It's disappointing as Eurogamer has provided decent coverage in the past. There are lots of ways to frame the story that aren't so ominous. "Shenmue 3 Devs Opt to Work Through E3."

Maybe there's an unspoken fifth wude that says something like "Do not squander your energy when others are wrong on the internet."

Imagine the uproar when the community realizes that they have already been shown Ryo's new face.

celsowm wrote: Any chances of Shenmue related thing here?

I could be biased, but...

Many if not most of the Sega references throughout Shenmue exist outside of the timeline of the plot. There's a Saturn... you can win games for it at one of the stores. There are capsule toys referencing games that came out years later as well. Not to mention the nonexistent Sega items, such as the Master System notepad in one of Ryo's drawers, and even mystifying items that reference Shenmue itself, like Shenhua caramels available at the store. This kind of stuff is so woven into the details of Shenmue that I don't think I'd personally classify all of these things as easter eggs, but either way... it's all there in the world.

More specific to the original topic - Genesis games in Shenmue 3. Beyond whatever licensing considerations there might be with Sega - why not? It would fit with the established "rules" of the game world. The only thing is, the Genesis library has been re-issued time and time again over the years. It would be cool to give the Master System some love, or various other Yu Suzuki arcade titles that haven't been featured in Shenmue yet.

Just messing around - I tried my hand at making a 3D model of Cool Z. The boombox is just another model I threw in there but maybe later I'll try to duplicate the exact design of Cool Z's blaster.

I want Shenmue 3 to be the best game ever made, not only because it's my most anticipated game of all time, but also Shenmue 3 will most certainly determine the fate of this fantastic series, I could never forget how the commercial outcome of Shenmue I & II had affected the future of Shenmue and I don't want to ever relive that nightmare again...


I think you have to let go of that expectation, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it's pretty nebulous... "the best game ever made." In whose eyes? The critics, the general public? There'll never be agreement on this. In your own eyes? That's more possible, but even so it might be healthier to hope that it's your favorite game, or simply a satisfying and fulfilling game. Personally I love the previous Shenmue games, but I've never considered them in terms of being perfect or being the best. I love them simply because they are unique and convey a spectrum of feelings that no other games have. I also understand that I'm at a very different place in my life now and I don't expect to have the same kinds of feelings when I play Shenmue III that I did when I played I and II. Although they may nail the vibe and aesthetic in a very satisfying way, there's no way around the fact that I'll be ~17 years older and with new perspectives and it's not up to the developers of Shenmue III to account for my own changes.

Ultimately, though, it's out of your hands... out of all our hands. Our collective hopes and fears don't have a direct influence, so it's up to us to manage our expectations. I think you should be heartened that it's being made by many of the original designers. That alone is an achievement of the best possible circumstance in a turbulent commercial artform. They've expressed that at its current state of development it is already exceeding their own expectations. Things are going well.

As for the (speculated) involvement of some younger and less experienced members of the development team, Yu Suzuki et al started out as young, inexperienced developers, too. They had seniors who recognized their potential and talent. Now they are in the position of being able to recognize and cultivate the potential of less-experienced yet talented collaborators.

Seeing the new official logo is a relief, even though I knew they had said they wouldn't be sticking with the temporary one. I was just like, what is taking them so long? Why do they keep using this one? Just for the record I think the whole alleged issue with young people not knowing how to read cursive writing is absurd. It's not like a completely different alphabet, just slight variations of the letter shapes. You can learn it in an hour. Then again I am into wildstyle graffiti so cursive is a pretty simple style compared to that.

The new models show a lot of great personality even in a t-pose. They're going to be bursting off the screen with charisma when they're textured and animated!

Start your day with the flavor of Fuku-san's life savings!

I'm taking this product sighting as a good omen for things soon to come!

There is a stark, night-and-day difference between the way Keiji Inafune and Yu Suzuki have conducted themselves through the years, both in their work and what they've expressed through the media. There might be some challenges but I have no worry that the Shenmue III rewards will be half-assed.

Personally I think the "reward" aspect of crowdfunding is way out of hand and should be dialed back because of all the logistical difficulties it introduces. If you believe in a project enough to contribute money to it, go for it. Don't view it as an opportunity to stock up on tchotchkes.

There's something unclear about all this.

Everything they said previously still applies. They are now providing some additional good news that a) there will be a meet-and-greet with Yu Suzuki, and b) the game footage shown to the press will also be shown to backers via a KS update at the same time.

Extra clarified version: GOOD NEWS BE HAPPY

Hell's bells. Are people being intentionally obtuse or what?! Do you need people to explain to you that the sky is blue, and chew food for you? Videos being shown to press and included in KS update that week. Shake hands with Yu Suzuki for the public. What's the problem here?

If anyone is seriously confused about what words mean, just accept the reassurance of those who aren't.

Well, this week will seem like an eternity...

I know it seems that way, right? If possible, everyone should take a few moments to try and enjoy this particular period of time and the uncertainty and anticipation of it. I wonder what it will be like when the game is revealed. I have a lot of hopes, a few worries. It truly is a time of wonder. Here we are, in it, right now - at perhaps the absolute apex of anticipation. It's a special time and some day, it will be as long ago as the DC days.

I'm glad I've got a total solar eclipse to keep me occupied with something the day before Gamescom.

Maybe it would be a good idea to have a separate thread or section for community artists who want to re-imagine or suggest what they think Shenmue III assets should look like. I think it's interesting but I don't want it to take up so much space in the midst of discussions of official images and videos. Especially since (with any luck) we're going to be seeing new material soon.

Wow! My experience of this was a sweet culmination of an amazing day. I took my family to a remote mountaintop to watch the total eclipse. Seeing a total eclipse is one of the few things I've waited for longer than Shenmue III! And it was well worth the wait. Then, after a long drive home, as I was getting ready for bed, I decided to check my email, which had nothing of interest... but then a moment later the Kickstarter update appeared in my inbox! There were so many synchronistic little events like that throughout the day, it's hard to describe. But the overall effect was just a magical experience.

Holy smokes, look at this. Whatever else your eyeballs are doing, grab them and make them look at this.

I don't expect another trailer as such this year. Definitely some screenshots here and there and maybe a few short glimpses of video within future updates, but I don't think there will be a new trailer until next year.

But I and many other fans have a theory it's possibly Lan Di's father, or twin brother or someone who is very close to him that Ryo's father either accidentally or purposefully killed for no good reason.

I also believe Ryo's father is not Japanese and he's actually Chinese and an is a ex member of Lan Di's Mafia/Cartel group.

...

He knows his father is just as equally evil as Lan Di is and there will be some type of truce.

So what do you guys think?

Hmm, that's an interesting theory but it goes against everything I've observed about Iwao Hazuki. Admittedly not much is shown of him, but what is shown demonstates the importance he places on teaching Ryo about integrity. Also, if he had somehow gotten out of the criminal life after having been involved deeply enough to be a killer, I doubt he would draw attention to himself by establishing a dojo.

Also some talk about realism, and how while that was a pursuit for the first two games; it's now kind of switched into an exaggerated naturalism for III. Curious what this means exactly. I mean, it sounds like the realism is still there to an extent. You can get a job and stuff after all.

I think it's referring to the art direction. The characters are supposed to be somewhat exaggerated/stylized in appearance rather than photorealistic.

If they don't make Ryo or Shenhua look anywhere close to the models I've posted, I will be disappointed. You see, it's quite apparent that those are exactly what they should be aiming for.

If you are fluent in Japanese, you may apply to become the art director... otherwise yours is one opinion among thousands. All you can do is politely make your suggestion and then sit back and see what happens. Kickstarter is a platform for donations, not investments. Follow the cue of the real investors, who are allowing Yu Suzuki to pursue his vision.

Consider this remark in the Dengeki Online interview (thanks to Switch for the translation):

YS: The skill tree won't be overly complex, but one is planned. If it's complicated it could be hard to get to grips with, so it will fill itself in automatically as you do various things. However, checking the tree and deliberately building it up I think will be even more enjoyable.

Of course, even if you don't fill the skill tree the game will move forward. Achieving an impressive victory by performing a series of special moves, or barely scraping in with a win - I would like to implement this kind of level of distinction.

It doesn't really describe the method of input but it is reassuring that it will be possible to perform a series of special moves if you play well.

If the cursive style is indeed the problem (I personally don't have any trouble reading it, but we did learn cursive in school when I was a kid), then why not just use some classy serif font and keep the strong brushwork of the Japanese version. Yu Suzuki's brushwork in Japanese is strong and assured, whereas his version with roman letters is not (imo). So, something like this would be my suggestion:

http://www.zoonbats.com/s3/s3_logo.jpg

If you're seriously going to be upset that the story continues through Shenmue III into IV and possibly others, then you can simply avoid playing them and then after a number of years you can read about what happened after the cave on a wiki. YS has already stated the story is not ending in III.

Seriously, the types of Photoshop "improvements" being posted are so minute, subjective, and arbitrary. And some of them are presented with an almost comical air of certainty that their fan art is the superior, ideal visualization. Is this what this forum is going to be like for the next year? I guess it's fine as a hobby, but does anyone believe YsNet staffers are over there saying, "We haven't got it quite right... we'd better trawl the fan forums for guides." Maybe NoConKid getting hired has given people false expectations? But NoConKid has professional-level skill as a 3D artist. YsNet isn't hiring Photoshop hobbyists.

Peter Moore has recently clarified that his statement that he "made the call" to discontinue the Dreamcast and have Sega transition into a third party developer has been misconstrued. He didn't make the decision; he literally had to set up the conference call between the various divisions of Sega to receive the word of the decision, which came from Sega of Japan.

If he hadn't brokered the deal to get Shenmue II ported to the Xbox, it likely would not have been published by Sega for the Dreamcast in North America at all. Take a look at Sega's logic-defying decisions ever since leaving the hardware business about what gets localized and what doesn't. It was Sega's chosen strategy at the start of the third party era to provide console exclusives for each console.

I don't really see it as a viable strategy for hardcore Shenmue fans to commit to buying multiple copies of SIII. If that's what you want to do, that's cool, but the game will have to be a success on its own for the series to continue moving forward. It now seems to be in the best possible position to be a fully-realized, high-quality game, so in my eyes that's what's going to give it the best shot at commercial success.

Animations are a bit stiff but it's better than blank stares.

Well, the "grandma" in particular isn't showing animations. It's a video of the animator manually moving some of the animation controls to demonstrate some of the possible facial expressions. So moving the controls individually produces these sorts of linear motions, but when they actually animate the character it should be fluid and natural.

lol at the AJ bashing :D
the middling, casual fans (where the money will be made, IMO) are already pissed off and they may never lay down the cash, if this is delayed another year on top of the current delay.

I don't agree... I doubt the casual, more mainstream gamers have much awareness of Shenmue III yet. When the official marketing begins, they'll start to become aware and interested. The ones who are pissed off are a small sub-section of the people who spend a lot of time reading gaming news sites. They have their own little echo chamber but are not the mass market.

Bump, wondering if anyone heard any news about this.


They haven't made any additional announcements since the first one at E3. The only title they've announced at this point is Crimson Skies. I'm hyped about that so I've been impatiently waiting! As of now it's not even available in the Xbox Live Insider program. So it's starting to look like it'll be late fall before they roll it out.

This is a great sign! The company that I asked to donate $50M refuse to answer whether they've donated or not. You know what this means? Ys Net obviously asked them to keep the information classified or something like that. Big things are going to happen, I'm sure!

Actually, this is kind of worrying. By now, I'm sure so many people you've asked have donated so much money that the budget is certainly ballooning far beyond even Star Citizen levels. I expect they're approaching half a billion dollars, and climbing fast. Feature creep is going to set in and the exponentially-expanded version of Shenmue III won't release until 2024.

What? No! Damn, if only Isao Okawa was still alive. I bet he would have funded Shenmue III which would obviously be amazing! Too bad there aren't more people like him in the world :sad:

What's more, S1 and 2, in fact Dreamcast as a whole were funded by a billionaire patron with too much money in his account, who didn't expect anything back. We can only guess why he did it. Maybe he had a soft spot for quality video games?

Isao Okawa wasn't just some random billionaire art patron who liked video games. He was involved with Sega (first via CSK Holdings) starting in 1984, ultimately becoming Sega's president in 1999. He invested his own money to keep Sega from going bankrupt.

There's a setting in your preferences to turn off all signatures. Unfortunately it hides the tasteful, well-designed signatures as well as the annoying ones. Fortunately no one on here has a tasteful, well-designed signature, so I'm missing nothing. (ducks)

Great interview with a lot of very thoughtful questions. In particular I appreciate the information on how Yu Suzuki will handle the pacing and the balance between elements that advance the story, and additional aspects that are more like side activities that won't move the story along but will enhance the atmosphere. I'm also more and more curious about the new free battle system as it sounds intriguing to think of fighting in all directions. I almost wonder if there will be some kind of slow-motion aspect to it, but that's purely my own imagining and not based on anything specific Yu Suzuki said.

https://i.imgur.com/m2FttyX.jpg

something looks off about her face shape. it look more rounded compared to the rest plus i don't like her lips.

Well, truth be told the S2 Shenhua face looks more like a 6-year-old than a 16-year-old. If I didn't already know it was Shenhua and I looked at that S2 image of her face, I'd think... little kid.

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 don't know if this has already been mentioned elsewhere, but I just noticed that Shenmue III was included in the Unreal Engine blog's list of UE4 games to look forward to in 2018. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/the-gaming-industry-gets-set-for-an-unreal-2018 The blog entry itself is an aggregate of lists from IGN, Gamespot and Polygon. No new information, but it's nice to see that Epic has confidence in Shenmue III being a good representation of UE4.

I can understand with the long and challenging history of this game that there are fears surrounding the possibility of anything undermining it as we apparently near the finish line. However, it's not really a well-founded fear to think that one company would acquire another in order to cancel, de-fund or otherwise disrupt one of the valuable properties that made acquisition appealing to begin with.

I have a video on the subject here:


If you're expecting to get "likes" and "subscribes" by trolling the Shenmue community, I think that ship has sailed. Not only is it not going to happen on Youtube anymore for any joe schmoe to have a viral hit channel just by ranting about nonsense, but also simply because there's only going to be more and more legit information on Shenmue III in the coming months. In years past when the project was in doubt you'd get some views just because people were starved for Shenmue content but that's all over now.

I found it interesting that they plan to use the old assets for flashback scenes. ... Also, if Sega does remaster the first two and they do look better, it would be odd then if 3 has un-updated asserts for the flashbacks. I wouldn't mind seeing the first two games rebuilt to match 3, but that's not really feasible if they want to release them in order.

"Assets" is a general term, so we don't know for sure what Yu Suzuki was referring to. He might have meant the old models as you're imagining, but he might have also meant the mocap/character animation data that could be applied to newer models. Assuming they still have the files with the character rigs from the older games then it would be relatively easy to bind them to new character models.

Just to save anyone else the trouble, I looked at his channel and all the featured videos are insults toward various popular franchises... all with fewer than 100 views. His dis of Crash Bandicoot seems to be the most popular with 78 views. :roll: Just another wannabe Youtuber trying to use trolling strategies that stopped working three or more years ago.

That's an Unreal Engine thing, isn't it?

Not really... it's art direction, not the engine. Games running on UE4, Unity, or any other modern engine can look as realistic or as stylized as the developers choose.

With regard to Shenmue, I guess it goes back to the discussion we had previously wherein it was revealed that many people in 1999 apparently thought Shenmue was the most realistic game they'd ever seen, even though almost all the textures are painted and many of the characters are stylized. Personally I prefer stylized art direction (Jet Set Radio being my favorite) and it seems to hold up over the years better than attempts at photorealism. But I also appreciate the drive for photorealism because it continues to push the technology.

ShenSun wrote: I did say if Shenmue HD gets announced, i'd run through the street naked. Off i go...........

Yi - To act without hesitation, to do what is right

I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. Years and years of campaigning all paid off. Also, what was said about skies of arcadia?

It's my understanding that Skies of Arcadia was shown in a countdown of the most requested games. So, basically Sega acknowledged that they get a lot of fan requests for Skies, but nothing more than that at this point.

I don't think they would have shared any information about exclusivity or Sega's potential future involvement in the series with Youtubers. I would expect the mystery information to be more about things like adding the requested time-skip feature to S1, and reducing or altogether removing loading times between areas.