Yeah, I thought so, hence I edited my post. I agree.

I feel I should give a quick apology to myshtuff for kind of calling him stupid. That was a bit harsh of me. I do think SJW is an inherently stupid phrase though.

Thinking back to that fight on the roof of the Yellow head building. I think that is perhaps the most epic moment in any video game for me. Everything about it, is just perfect. The sunset, desperately trying to pull of that QTE for the special move you learned from Xuiying Hong, the stare between Ryo and Lan Di.

You know how as you get older things you thought were great, don't seem so mind blowingly amazing anymore. This is like the opposite for me. Youtubing it now, and it sends literal shivers down me. I love that game.

You can link me to a dozen more articles telling me that the wage gap doesn't exist or that it's all down to women's choices. And I could link you to dozens of articles which convincingly rebuff those claims. But I know neither of us are ever going to agree on this (well, not until gender pay disparity really does disappear).

I'd like to at least pretend that I could get through to you about how horrible it is to trivialize another person's suffering though, and that people have been driven to suicide from "reading mean things on twitter". As this attitude, displaying a total lack of compassion for a fellow human being, is given a disgusting amount of free rein on the internet. I mean, what if it was a friend of yours, or your sister, or girlfriend who were on the receiving end and distraught? Would you really still compare there pain to Malaya Joya's and tell them to toughen up? Genuine question.

I know what I say here will make no difference as the whole of this site seems to be intent on this "$30 dollars on the 3rd thing". But I really think this has been a misguided idea and not thought through particularly carefully because:

1. Most Shenmue fans aware of the kickstarter will have already have pledged as much as they can afford
2. Even if they haven't, just yelling at them to up their pledge will unlikely provide much motivation for them to do so
3. The whole thing is insulting for the fans who can't afford to up their pledge
4. It will come across as pressurizing, and may even put people off pledging at all
5. Since this new initiative is essentially hijacking the long established tweetathon which uses #SaveShenmue, a slogan Yu Suzuki and his team now also embrace, people may assume this initiative has Yu and his team's blessing (when it doesn't), or was even organized by them themselves, and as such, this runs the risk of reflecting badly on them.

As I said, I'm sure no one here will listen, but this idea smacks of desperation and lack of forethought.

Yeah, please got to the specific page when the correct time comes and follow it's instructions.

Here's a good piece on the issue by Andrew Levine:

Who would have imagined that, five years into Barack Obama’s tenancy of the White House, American whistleblowers would seek refuge in Russia (or China or in formerly subservient but now robustly independent South American countries) or that investigative journalists and documentary film makers would find Germany or Brazil safer havens in which to practice their trade than the United States?

The answer is no one: not even those of us who have always been skeptical not just of Obama’s leadership skills but also of his intentions.

At the same time, some things haven’t changed: the American government, like all governments, still wallows in hypocrisy.

But even with a President more “disappointing” than anyone would have imagined, and a government that demonizes its enemies’ depredations and cloaks its own in the mantle of “humanitarian” righteousness, the “line in the sand” that the Syrian government may or may not have crossed is still over the top.

Remarkably, though, hardly anyone in the political or media mainstream sees it that way.

President Obama declared long ago and more than once that should Syria’s President Hafez Al-Assad use chemical weapons against rebels trying to overthrow his government, he would risk bringing the United States – and whatever “coalition of the willing” partners he could cobble together – into the war on the rebel side.

It was plain even at the time that Obama had boxed himself in. If that line is crossed and he does nothing about it, he will look indecisive and weak. With elections (always) looming, a President, especially a Democratic one, cannot afford that. Neither can any leader of an imperialist super-power that bullies the world.

As of now, it is not certain what actually happened August 21 in Jobar, a rebel-held district on the outskirts of Damascus. All that is known for sure is that a lot of people, perhaps as many as thirteen hundred (though probably fewer), died.

Informed observers agree that chemical weapons were used, but there is no agreement on the identity of the perpetrators; each side blames the other. The predominant view – promoted by Western governments and by Assad’s enemies in the Arabian Peninsula and also by many Western and Middle Eastern journalists, is that it was Assad’s “regime.”

[In media parlance, the government Assad leads is a “regime,” while Obama heads an “administration.” “Regime” sounds nasty, and “regime change” is sometimes an estimable goal. “Administrations,” on the other hand, are benign and, as the word suggests, almost apolitical. School boards, universities and public utilities (the ones that haven’t yet been privatized) have administrations; dictatorships have regimes.]

Maybe Assad really is culpable; he has never been a leader who bothered much about ethical side constraints, and he does seem intent on holding onto power by any means necessary.

But the cui bono? (who benefits?) principle suggests the opposite. The Syrian government plainly has enough popular support to withstand the forces arrayed against it. Indeed, it seems to be winning the war.

Amidst all the murder and mayhem, it has become increasingly evident that the rebel forces cannot win — unless something happens to alter the balance of forces.

And what could happen besides Western, especially American, intervention?

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have been arming the rebels for some time; lately the West has joined in as well. The United States has already announced its intention to increase its already considerable share.

At the same time, our leaders understand that siding with the rebels is a risky business if only because the forces in rebellion include some of the Islamists the U.S. is fighting against elsewhere. The Obama administration has always been clueless on the Middle East, but there are limits even to its folly.

And so the prospects for a successful proxy war against the Syrian government are bleak; rebel forces can tie the Assad “regime” down, but not destroy it.

To effect regime change – in other words, to overthrow Assad’s government — the U.S. and its allies may have to go to war on their own.

But for that idea to sell, a suitable pretext must be found. Only then might the United Nations be persuaded to approve military action. So far, principled Russian and Chinese opposition have blocked that prospect.

In our topsy-turvy world those countries are not only better than the United States on the right of international humanitarian asylum, but also on other venerable precepts of international law – like those that uphold the right of sovereign states to be free from external, unprovoked aggression.

The United States has lately settled on a different principle sometimes called the “responsibility (and right) to protect.” That ostensibly well-intentioned notion is a concoction of “humanitarian interventionists.” Obama has brought some notorious proponents of that idea into his administration – Susan Rice and Samantha Powers, among others.

Humanitarian interventionism is neo-conservatism for liberals. It operates to “justify” the United States and other Western countries taking on the role of planetary gendarmes ever at the ready to visit death and destruction upon “regimes” that challenge American domination or otherwise thwart the empire’s will.

Because Russia – and therefore the United Nations Security Council – was not willing to go along, the
Clinton administration had to resort to this kind of thinking to excuse the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Serbian areas throughout the former Yugoslavia.

The pretext then was a “humanitarian crisis” in Kosovo. George Bush would go on to deploy even phonier pretexts to justify his wars. But it was the Clinton administration that showed how it could be done.

When hard core neocons came into power under Bush and Dick Cheney, the humanitarian intervention excuse became otiose — real neocons don’t need no stinkin’ responsibilities or rights to overthrow governments they don’t like. Under Obama’s aegis, with the neocons gone, the idea has sprung back to life.

Since he took office, the responsibility (and right) to protect has been invoked, at least implicitly, in each of the large-scale military misadventures Obama has undertaken — the “surge” in Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011. The former was his fabrication; in the latter, he only “led from behind.”

If the Obama administration has learned anything from those mistakes, there is no sign of it. And so, in our name, Syria is on line to become the next killing field.

Since drones are not enough, that will mean bombers – shades of Kosovo – and perhaps cruise missiles; anything to keep American casualties down.

That is crucial because, like Clinton before him, Obama fears hostile public opinion. In Clinton’s time, there were still vestiges of the Vietnam Syndrome to overcome. Now, as the endless wars spawned in the aftermath of 9/11 drag on, the public has grown war-weary.

Syrian casualties, however, are another story; racking them up is the whole point. To stop Assad from killing Syrians with poison gas, Obama will kill them with cruise missiles and bombs.

It is hard to see how anyone can endorse a program so ludicrous, and so morally flawed, without the words sticking in their craw – and yet they do.

And even in a world that where rank hypocrites run the show, as they always have, the hypocrisy in this instance is so breathtaking it can hardly be believed.

After all, Obama is the Commander-in-Chief of a military that, within recent years, has used napalm, white phosphorous and depleted uranium shells, along with a host of other conventional and non-conventional horrors. These weapons are not illegal under international law if used against combatants (a fine point the U.S. often ignores), but they are no less terrible than sarin gas.

Chemical weapons fall into a separate category, but not because they are more horrendous than other weapons now widely in use. They are different for historical reasons that are sometimes set aside, but that sometimes weigh heavily in official circles when it suits nefarious government purposes.

Saddam Hussein used multiple chemical agents, reportedly supplied by the United States, against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, and then in 1988, he used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing more than 3000 (perhaps as many as 5000) people, and injuring many others.

None of this bothered the United States until Bush the father found it expedient to demonize his erstwhile collaborator, the Iraqi dictator, during the buildup to the Bush family’s First Gulf War. Even then, it was only the massacre of the Kurds that provoked outrage; gassing Iranians was fine.

Chemical weapons cause injury and death; they ought never to be used. But they have been used without complaint on the part of “the world community,” and they are inherently no worse than many weapons that the American military regularly deploys.

They are certainly not worse than the nuclear weapons that figure prominently still in American strategic planning documents, and that might well be used should the United States or Israel invade Iran and then find their operations going poorly.

Why, then, is the use of chemical weapons in Syria, in the course of an on-going civil war, a reasonable basis for drawing a line in the sand, one that could trigger further disasters around the entire region and throughout the world?

The cynical answer is that neocons and humanitarian interventionists need pretexts, and this is the best they are likely to get. But then there is also the issue of historical memory.

In the aftermath of the First World War, where chemical weapons were indeed more horrifying than any other weapons in use, there were attempts to outlaw war and also, as it were, to civilize it. Needless to say, little came of these well-intentioned efforts.

But a taboo on the use of chemical weapons in combat did take hold. It held up even during the Second World War, and then in the countless counter-insurgency wars the West fought in its aftermath.

That this taboo endured is all the more remarkable inasmuch as it was not legally binding until 1997, when the Chemical Weapons Convention finally went into effect. Syria, by the way, has never been a signatory to that pact.

Why the special revulsion to chemical weapons? Is it worse to be attacked with sarin gas than with bombs or cruise missiles or, for that matter, with Obama’s drones?

Nothing beats drones for terrorizing populations because one never knows when they are coming, and there is no way to protect against them.

For the rest, including poison gas, at least there are shelters and gas masks. But what difference would that make to the dead and dying?

* * *

Why then draw a line in the sand where Obama did?

Could it be because chemical weapons are illegal (though not in Syria)? That would be a more credible explanation if our Commander-in-Chief and his minions in the military-security state complex weren’t quite as heedless of the spirit – and sometimes the letter – of the law as they have repeatedly shown themselves to be.

A more likely explanation is that, at various points in recent months, Obama found it convenient to throw the neocons and humanitarian interventionists a bone, and didn’t quite think through the consequences.

But then why is there so much acquiescence worldwide to the idea that if the Syrian government did indeed cross the line, then something must be done? It is as if the world is in the grip of a dangerous collective imbecility?

The irony is that Obama plainly knows better; the last thing he wants – or needs — is another war of choice in the Middle East.

But he may not be able to resist the pressure.

It is coming full blast from the (increasingly vociferous) War Party in Congress, from Israel, from Britain and France (always eager, lately, for lovely little wars), and of course from the hordes of chicken-hawk pundits who populate the mainstream media.

This may be a case where the problem is not Obama’s instincts or judgment so much as his weakness, his inability to lead. That he drew a line in the sand doesn’t help either.

In all likelihood, there is still time for him to put reason in control, and Just Say No. Don’t count on it, however.

What is the actual response to this lunacy from Americans? Western military intervention does sounds like such stupid idea right now that I don't understand how it could be tolerated to be honest. I don't understand how those foolish chumps like David Cameron and William Hague do not realise what foolish chumps they sound like.

America needs to stop believing that it is the world's police, always there to swoop in and fuck up things even more, when it has nothing to do with them. Yeah, there are some demented evil dictators in the world, who do horrifying things, but I can't think of many (any?) occasions when intervention has actually helped anything. In fact, it's these supposedly righteous interventions that I believe are preventing healing. These troubled nations have to work things out by themselves, it's the only way. But it seems history has taught absolutely nothing to British and US governments. Not to mention the whole moral "chemical weapons" angle of this intervention is dubious at best and laughably hypocritical, as the article I posted mentions.

Team Yu! Can't believe I missed this. Can't believe I missed the closing of a the Team Yu forum. But I'm pleased to see the good work continues! My Team Yu brothers and sisters in arms. I've been so out of the Shenmue news loop for ages, I'm looking forward to catching up.

Those models don't offend me at all. Take a tiny bit of getting used to, but not bad. I don't get the furore over them. But then, I would have been happy if they were stick drawings, as long as that magical Shenmue atmosphere is still there. I'm not all that fussed about how many pixels are in Ryo's hair or how wide the bridge of his nose is.

I've been out of the loop a while, did I see a shot of Xuiying a few pages back? Is she confirmed in the game? If so, then I'm well over the moon.

#Xuiying Hong is brill

Anyone who thinks that trailer looked like 'ass', is, quite frankly, off their rocker, or had the most unrealistic expectations. It's really looking promising and looking like Shenmue.

Actually, I think this trailer has been received fairly well by people of a sane disposition. I sometimes peruse rllmuk, a forum that kind of started out life as an EDGE magazine forum I think, and which members regularly refer to as the second cuntiest forum on the internet. Indeed I can attest to the level of cuntiness on that forum, they absolutely laughed me out of town during the old #giveyutheshenmuelicense (love that hashtag) days, it was so bad I actually cried. But just reading their reactions to the new trailer now, and it's almost entirely, overwhelmingly positive. And they aren't the easiest crowd.

The trailer has also gone down very well on here for the most part, so really, I think it's probably just loonies on neogaf that seem to think this trailer is 'ass'. And it was inevitable really. Everything I've seen of that forum has been fairly ridiculous and loony, and Shenmue 3, a small budget game yet with impossible hype and 15 years worth of dreams on it's shoulders, was always going to be an easy target for their bile.

The trailer is fantastic, it's pleased 99% of Shenmue fans, so there's no need to worry at all. It's looking lovely :oops:

These screenshots are just gorgeous! Ryo looks wonderful.

Would it even really be so bad if facial animation doesn't improve a huge amount? I mean, we know they are working with a relatively small budget, and they have prioritise right, so surely it's the environments that matter the most. For me it is anyway, that's where the atmosphere comes from, not the facial expressiveness. They faces in the old games were always beautiful but fairly stiff too, of course.

I really liked this interview.

When Yu Suzuki is talking about trying to capture 'reality' as opposed to simply aiming for 'realism', I think he's describing the same approach he's had ever since the original games, and not really a shift in a new stylistic direction. The original Shenmue games felt very real and grounded and had an obsessively detailed and fleshed out world, but they weren't at all games interested in the constrains of realism. The original games are chock full of silly and strange grotesque characterisation, exaggerated and distorted depictions of humanity. Just think of Chai, Tom, Goro, Don Niu, Yuan, Cool Z, Ren and most of the games' characters really. They aren't 'realistic' at all. They are barmy, larger than life, often comical, but are still great and human characters that feel realer than most characters in games concerned with realism do. Exaggerated characterisation often does capture the strange truth of reality much better than more realistic depictions. I think this is what Yu Suzuki understands.

So I was pleased by the muscle man in the trailer, he seems very much in the vein of the original games :)

And that's not even to mention that the series is of course preoccupied with the unfathomable, the metaphysical, even though it never forgets to ground it in the quotidian. That's the genius of Shenmue, and that's why it feels so real, realer than most realism. The real world is a bloody strange and unknowable place.

Yeah of course sacrifices will have to be made and whatnot, we all know this isn't a massive AAA budget game or whatever, but I don't think that's particularly relevant to what he's saying in this interview. And I don't think he's lost his sharp eye for detail, we can already see that from the trailer let alone in saying things like he wants visuals you can "smell". This is the same ol Yu Szuki we know and love, who made Shenmue 1 and 2 and is now making Shenmue 3, a proper, true to form continuation.

It's been a fair while since I've been around this forum much, so you may not remember me, Sonikku. But I just want to say that you are one member of the Dojo that really left an impression on me, a very positive one. Quite a few of your posts back in the day (well, a few years ago maybe?) genuinely moved me greatly, for example your story of your first love which you experienced through World of Warcraft. But more than that, many of the things you posted relating to your outlook on life really resonated with me, and have honestly stuck with me to this day. And you've always come across as an incredibly kind individual, which is a rare thing indeed. I really, honestly, cannot express to you just how much value I believe you possess.

But I do understand it, how this world can make gentle souls who don't toe the line feel worthless and on the fringes. I've seen so many of the greatest people I know go through extra struggles due to not cowing to the bullshit of society, but you can make it through, things do get better. And I agree with all of what Bluecast said (hey Bluecast, glad to hear you're doing alright :)).

I can even relate a little to your dissatisfaction with your body. I've been struggling with Body Dysmorphia for a long time, and actually, a lot of my dissatisfaction does stem from my belief that my face has an excess of 'manliness', which I detest and can't tally to my personality. I know it's different to what you've been going through, but I really can relate to the feeling of not being able to identify with your own body and how hard that is.

Also want to agree with LGS, Online games and Nintendo are brilliant hobbies! Many of the most incredible people I know have the very same passions as you! They should not be a source of shame. My main way to spend free time, is to go to cafes alone and write embarrassingly bad poetry (some of which I used to post on the old TeamYu forum, so LGS can attest to the crappiness of them). I sometimes think it's a bit of a lame way to spend me time, and worry the cafe staff think I'm some sad weirdo, and the bible thick wad of various coffee shop stamp cards I carry next to my heart like a bible is one of my greatest shames. But then I think, at least I'm not fox hunting or dogging.

And Bluecast is so right, you're struggles have given you such a precious insight that others won't ever have, not unless people like you can enlighten them. I feel my own struggles have given me a certain sense of humour and enabled me to have created things I couldn't ever have without having gone through all that stuff.

So please, don't let unemployment discourage you (I'm going on 28 years unemployed myself! Honestly! haha, can I reach 30 without ever having worked? it's getting hard...) all that stuff is bullshit. And I'm sure if you keep striving you'll be able to get the surgery you want eventually, you're still young!

So please, don't rob the world of your special self :)