Deep Silver Partnership Signed + Gamescom Meet & Greet info

[Let's Get Sweaty]

Also - is Shenmue 3 now a PS4 exclusive?

They've always been non-committal on this, leaving the door open for other formats to be added, but today for the first time they've stated (and emphatically so) that it's exclusive to PS4 and PC.

[Yokosuka]

A German publisher, a Monegasque co-funder of a game mainly fanned by people from the West, developed by a team in Japan with likely many foreign outsourcing studios that will try together to replicate authentic China and insert some nostalgia for the fans into an universe which already felt nostalgia in 1999. A "very special project", this really is.

[south carmain]

I hope they don't take those idiotic American shenmue ads as an example. From what I've seen of them they do like to try to be edgy so hopefully they realise that kind of style wouldn't interest many who would take an interest in shenmue and keep it grounded concentrating on the cultural and mystical appeals of the game.

[JPZ]

I have to be honest, I think the current character models look terrible.

[Hyo Razuki]

Very interesting update this time. Don't wanna go too much into detail there about the pictures but Shenhua looks ok to me, Ryo looks very good and the backgrounds just look gorgeous.

More interestingly, Deep Silver's involvement in the publishing. Nothing against Deep Silver per se. They have been Sega's publisher for the European market for a while now, which is why they have published games such as Persona 5, Shin Megami Tensei IV, Yakuza Kiwami and also they have published SNK's King of Fighters 14. Great company and a good publisher, no doubt. But still some questions are in my head:

1. What about Sony's involvement in the project? Weren't they gonna publish the game? The FAQ on shenmue.link says, Sony will provide "some publishing support", so it is not very clear. Has Sony bailed from the project?

2. Is Deep Silver funding any of the development? Will the remaining stretch goals be funded by Deep Silver? They probably won't disclose this but maybe one day we'll find out, after the game is finished. Ideally, we will see that the game does indeed include all the stretch goals once stated on the Kickstarter.

3. What about Shibuya's involvement in the project? I guess they're out of the picture as far as publishing is concerned.

[Elevensixty]

^Yes, very much we need to know about Sony, Shibuya, Deep Silver funding, stretch goals.. Sony don't let us down fam

[south carmain]

I think the character models look good but I find Ryo to look rather different than in the dreamcast games. Well it's not that big of a deal anyway and probably to be expected with different artists on board than for the original game.

[RiGoRmOrTiS]

those model shots are not great, we just have to hope they are placeholder, however it seems unlikely since they'd have to spend time creating those placeholders in the first place.

What I really wonder is why is it so hard to them to hear what people are saying? over and over they've been told we want something close to the character models on the passport disc; most would be happy if they just replicate those models as closely as they can.. and yet we keep getting different versions of jank.

[Valascaziel]

The hate on the GAF thread for this publisher is ridiculous--so they've released some shitty titles...none of that has anything to do with Shenmue III.

He didn't just hand the reins to Deep Silver and peace out...maybe the delay announcement, where he revealed it had become "bigger and more beautiful than he anticipated" was because Deep Silver has finished funding the game(maybe).

Yu Suzuki didn't step forward after 15 years to release a piece of shit or have a publisher dictate to him how it should be made.

[Spaghetti]

over and over they've been told we want something close to the character models on the passport disc

See the problem with this statement is, it's not actually correct.

They've been asked to make Ryo look like himself, like he did on Dreamcast. This new model is almost 1:1 a recreation of his original Dreamcast model; you can literally see it was inspired by a cleaned up piece of promo art featuring the in-game model from the original game.

We've had a lot of looks for Ryo over the years. How he's looked in art, how he's looked in-game, and how he's looked in promo art; are all inconsistent to the point where there's no genuine consensus on the ideal. When YSnet hear they want Ryo to look like he used to/on Dreamcast, what do they assume fans mean? Most logical assumption would be to base the new model on the one players spent the most time with, the actual in-game one, rather than a talking head in a bonus feature.

[shredingskin]

When we say "we want Ryo to look like he used to" we actually mean "we want Ryo to look like that trailer from that unreleased online game no one really remembers".

It's quite easy to understand actually if you read between the lines.

[Spaghetti]

It's true though. Even the promo art for the old games was wildly inconsistent. Sometimes Ryo had a broader face, sometimes slimmer and sharper, sometimes he was smoothed out with an odd cat-like look, etc.

At least we got a model that is analogous to the Dreamcast in-game one. A few tweaks to improve it, and we're done.

[shredingskin]

For me really it's not that much about the proportions, but really it's the skin. It looks like tekken tag or SFIV/V.

You can say that Shenmue was always about stylistic artstyle or cartoony like, to me it doesn't "feel" right (and THB the narrative, specially in the first, tries to evoke quite a feeling of realism/day to day), and it's probably a psychological thing, but it looks cheaper to me (like those ps2 era sports games).

[Spaghetti]

For me really it's not that much about the proportions, but really it's the skin. It looks like tekken tag or SFIV/V.

You can say that Shenmue was always about stylistic artstyle or cartoony like, to me it doesn't "feel" right (and THB the narrative, specially in the first, tries to evoke quite a feeling of realism/day to day), and it's probably a psychological thing, but it looks cheaper to me (like those ps2 era sports games).

Nobody is denying tweaks could be made. There are plenty of mock-ups in the other thread that I think look better than what we've got now, but the hysterics and hyperbole (kinda like that PS2 sports game comment you just made) are getting old and unfortunately seem unlikely to change unless a very specific kind of look (that likely only exists in your head) is achieved.

What's worse is this imaginary idea that when we say "make Ryo look like he used to", we automatically mean the Passport model. How the fuck are YSnet meant to know that's what people mean when there's no consensus, and the highly inconsistent promo art has created several looks that different fans consider their "ideal" Ryo? All things considered, they came back wisely with a model that at least represents an update of the model we played with in the original Dreamcast games.

We're at least on the right track that gets behind a look Ryo had that all fans have experienced.

[shredingskin]

but the hysterics and hyperbole (kinda like that PS2 sports game comment you just made) are getting old and unfortunately seem unlikely to change unless a very specific kind of look (that likely only exists in your head) is achieved.

It's not hyperbolic, that "shinyness"/"plasticky" look is what ps2 games looked like:




And from the evolution of the images we have seen, it looks like conscious design choice.
Maybe it's that games today got more of a homogenized look, but that type of aesthetic is what it reminds me of, and psychologically it makes me think of old=cheap (but that's subjective).