and hopefully more great news from Sega in the future.