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.

Hello, guys. If i'm breaking some law you'll just delete this post, i suppose.

I'm currently in development of the game heavenly inspired by Shenmue and Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari. It's an open world game about japanese delinquents focused on story and small things that don't do much but matters a lot in the end (like feeding a cat in Shenmue).

So i'm just looking for players who could be interested.

Here's a greenlight trailer i made a year ago and some screenshots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrny2lpeT_s

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxYOdZnVIAIa_nj.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C01bcNGW8AElp6U.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw1G0bMXgAAqyIJ.jpg

http://ringo.by-yeo.ru/img/Ringo_gifs_2.gif

If you don't mind i'll be posting some news about the game once in a while.

Sorry for an adv.

Not sure how I missed this, but it looks great. Love how you're implementing seemingly meaningless small interaction. When I saw that gif of him just leaning over the wall, I knew this was the game for me.

I remember playing Shenmue with a friend, and we were helping the old lady in the beginning, and he asked me "what do I get for helping her?". What you get... is to help her. Sometimes actions don't have to have some in-game meaning that's associated with some tangible reward--sometimes you just do something to do it.

Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent, in short I admire your goals and what you've shown so far. I'm interested and will likely support the project when it's released.

I hadn't really thought that far ahead. I must finish the game first of all. The beatemup genre isn't very popular also. I'm trying to make the best game i can for now. And that's all.
That's the right attitude to have IMO.

Too many Kickstarter and early access games get too ambitious and keep trying to add new features or mechanics. Then they end up having a bunch of half finished content while still being in beta for close to a decade.

I am both excited and scared of seeing gameplay ;_;

It amazes me the attention to detail that they have put in everything, it oozes that 90's Sega feeling every game had. It's a handcrafted work.

We did it !

https://twitter.com/kotodaman_pr/status ... 8130114560

Can you speak to all the NPCs? And are a lot of them named? Looks really good so far btw.

There're 6 types of NPC:
1. Your friends
2. Your classmates
3. Guys and girls from your school
4. Boys from other schools (whom you can beat)
5. Teachers, sellers, coaches etc.
6. Grown NPCs (13 of them)

You can speak with 1,2 and 5.

3 and 6 live in the game like shenmue's NPC, so you can follow them through backs (but like in shenmue it was a waste of my time to do this cause the player actually doesn't matter).

2 and 5 are stuck on their backs.

4 are hanging out on their territories, walking through town, fighting with each other.

1,2 and 5 are named.

Working on ping pong now

So the characters seen in the Greenlight video were drawn by your old man? I mean, I like the Technos "Nintendo World Cup style" characters but the ones in the Greenlight video look so much better and give this game so much more personality. Congratulations, your dad is awesome! =D>

Thank you )

I was trying to find a characters artist for 2 month (paid artist of course). And it was a hell. I asked to redraw a photo in this design i came up with. Mainly they said that my game is shit and wouldn't sell and money for an art are so low and all that stuff. Saddly that is a gamedev scene in russia looks like. And when I was totally tired and my mom asked about the game and artists I aked if she could ask dad once again (i asked once because he has some basic drawing skills but he refused cause he was trying to use Photoshop and was overwhelmed by it and said that pixel art is so hard and he can't do it at all). So this time I installed him graphics gale and teached the basics. And he slowly strarted to dig in.

Then he did all npc designs and made girls uniform. And about 700 frames of Ringo animations. He is not employed last years (because of age mostly) so I'm glad that he has something to do and to be passionate about now.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWZ6CrdU0AAYfRU.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWZ6CrfVwAEHvQc.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWZ6CrdV4AAfh0t.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWZ6CrcU0AECttO.jpg

*Remade out of cardboard and other types of paper.

https://twitter.com/PcV6boT2kyugFnx/status/965593368737677312

Just so we're clear and to avoid potential disappointment:

Is it confirmed we're actually seeing gameplay? Because "seeing the game in-motion" doesn't necessarily mean it will be gameplay. It could be footage of villagers walking around while the camera pans over the environments.

He would have picked up Cantonese in Hong Kong. Due to Hong Kong being British from like the 1840s to the 1990s, the Beijing government's language policy did not affect Hong Kong back then and spoken Chinese (Mandarin) was almost nonexistent there. I think you could take it up at school as a second foreign language next to English but it was irrelevant in daily life in Hong Kong in the 80s.

And as for the Guilin region, I don't think they speak Cantonese there. I don't know what it was like in the 80s but when I went there a few years back, most people spoke Mandarin and some spoke minority languages on top of Mandarin, such as Zhuang or something like that. But I don't remember ever hearing anyone speak Cantonese in places like Guilin or Yangshuo.

Anyway, the bottom line is don't overthink it. It's a work of fiction so characters who need to understand each other do understand each other. It's the same in many novels or movies.

I am not sure what constitutes as offensive for just any little thing? I can say quite clearly do not attempt "black face" or do something stupid with the character that IS not part of the Tom essence. But yes he is more black then anything else from every observation I have ever made with a Jamaican accent. I suggest trying to be as close as possible. I mean you do have black people where you are from right? Now I need to go check out this video you speak of... I am assuming it is on YouTube right?

Oh, really? Everyone’s? Like the ones saying that the game is going to suck or won’t be released until 2020?

Who said it would suck? I didn't see anyone say that. But let's be honest, whoever said the game won't be ready until 2020 could be right. It's not that over the top of an assumption...

I mean, I'm personally betting on 2019. I just would like some better PR, more transparency and for the team to share more with backers.

Technophilz wrote: The game is supposed to be out in a few month, right? right???!!!
I don't speak French, so can someone tell if they've officially announced another delay yet ?

i don’t see how it’s coming out anytime soon. We’ve seen absolutely zero gameplay.