So... The New Trailer - Can we take away any story elements?

[starscream178]

And I would just like to mention, how much I look forward to coming to this forum upon and after the release of the game. The hype is gonna be immense, and I know we are gonna all go crazy about what happens next.

Did you guys see anything story related in the trailers? It didn't seem to give away much....

The Muscle head Ryo fights - Does it seem the first shot of them fighting and the last one are in different locations?

[Yokosuka]

It is likely that the muscleman is a character exceptionally used as a placeholder for being the Ryo's sparring partner.

Story was clearly not the focus of the video. The teaser was basically a tech demo to me.

Same kind of stuff happened with the DreamOn trailer of Shenmue 2 which was 90% focused on the environments:

phpBB [video]

[Chaikilla]

The muscle head fights Ryo in two different locations: outside Shenhua's house and here

His target seems to be Shenhua, as we see Ryo guarding her as muscly approaches her outside Shenhua's house. From this, I'm going to assume he's a chiyoumen member, assigned to capture Shenhua. Bailu village has a population of about 50 people and the community is pretty close-knit. Muscly being a petty thug from the village doesn't really make much sense. Seems to be that Shenhua already has a target on her head and this guy was tasked with capturing her.

I've always felt that Shenhua will be separated from Ryo (captured) at some point in the game and the quest of Shenmue 3 will largely focus on Ryo saving her.

Of course, it could just be a tech demo as Yokosuka has pointed out. I remember muscly being showcased in a Kickstarter update a few months back and there was some concept art for him and he was described as a "new character" though, so maybe he is relevant to the story.