Shenmue doesn't have a great story, but it's presented very well as a game .
Video game or nothing -- I don't want no stupid Shenmue Anime.
I totally agree with this. That's why I also have a hard time understanding fans who say they want shenmue 3 mainly so they can finish the story. Because if you take just the story and make it into a movie it will just be a b- kungfu movie with some supernatural elements. The magic of Shenmue lies in experiencing the game. The story is a part of that experience ofcourse, but I think that too much emphasis is being put on the story in game development sometimes.
Shenmue is a game after all. To make the third installment as something other than a game makes as much sense as making Return of the jedi as a boardgame instead of a movie.
That being said, I don't think Shenmue has a particularly bad story compared to other games. Most games don't have a great story. Modern games might have a darker or more mature theme though. But Suzuki's intention from the beginning was that young kids would be able to enjoy it. Personally I wouldn't mind if S3 took a turn to more mature/complex themes and it's possible that it might from the details we know.
And as was mentioned by Thief, the story is presented very well in the game, it's an exciting adventure and I'm eager to see where it leads. I also think it has wonderful characters. Shenhua for example is an interesting character and beautifully written IMO.
It's unfair to compare stories in games with movies or novels, because I don't think games excel at telling linear stories like those media. Thematically though, I don't see why the Shenmue saga couldn't approach something like a Miyazaki movie in terms of complexity. Dostojevsky-level storytelling is obviously something only a novel can achieve.
On the note of Shenmue being a has been game. That may be the case, it's 15 years old. However, it has aged better than probably all games from that era. And a game like Shenmue has basically not been made since. Sure, other games have embraced the concept of an open world that Shenmue revolutionized, but none has done it quite like Shenmue, with a world that felt handcrafted and living compared to the much larger sandbox-design of modern games. And we know that Yu Suzuki always likes to innovate and will surely bring something new to S3.
Also, GTA V is really not a groundbraking game. It has fantastic production values and is massive in scale but in terms of game-mechanics it's still basically the same as GTA 3. And frankly the series probably wouldn't exist if it wasn't for
Shenmue.
End of rant.