What if Shenmue III destroys our future??

[Ocky27]

Hey everyone, The Gang got back together for a new trailer based on the night Shenmue III was announced.

phpBB [video]

As a Shenmue fan, there were two things I wanted to show in this video. One was to recreate my experience of the night Shenmue III was announced - an event that was overshadowed by the fact that the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup that same night. For us fans, the Shenmue III announcement was a monumental thing, and we treated it as such! But outside of our online fan community, in the real world, I had very few people I could share that excitement with. It's easy to forget that the world at large doesn't even know what Shenmue is, and probably never will. So I wanted to poke fun at the feeling that I'm sure we've all experienced when you interact with people who don't give a shit about something that, to you, is a huge deal.

The other idea I wanted to poke fun at was the enormous pressure Shenmue III is under to basically be the greatest thing ever. 14 years is a long time, and I myself had sort of accepted the idea that Shenmue III would never come out years ago. Now that it's coming, after the initial excitement wore off, I really had mixed feelings. Would this be the game I wanted 14 years ago? After all these years of imagining what would happen in Shenmue III (not to mention making a freaking movie in 2006 about what I thought would happen), am I going to be able to accept it if the story doesn't play out the way I've always imagined?

Personally, I've tried to adopt a philosophy that is summed up in a quote from the original Star Trek, which is in this new trailer we've made: "You may find that HAVING is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as WANTING." I don't know what to expect when Shenmue III comes out, and I'm going to try and keep an open mind until it does. When you dream about having something for so long, it's very easy to feel let down once you finally get it, and I don't want that to happen! I want to enjoy Shenmue III for what it is when it finally gets here. If I let my expectations get the better of me, I could easily react like the fans in this trailer do.

So, if nothing else, I hope this video reminds us all that Shenmue III is, at the end of the day, just a video game. Yes, it's one we've waited a long time for, but if we don't keep everything in perspective, it's a slippery slope into that post-apocalyptic future. Thanks for watching (and supporting our movies for the last 15 years)!

[sand4fish]

Being a rabid fanboy is a double-edged sword. On one side it's thanks to fanboyism that we got as far as $6 million for a crowdfunded project. But in the other end of the spectrum unrealistic expectations sets in pretty hard for them to the point that fans will criticize anything that does not look like an exact copy/paste from the past games, like even a freaking new logo that the own creator spent hours designing by hand! There are some that would even go as far as threaten the team if their demands of receiving solid updates are not met. Entitlement as its best.

I'm not sure what is the idealized story every fan has for the series, but if they are really worried about that kind of stuff just watch the Shenmue Postmortem 2014 GDC video. A lot can be inferred from that presentation on a closer inspection and I find the concept story arc to be quite poignant and it should have a strong emotional weight by the end of the journey, specially for the players who have stuck with Ryo since the very first game. If the plan is still to stick to that very initial concept I would find the story to be quite epic and satisfying.

Anyway, 14 years of constant outcry for a sequel and now that is a reality, doubts and criticism about the game development suddenly sets in? Well, we had 14 YEARS to make up our fucking mind for that. Even if it fails miserably, we had our wish granted and always the first two games to look up to as masterpieces. Nothing is going to change that.

[Hyo Razuki]

Sometimes it's a book they read or a movie they see. A lot of people have that one book or that one movie (maybe also more than one) which had a certain impact on their lifes or on the way they look at things. For me, Shenmue changed my life so I think it's fair to say that it's more than "just a video game" to me. That's why I've always fought for Shenmue's story to be concluded in the medium of video game because I feel that it is the only medium which can do Shenmue's story justice and that's also the reason why I've always been very much against finishing the story as a movie or a novel.

That said, I don't really have any expectations towards S3. Never had. I've been curious about what Yu Suzuki was going to do with S3 and how he would continue the story since the day I first finished S2. But I don't really have any vision of "my perfect S3" in mind. I'm leaving that completely to Yu Suzuki. Sure, I've speculated here and there but I am very open-minded as far as the story goes.

Technology-wise, I also don't have any clear vision of what I expect from the game. Thinking back, while S1 and S2 were surely groundbreaking during the days of Dreamcast, Xbox and PS2, it was never the graphical or technical marvel which drew me to Shenmue. It has always been the fantastic characters, the unequaled athmosphere and the music.

I agree with Sand4fish. No matter how S3 turns out. It will not take away from S1 and S2 being two of the greatest works ever created in the medium of video game. S3 will be what it will be and I think there is a very small chance that it will disappoint me. Maybe if it turns out to be buggy or the gameplay will be poorly executed but as long as S3 will suffer of neither of those two, there is a very, very high chance of me being happy with the game. That's because I don't have any rigid expectations.

I'm just very open-minded and curious when it comes to what S3 will be and I think that's the best mindset we can have for the game.