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Re: Communism in China, and Ren's return in Shenmue III

Thanks for everyone's replies.

re: iron- 10-15 years prior to Shenmue, in the real world, the government seized most iron for central infrastructure purposes and couldn't put proper manufacturing in place to produce more. Iron became scarce in the country in general, but it was still obtainable compared to the dark period preceding what happened.

re: the house- The game doesn't say that this happened to Shenhua's house specifically, but the government did seize houses as well as break down and eliminate traditional culture wherever they could, at one point. The game does show that *something* happened though, and that it had to be rebuilt in a much simpler, rustic way, and that Shenhua's birth parents probably died tragically.

so basically what I'm saying is it's showing the effects of history, but without portraying politically sensitive things. like i read an article that talked about how Yokosuka in 1987 had a troubled economy and was reliant on the black market with smugglers and sailors, and this is reflected in Shenmue where the clothes shops and restaurants are worried about business while the bars are doing great- but it's still not about any of the political entities that were responsible for the situation.

Shenmue is a game that's both directly and indirectly about the past, in an abstract thematic way. It can feel very moving about this at times.
by shenmue852
Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:17 pm
 
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Re: NEW SHENMUE III KICKSTARTER UPDATE - INTERVIEW WITH YU

More than length, it's very important to me to see the chapters set in Xi'an, Luoyang, Mengcun and Beijing. Perhaps the chapter in Suzhou would have to be cut.

If Shenmue III is successful, Shenmue IV could reasonably be produced at a budget where those 4 cities are rendered at the scale of Wanchai with implied/depicted larger areas that you don't access. I'm guessing that building on Shenmue III's resources and with a bigger budget pending Shenmue III sales, Shenmue IV could be around Shenmue II's overall size or slightly bigger, and fittingly conclude the series if produced at a budget of 20-25 million.

Condensing all that to IV is already cutting out a lot of content, so perhaps some of the remaining cities could only be depicted as event areas rather than fully explorable environments. I think it's reasonable though.

Ending it in Shenmue III in Guilin means no Xi'an, no Luoyang/Shaolin, no Mengcun where Iwao trained with and may or may not have killed Zhao Sunming, and that's just really sad because those areas would have made for amazing Shenmue settings. As cool as Guilin is, that was going to be the next level.

Ryo becoming a master by the end of the next game would feel inauthentic to the entire pace and established storyline of SI and II.

I really hope that he is just configuring the plot in order to put SOME of the elements from cut chapters into III so that IV could be a bigger game that depicts as many of the planned settings as possible and still concludes the series. Depending on Shenmue III's sales, if it's a runaway hit it might even be possible to produce 2 more games so it could end at a 5th game. But it needs to be 4 at the very least.
by shenmue852
Mon Aug 31, 2015 9:40 am
 
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Re: NEW SHENMUE III KICKSTARTER UPDATE - INTERVIEW WITH YU

I would rather have another unresolved cliffhanger or even no game at all than an attempt to fit the entire storyline to Shenmue III and the 3 villages that the game is set in.

Shenmue IV or bust. Anything less is a disgrace to the first 2 games and what the series was meant to be.

Maybe some people just want Shenmue and a conclusion no matter what. I think it's just going to be completely inorganic for the game to be further truncated. 5 or 6 games could reasonably be cut down to 4, but there's no way in hell that there's enough time to naturally conclude the story in a way that does it justice with what we've seen of the kickstarter project. It looks like a great game if it's an installment, but I'm not going to be very enthusiastic about the game if they try to make it carry more than its weight- it's already on a limited budget.
by shenmue852
Mon Aug 31, 2015 3:23 am
 
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Re: Lack of Loading Screens? No Loading Screens?

there's an obvious reason to keep the loading screens- the change in music between different areas. it just won't work without the black screen that displays the name of the area you're in.

that being said, i think the environments should be seamlessly built anyway, just so you can see the rest of the environment from different parts of it (i.e see through doorways instead of just a texture there)
by shenmue852
Sat Aug 15, 2015 2:20 pm
 
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Re: What arcade games would you like to see in Shenmue 3?

None. It's set in the middle of fucking nowhere. The available games should be along the lines of ball in a cup or playing football with rocks.

- Chi You Men is wealthy.
- We can imagine that a Guilin guy have emigrated successfully outside the land then imported some hi tech treasures from the metropolis.
- It could just be an underground place or the 222 room remake, not a truly arcade hub.
- Yu was over-obsessed with super realism for the two Shenmue, why would he screw it up ? He knows how to integrate things well.

Your last sentence seems self contradictory, because it is absolutely inconceivable that an arcade cabinet could be smuggled all the way to rural China in the 80s. This stuff was under stricter prohibition and more unheard of than illegal drugs are today. 1980s India, Brazil, sure, it's possible. Difficult but still possible.

China though, no way. It's the kind of thing that, if seen in public would garner a LOT of attention.

And although the game doesn't refer to communism, it does definitively portray cultural isolation and absolute scarcity of modern technology in those regions.

I'd go so far as to say that if Yu Suzuki had his own funding for the game, he wouldn't put arcade games in, but because fans are funding the game, he's obligated to put in features from past games that weren't originally planned for inclusion. I hope they just keep it to capsule toys and one or game machines if they absolutely have to do it.
by shenmue852
Tue Jul 21, 2015 12:42 am
 
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Re: What arcade games would you like to see in Shenmue 3?

I'm probably in the minority here, but I'll still say it-

none. none at all. I want to see Wei Chi (Chinese checkers, known as Go in Japan) I want to see kite flying, I want to see traditional spinning top games. But I don't want to see a single arcade game. Not because I didn't love the arcade games in the first 2 games, but because it would be absolutely incongruous with both the version of Guilin the game has already established and real life/history.

Even if you forget that China had a complete media blackout in 1987 in the real world, the game's world portrays Guilin and rural China as so cut off from the outside world that Shenhua has never heard of Japan- and in all likelihood the game would attribute this difference between China and Hong Kong to history rather than politics, but nonetheless reflective of an actual time and place without having to address the specifics of the political situation any more than they had to disclose who the mayor of Yokosuka was- but it was still 80s Yokosuka. In real life, Chinese villages at the time actually were quite isolated from even the rest of China, although people had obviously heard of Japan's existence :-o

My point though is that one of the strongest things about Shenmue is conveying a sense of place- and putting anachronistic easter eggs in a rural area of 80s China (not even a city like Shanghai, where it would still be extremely unlikely to see capsule toys and arcades) would ruin the whole point of the contrast between traveling from a modern contemporary society (Japan and HK) to a rural, purely traditional setting)
by shenmue852
Tue Jul 21, 2015 12:18 am
 
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Re: Anyone worried that Yu might listen to the fans too much

Yes I'm very much worried about that- fanboys demand fanservice like a screaming toddler that can't envision anything beyond its own petulant urges.

The whole point of the rural setting is to highlight the contrast between the setting of the adventure in full swing, and the urban settings of the opening chapters, to convey a strong sense of character in the settings, which is partly achieved through contrast.

It sounds like they are a little desperate to do throwbacks to the first few games that are unnecessary, but I trust that they'll keep these diversions minimal instead of repeating themselves and not embracing the diversity of setting that originally made Shenmue so unique.

I'm 90% sure that if Shenmue III had been greenlighted after Shenmue II, they wouldn't have put capsule machines in China's villages.
by shenmue852
Tue Jul 21, 2015 3:31 am
 
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Re: Am I the only Shenmue fan who has...

...only played the game(s) once?

Reading about other people's experiences with Shenmue, I see quite a lot of "I'm currently on my 11th playthrough" , or "I bring out Shenmue for a spin every christmas" .

Shenmue is by far my most powerful gaming experience - a real milestone for me - but in 14 years I have only played it once from start to fi... erm... cave. I loved it so much it actually scared me away from playing it again. Sounds weird as f*ck, I know... but welcome to my world.

Shenmue changed pretty much everything for me when it comes to gaming, and (as cheesy as it may sound) had a pretty big impact on my everyday life as well. As soon as I finished the second game I knew that I didn't want to "trivialize" the experience by repeating it. I knew the magic would never be the same. Most likely still awesome, of course, but never the same.

As the years went by, and the gaming industry moved on with bigger worlds and shinier graphics, I actually became more and more afraid of returning to Shenmue because I knew I would never forgive myself if all those wonderful memories from my time with the game would be tainted by slight disappointment. What if that "magic vibe" just wouldn't be there like the first time? I just couldn't take that risk.

I also knew that when - or if - Shenmue III was released, I had to return to 1 and 2 in preparation for the third, and the longer I could stay away, the more plot details I would forget and hopefully get a few nice surprises the second time around.

Now, with all that said, I did actually play the first game a second time in 2003 to break in my brand new tv, but I didn't touch the second one. "I'm sorry, Ryo... you'll have to stay on this boat for about 14 years now".

I know I'm rambling here, but I guess a potent mix of fear and extreme forward thinking has kept me away all these years. Now, finally, I can sort of see the benefits and I plan to return to 1 and 2 when the planned release date of Shenmue III draws near. Hopefully it won't mess too much with all the fantastic memories I've been guarding for all these years.

I guess I am the only one, right..? :lol:

I kind of envy you. The story has a lot of themes and characterization/character development that I picked up on after watching playthroughs many years later. Shenmue II in particular gets into the idea of developing strength, wisdom and courage in an individual's character in order to walk the path of a person's destiny. The first game is about the fleeting nature of life and the inevitability of change and being separated from people and everything that a person has known in life (Shenmue II briefly reflects on this, during farewells with the hong kong characters and when talking about memories and people to Shenhua)

It's a much deeper game than people give it credit for, on a narrative level. Unfortunately, Ryo comes across as robotic, partly because he's intentionally written as a sheltered and immature teenager (who happens to be a martial arts prodigy) and some parts of the story resort to anime tropes at times, mainly during the climactic action sequences, when the plot calls for an emergency (it's the narrative, way the story is told up to that point more than the story itself that makes it great, while there's still a lot of interesting content in the story itself, it's more the world building and characters than the action, which gains a lot of dramatic weight from the characters being developed so extensively)

Because of limitations with the medium and the shitty English dub (I'm fond of the first game's dub, but it failed the game's writing very badly. That stupid sailor meme would've been avoidable if the localization had taken cultural context into account and found a way to convey that everyone Ryo's talking to knows that "sailor" basically means smuggler/gangster and not Popeye or someone out of a Village People music video)

I think a lot of people didn't look past the game's surface, i.e the graphics and the QTE's and the fighting system, rather than what they were doing with them, like making almost all the new moves you learn part of the story, often with something thematically related to the way the move is explained, which connected the mechanics with the story in a unique way.

Anyway I probably think too much about this stuff.
by shenmue852
Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:49 pm
 
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Re: Anyone worried that Yu might listen to the fans too much

So... Yu said calling cards wouldn't exist in that time period and yet he's including them. You Non-VF guys should be against that too, then, right?
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/17/8b/2b/178b2b21a2cc1fd8dbebbc895921b4ae.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1DBh3s48bI

Well, typically for the VF inclusion argument, you're flat out wrong.

"Phonecards have been collected worldwide since the mid-1970s and peaked in the mid-1990s, when over 2 million people collected phonecards."

What Yu meant was they weren't commonly available in China at the time- but obviously, even during communism, some people, especially visiting foreigners, had the ability to make long distance calls. a Phonecard could easily have been purchased in Hong Kong.
by shenmue852
Wed Jul 22, 2015 2:01 am
 
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Can we speculate on locations based on the GDC concept map?

http://cdn.escapistmagazine.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/698/698955.jpg

Basically, although it's from the VFRPG planning phase, the map is chronologically and geographically accurate for the games (not the chapter divisions) Shenmue I, Shenmue II and Shenmue III. The locations for for Shenmue and Shenmue II are accurate, shows characters from those (Master Chen, Gui Zhang for Yokosuka and Ren, Xiuying for HK/Kowloon) and beginning of Shenmue III is also in Guilin.

There's another picture with the order of it- but here is my guess based on the map (can't read the Japanese, has anyone translated the text if it's visible enough?) and references from the game.

Yokosuka to Hong Kong (Kowloon is located within Hong Kong)

Hong Kong to Guilin (Guanxi province)

Guilin to either X'ian or Yungcheng

Xi'an or Yungcheung to Luoyang (pretty sure about Luoyang, game has a pretty significant reference to it and it seems to be Luoyang's map location)

Luoyang to Mengcun

Mengcun to somewhere near Beijing or more likely Cangyanshan because Cangyangshan is a more Shenmue-ish location in that area of the map? somewhere Northeast. [EDIT- I meant Cangyanshan not Cangzhou]

Northeast to far Northwest, either the border of Tibet or India

There is also an Eastern coastal city, which I think would be Shanghai. But it isn't connected by line/arrow unlike the other locations. It might be Shandong province, Qufu in Shandong province is the birthplace of the Yellow Emperor.

Thoughts?
by shenmue852
Wed Jul 22, 2015 5:25 pm
 
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Re: Can we speculate on locations based on the GDC concept m

According to the Chinese text, the locations following Guilin are xi'an (西安) and Luoyang (洛陽). I'd like to figure out the rest but the text really looks like a bunch of scribbles.

HOLY SHIT BRO I WAS RIGHT. :lol:

i love you so much thank you thank you.

Sorry it was just so much fun guessing those on the map. I'm calling Mengcun as well!

And although I never expected Shanghai, and never heard anything about Shanghai being in the game, the map makes the Eastern part look like it's definitely either Shanghai or part of Jiangsu.

:D

EDIT- I replied before I saw your second post. Shanghai and Beijing too wow. I'm a bit disappointed that it's not Cangshan but oh well!

EDIT 2- I'm not claiming to have figured out anything I bet others have already, probably didn't search the forum enough. I bet LanDC or Ziming knew from before! I just found these images recently.

I'm just very happy to know the originally planned locations, and having guessed it just made it that much more fun! but just on a personal level.

Anyway- the usual disclaimer applies. This was the plan for VFRPG starring AKIRA in the 90s. Yu Suzuki already revealed chapter 3 (Ryo and Ren pictured with the phoenix mirror between them) which was set on a train, was cut from Shenmue II. So for sure, that part is at least shuffled in terms of its order in relation to actual game version of CHAPTER 4 GUILIN.

But I'll go ahead and admit that the amount of detail and degree of location and plot match that correspond to the chapters already released in the first 2 games (Yuan! Dou Niu! Master Chen! Xiuying! Guizhang!) makes me personally believe that even if it's not 100% the same as what the future direction will be, it is still more accurate than inaccurate, at least SOME of it is for sure.

So freaking cool. This was planned out in the 90s. Shenmue is like as long in the making as freaking Game of Thrones.

Last edit- ok maybe you won't believe me, but I was looking up Chinese water towns in Jiangsu, thinking about how cool it would be for Ryo to visit one. Just wow! turns out that made the list too!

I hadn't even heard of Suzhou. I was looking up other water towns. Hey hate on it if you want, but from time to time I like to picture locations in China for future Shenmue titles and what it could've been like to portray them fantastically.

What have you guys pictured before seeing this map? I pictured Shaolin temple (Henan) and of course Mengcun. Aside from that I pictured Wudong and I kind of wondered about Shanghai. I didn't think Shaolin/Henan would make the list, but it kind of seems like it does.

And I recently rewatched Shenmue II playthrough had forgotten about Luoyang. So that wasn't one of the places I pictured until recently.

And I admit I really really wanted Cangyanshan to be in the games: that's why I hoped the map marker near Beijing was actually Cangyanshan since it's just 3 hours away :cry:

Cangyanshan:

https://specktreks.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/cangyan3.jpg

https://specktreks.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/lookup.jpg

Sorry I'm so geeky :rotflmao:
by shenmue852
Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:46 pm
 
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Re: Technique Scroll system

I've always thought an timing based option QTE would be a good idea- if there would be a way for them to indicate when hitting the punch button or the kick (or direction or whatever) are both options, and the option disappears once its window is over (i.e when enemy is out of ideal range for that attack)

there'd be limited windows depending on the timing and spacing.

so it's kind of like heavy rain QTE's where it shows you buttons you can press but in a martial arts context, and cued towards decisions. So sometimes the point is to kick when the enemy is in the right range, or block and strike in a certain order, etc.

so sometimes any of the options work, sometimes there's a specific decision you're supposed to make.

i think there's potential.
by shenmue852
Wed Jul 22, 2015 10:51 pm
 
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Re: Stuff in Shenmue

That is actually a different Baisha village. Shenmue III will feature a Hakka walled village with Tulou buildings named Baisha, which is actually more typical in Fujian than Guanxi (Guilin) but they exist all over Southern China in various forms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNl_WbeFyiU

I don't think they've specifically said if Shenmue III is set within Guilin/Guanxi or not.
by shenmue852
Fri Jul 24, 2015 1:22 am
 
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Re: Shenmue 3 In UK Games Magazines

how the hell is either YsNet or Neilo, which has only made one PS Vita game, a "triple A studio" as that idiotic Games Master article claims?

they're not Naughty Dog, swimming in a river of Sony's cash.
by shenmue852
Sat Jul 25, 2015 11:02 am
 
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Re: The Villages: everything we know so far

Choubu might be partially based on Yangshuo, a riverside village that was popular with overseas tourists even in the 80s

http://www.china-tour.cn/images/Yangshuo/Yangshuo-Scenery-1.jpg

http://www.chinadiscovery.com/assets/images/guilin/yangshuo/west-street-520.jpg

http://www.travellers-content.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/HLIC/e2bd8227f2f3aa5694b5eec33d02f263.jpg
by shenmue852
Tue Jul 28, 2015 1:29 pm
 
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Re: Shenmue 3 sales & franchise future

it's not a tree that exists in real life. in the game, it's a tree that bears sedge flowers.

yeah, i know its a fictional tree, i just wondered why they chose the sedge kanji. if the flower is supposed to resemble the plant 'sedge' then this would explain it (which is what i initially thought). but when you actually look at the shenmue tree intro video the flowers don't really look anything like sedge. never mind just my curiosity - a fictional tree can be called anything - it doesn't have to bear any resemblance to the thing its named after.
https://youtu.be/UYrtW7lD0cQ?t=3m4s

Seems there are quite a few different looking types of sedge flowers, though none look like the flowers in the game.

I think the simplest answer is most likely- they liked the sound of "Shenmue" in Japanese, and it happens to mean Sedge tree, but it was chosen mainly because they liked how it sounded and when it came time to design the tree, they just decided to put pretty flowers on it because there's no such thing as a "sedge tree" anyway.

They don't always go for 100% accuracy with everything in Shenmue. The four wude are mixed from many different sources, i.e Yi is from confucianism, and although those concepts would apply in any martial art, they aren't formatted as those 4 particular wude, every style has its own philosophy.
by shenmue852
Tue Aug 11, 2015 3:40 pm
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki : a new interview about Shenmue III incoming !

Hello everyone ! How are you ?

Today, I have something special to announce so I hope you will all take some time to read it. Thanks !

Last year, I had the chance to meet Yu Suzuki and interviewed him regarding Shenmue and Shenmue III . My best pleasure was to share with you all the latest informations I could get and many of you really appreciated my work, or atleast, that's the feeling I was getting from your messages. Never felt so much love and can't thank you enough for that.

During the Kickstarter, I was going to pledge 2000 dollars because that's the maximum I had, but during the last days I've decided to reduce it to 600 dollars. The reason I've reduced my pledge is because I had another project in my head and wanted to get it done for me and for you. And this project was : a new interview with Yu Suzuki !

Yes, since it's official now I can finally announce it : I will meet Yu Suzuki on september in Japan. It wasn't easy to do as I had to cut my pledge, sell some of my rare video games gems in order to gather enough money for the flight and any fees I will have to pay in Japan, but I am glad that it was possible.

Meeting Yu Suzuki once again is something I am really looking forward to. I will bring in my own questions. However, since I've also been doing this for you, I am going to ask YOURS. Of course, I might not be able to ask all of them but as always, I will do my best.

So here we go :

What kind of questions would you like me to ask ?

What are you looking forward ?

Anything that comes through your mind, even if that's not a question, I'll try to turn it into one.

You can either answer directly through comments or you can send your questions to : [email protected]

I cannot provide details about the day of the interview and when it will be published on Shenmue 500k , Shenmue Dojo and Shenmue Master , but whenever I am allowed to do so, you'll be the first to know.

My dream of working as Shenmue III Community Manager is far ahead and It's highly possible that It'll never come true, but that's as far as I am willing to go to show my motivation and how much I am into this to make it happen.

Thanks for your continued support, it helps me a lot.

Best regards,

David



Please ask and advocate for the option to play with Japanese audio and English subtitles. Will it be possible to play the game this way?

Please express to Mr. Suzuki that a huge proportion of fans played Shenmue II this way, preferred it, and want to play Shenmue III this way, and are passionate about this to the extent that they even made a mod for the first Shenmue with JPN audio and English subs. But mods are buggy, and since these are people who've been into Shenmue and waited this long, and the Japanese audio and English subs would be produced anyway, it doesn't hurt to put the option in- the amount of money in filesize it would save not to include audio that has already been recorded that many fans strongly prefer wouldn't be worth how upsetting it would be to fans who have already been waiting over a decade for their game.
by shenmue852
Mon Aug 03, 2015 2:06 am
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki : a new interview about Shenmue III incoming !

I also think it's worth asking if he'd consider using VF5 resources for the battle system, if Sega would license those. They built Yakuza on Shenmue technology, and it'd cost them nothing to allow use of VF and Yakuza resources.
by shenmue852
Mon Aug 03, 2015 10:52 pm
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki : a new interview about Shenmue III incoming !

Will there be a rapport/relationship system with Ren as well as Shenhua?
by shenmue852
Wed Aug 05, 2015 1:45 pm
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki : a new interview about Shenmue III incoming !

No worries guys. I can understand that some people want to have the choice between english/japanese voices etc. I am not going to ask for something specific but telling him that there's a demand and adding an option to allow us to choose would be great.

I am receiving all your mails so even if I don't reply, don't worry. Right now I am busy with my travel schedule etc, but I will read all your questions one by one, I promise.

I can't thank you enough for your support.

I'll get back to you as soon as possible !

Have a nice day.
Thanks David. I hope we can frame the issue in a way where it's not a conflict of dub vs sub fans since they could just sell a download for an audio or subtitle track or something, but what's important is that there's a way to get it with JPN audio and English text when it's released, even if it costs a little extra we're willing to pay! Although of course if there's a way to avoid paying extra, we trust in his goodwill :-o

I was really hoping that if technical or logistical limitations prevent shipping 2 language audio tracks, you could mention the idea of selling a separate voice track as DLC, or (effectively) allowing people to purchase the Japanese release with English text files?

I think everyone would be willing to pay extra instead of making unreasonable demands or having arguments over it. It seems like it's an easily solved issue that people care a lot about. In other words, there isn't necessarily a conflict over which version is released by default if they allow people to pay extra for something that's already produced, in which case not only do all Shenmue fans win, but they can potentially make some extra revenue on the game, which we as fans would be happy about as well.

One of the main reasons I don't argue against a dub is because a dub might expose people who are unwilling to read subtitles to the game- and that's a great thing. However, I myself simply cannot enjoy the dub.
by shenmue852
Thu Aug 06, 2015 11:30 pm
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki : a new interview about Shenmue III incoming !

I thought of a comment/question that I'm not sure has been addressed in the past. Chinese is like Japanese in that people are usually addressed by their family names unless they are exceptionally close, family, or much younger. Heck, Ryo and Nozomi only call each other by their family names in Japanese in Shenmue I. Thus, I found it a little bit jarring in Shenmue II where Ryo would call folks like Xiuying, Jianming, Guixiang, and even Delin by their first (given) names. Not sure if there was a reason for this that Suzuki-san can comment on.

I can answer this one, it's normal for Japanese classmates to call each other by their last names, especially if not super close, and Ryo is kind of conflicted and obviously very restrained about his feelings for Nozomi and doesn't want to admit to her that he wants to be close, especially once he's focused on finding Lan Di, so he continues to call her Harasaki like when they were classmates. With Naoyuki on the other hand, he's more casual because there isn't romantic tension between them and feelings that Ryo is unsure how to deal with, and that's reflected by the fact that he calls him by his first name with no honorific even in the Japanese version (his last name is Ito)

Ryo is close to Nozomi, he just doesn't show it. Nozomi shows it more than he does. Hence they address each other by last name despite actually being close enough to use first names, using last names to address each other doesn't necessarily make people not close anyway.


He doesn't address Fuku San or Goro or Tom by last name, for example. The last name without an honorific thing is really only for school/college/army contexts. Fuku san is like family and there's respect as training partners, so he uses his first name plus the honorific. Goro and Tom were met informally, not through school. Gui Zhang is also not a classmate he met through school, so he calls him by his first name. They have a slightly teasing/trolling friendship/rivalry dynamic so neither use honorifics with each other, plus people generally don't use them with people of their own age and similar status anyway, unless it's a formal context.

The last name thing is also used with elders whom it is customary to greet in a more formal context. He doesn't do this in hong kong for various reasons, because Jianming, Guixiang etc. introduce themselves by their first names and meet Ryo when he's an adult, while people like Yamagishi san in Dobuita has known Ryo since he was kid and it's common even in Western cultures to call such people Mr. so and so. Also, despite the fact that they speak Japanese, the characters in Shenmue II are Chinese, hence almost none of them are addressed as "san". Some Shenmue II characters speak Japanese with a Chinese accent as well. Although in Cantonese the word "saang" means pretty much the same thing as san, san is still used differently in a Japanese cultural context, and not using san would emphasize to a JPN audience that the setting is a foreign country.
by shenmue852
Wed Aug 12, 2015 6:56 pm
 
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Re: Shenmue 3 sales & franchise future

i remember back in 2001, people bought multiple copies of Shenmue II. there was some guy who said he bought 7.

it didn't work.

don't waste your money, if it's successful it's successful. promote it in other ways. write a long blog post about why you think the game is great, and share it with people who haven't played the game.
by shenmue852
Sat Aug 15, 2015 2:24 pm
 
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Re: 5 features you would like to see in Shenmue III

You know, in the demo of Shenmue1 you can crouch. I guess they took it out because it would have been useless in the game... However, It might be a good idea to put it back if Shenmue 3's plot involves Ryo sneaking around somewhere in the game.

As for my idea, I think that every restaurant in the game should allow you to actually eat there. It doesn't have to do anything like give Ryo energy, it's just for fun. Even better if you can select your actual food from the restaurant's menu!

definitely this, and being able to eat with characters as part of the rapport system.

the first Shenmue was actually supposed to have detailed ramen where every noodle would shrink as it absorbed more of the soup. I'm not sure if it was intended to be an item Ryo could order though, or if you'd just watch other people eat in extreme detail...

either way, i think it's suitable for an RPG and especially Shenmue since the restaurants are so detailed anyway.
by shenmue852
Mon Aug 17, 2015 9:14 am
 
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Re: Do you fantasize about the day?

I've been thinking about what the beginning would be like.

I'm picturing a cold opening- a brief narrated prologue, just summarizing that Ryo has traveled from Japan to Hong Kong and China and now is in Guilin, has met Shenhua and then gameplay starts at her house the morning after walking through the mountain woods. It starts with the walk from the house to the cave, a recreation of the cave sequence serves as a basic gameplay controls tutorial, and once the mirrors are revealed the Shenhua orchestral theme starts booming and it cuts to an opening title sequence showing panoramic in-engine views of the villages and surrounding country side as the title and lead credits are displayed.
by shenmue852
Mon Aug 17, 2015 9:37 am
 
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Re: Do you believe in English dub massive improvement ?

I think a lot of times Corey was given bad prompting (the dub wasn't directed by the VA/cinematics directors for the original performances but by an underfunded localization company, so it seems like his bad lines were due to lack of context when recording them. Also, the translation was done by a Japanese company that were competent in English but not native speakers, so they messed up a lot of the cultural stuff- in 1980s Yokosuka the term sailor, in Japanese, had criminal/underworld connotations, while in contemporary English, constantly saying sailor without specifying that you literally mean people that work on ships or at the docks, has connotations of homosexuality.

Considering all that, he gave a decent, understated performance and didn't make Ryo seem too American (but in the process sounded flat in the few scenes where Ryo gets emotional)

Also, I recently realized that they attempted to use the conceit of having the majority of NPC's speak with 1950s sounding accent/phrasing, and while it prevented it from sounding too contemporary American, it also felt like an episode of The Twilight Zone at times.
by shenmue852
Sun Aug 16, 2015 6:17 pm
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki : a new interview about Shenmue III incoming !

i hope it's not too late for this question, but i've really wondered, why was it decided the Hazuki style was a form of Ju Jitsu specifically?
by shenmue852
Fri Aug 28, 2015 12:54 pm
 
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Re: NoconKid (Shenmue HD) working on Shenmue III :)

this thread is hilarious. it's like a bunch of Chinese people speculating on whether a Portugese person could work with an Italian.

it'll be easier for Yu and NoCon to communicate with each other than it would be for them to to communicate with, say, 99% of the posters in this thread, who most likely aren't Asian and don't speak an Asian language.
by shenmue852
Wed Oct 14, 2015 11:35 pm
 
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Re: When Sega inevitably announces the HD remasters...

yep, also these people that think a non commercial fan project can be easily crushed have no idea what they're talking about and obviously haven't heard of the Streisand effect either.

maybe people with poor reading comprehension skills can't get past their assumption that we're saying it's more to kill his fan project than because he's talented, when really no one is claiming that they would hire him if he weren't talented, if not for his talent none of us would even know who he is.
by shenmue852
Mon Oct 19, 2015 10:32 am
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki's interview : A New Shenmue

welp, i clicked the spoiler...

Considering that suzuki is still not planning to end the story with 3, im shocked that we will fight Lan Di in this one, it kinda shows that the story evolves more than just a vs revenge story, oh giddy imma excite!!

i highly doubt the revenge arc ends in shenmue 3. this is probably just a preliminary fight where Ryo tastes the true difficulty of his task. he survives (or is saves) but vows to become stronger. the true battle will be in shen 4 or 5, imo.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too.

Also, he's fought the bosses of the first 2 games at least once (and encountered them more than twice) before fighting them at the end of the game, so Ryo fighting Lan Di in III would definitely not be their final battle. i hope there's some kind of achievable objective in the battle though, instead of just having to lose and watch the cutscene.

Also, Ryo/the player/the game spent far too long and put Ryo through way too much shit, especially in the second game, only to get a 5 second glimpse of Lan Di towards the end of Shenmue II. even if Shenmue III had been released right after II, it would've been mandatory to have some kind of significant encounter with Lan Di that would last longer than 5 seconds.
by shenmue852
Wed Oct 21, 2015 1:29 pm
 
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Re: 5 features you would like to see in Shenmue III

1) No autistic Ryo and NPCs thanks an incredible amount of dialogues. Never the same sentence in a row.


I see...
by shenmue852
Mon Aug 17, 2015 9:10 am
 
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Ren either sacrifices himself or betrays Ryo in a way that he's forced to kill him.

I kind of think that with Yu Suzuki's statements about Ryo not being driven by revenge later in the story, and how much the theme of the games themselves seems against the idea of Ryo killing Lan Di to avenge his father, that Ryo will defeat Lan Di and stop his Chi You plot without killing him, and soon afterwards there's a twist where Ren betrays and ambushes him and Ryo is forced to counter in a way that's fatal, despite not having wanted to kill, and this has a deep effect on him afterwards. Ryo has never killed, is probably unlikely to kill anyone in Shenmue III, and I think there's strong indications that he won't deliberately kill Lan Di, so it would be a pretty strong twist.

One of the biggest reasons I think this is the case is because in the final chapter card, Ryo wanders off into the desert in Northwest China, presumably leaving Shenhua and Xiuying behind. To me that suggests a kind of bittersweet or not entirely happy ending.

Before I saw the chapter cards I kind of assumed the final chapter would end with Ryo returning to Yokosuka and taking over the Hazuki dojo, and that all the good guys back in Hong Kong and China also lives happily ever after, but I guess the story is more complex and interesting than a standard RPG.

I think we all assumed Ryo is holding Ren in that postmortem art we saw a few years ago. But could it be Lan Di?
Ren is a good guess, but I think if anyone will die it'll be Xiuying.
If Xiuying dies, which would be most fitting after being reunited with Ziming, I can imagine the latter being sent over the edge, turning his back on the Chi You Men; if Ziming dies, of course after being reunited with Xiuying, I can imagine the latter going nuclear. I wouldn't be surprised if Niao Sun was responsible for either case. It's something she would enjoy to no end.
Either way, the fallout would make for some very interesting developments indeed.

Looking again at the concept art 'cards' from the postmortem , there is absolutely no doubt Ren is the one in Ryo's arms in the second-to-last image. It's him 100%.

Xiuying is alive in the final chapter card. It's not proof that she's alive at the end of the story, but there's certainly nothing to suggest that she dies either. Whereas with Ren it's more than suggested that he dies, and that Ryo wears his bandana as a headband afterwards.
by shenmue852
Wed Sep 20, 2017 5:22 pm
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki: "I can make the whole game you imagined"

Shenmue wasn't a flop, Shenmue II was, because of Xbox exclusivity. Microsoft basically killed Shenmue when they made Sega cancel the North American Dreamcast release, although because of the console's discontinuation and launch of PS2, a worldwide Dreamcast release probably would've sold about as much as the Xbox and EU Dreamcast sales combined, which is about 500,000. However, the only sales figures that were consideredin the end were the 320,000 sold on Xbox, which makes it look like a total flop.

If it had been released on the PS2 or Gamecube however, especially if bundled with the first game, it would've sold 1 million at least.

Sega made the mistake of going with Microsoft instead of Sony, and Microsoft made the mistake of being shitty at publishing software exclusives unlike Sony and Nintendo.

Now that being said, the teaser trailer and the character models have alienated most mainstream gamers that don't care enough about Shenmue to follow it. I've seen a lot of people say it looks shitty, and with those character models lacking facial animation it's going to be hard to change those perceptions. it doesn't matter what the reasons are and how we know that it's a work in progress, etc. that teaser shouldn't have been released except on kickstarter for the backers.

the good news is, people that like indie games will like Shenmue III, and i'm confident that once the game properly takes shape it will attract new fans from that demographic.

and that's a different market from people who say they'd rather play Yakuza instead because it looks like "a way better Japanese culture fix" which is literally what I saw someone say in reaction to that teaser trailer.
by shenmue852
Thu Sep 21, 2017 12:05 am
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki: "I can make the whole game you imagined"

Well it was a net-negative and wasn't there some crazy statistic out there that everyone who owned a dreamcast would of had to buy two copies of shenmue for it to of been profitable?

I wonder if Sega even intended from the beginning for Shenmue to make any money and instead was developed to be a shield to protect the dreamcast upon the looming doom of the ps2,how Yu managed to swindle so much cash out of Sega and keep the development going for 5 years is quite remarkable

they would have recouped most of the investment by Shenmue II and turned a profit by Shenmue III (hence the whole everyone would have to buy 2 copies thing. the budget was the groundwork for 5 games, not 1 game) had the Dreamcast not failed.

it's the failure of the dreamcast that brought the series down more than anything, because the game was supposed to be part of Sega's massive library of exclusive titles. for what it's worth, Virtua Fighter, the Sega Sports published NBA 2K games, Sega GT and other first party titles like Jet Set Radio and Sonic, were all industry leading games at the time in terms of innovation and critical reception. There were also a lot of innovative titles that, while not great, were certainly more unique than any other console's first party lineup, like Space Channel 5 and Seaman.

In the context of that suite of exclusive first party titles that dwarfed other console's first party exclusives, Shenmue was also an investment in the console itself. but it was just one out of many. it was not a hail mary pass or Sega putting all their eggs in one basket.


I don't think Shenmue was the one game that was supposed to save the Dreamcast. They didn't see the console's failure coming. I think that their calculation was, based on the assumption that the console would survive, that even if they were third behind Sony and Nintendo they would still be in the hardware market and it would be a strong addition to the console's exclusive library, and because it had a major industry company behind it rather than just a game developer, they could recoup the profit over 5 games instead of one, thereby creating a series on a bigger scale than anyone else could. which would have been an achievement both in terms of software project of its own, and the cachet it would bring to the console. Sega was in both the hardware and software business. but I doubt they assumed everyone who owned a Dreamcast would buy the game, or that it was the singular main attraction on the console.

basically, Shenmue needed the Dreamcast to be possible more than the Dreamcast needed Shenmue.

it had a good chance of being adopted by the fanbases of other consoles, (PS2 and Gamecube) had the first game at least been ported to another console.

by only releasing the second game on the Xbox, they fragmented the market multiple times- by region, by the majority of the dreamcast fanbase being more likely to have a PS2, and by the game already having been released on different consoles in Europe, Japan and the US.

if you look at every other Sega franchise and Dreamcast exclusive from that era, like Virtua Fighter, Crazy Taxi and Sonic all the games ported to PS2 and Gamecube did well, while the Xbox exclusives like Jet Set Radio flopped. i don't think it's an unreasonable assumption that neither Shenmue nor Jet Set Radio would have been flops on PS2 or Gamecube.



the strategy of trying to reach new fans with just the second game was the first mistake in trying to keep the series going after the Dreamcast, and this was made much worse by xbox exclusivity.

fortunately Shenmue III is on PS4 and Steam, and is releasing to a totally different market landscape for games, so at the very least it's going to do better than Shenmue II.

it's unfair to say that Shenmue was responsible for bankrupting Sega, because they were invested in developing and publishing so many big budget first party titles, way more than Sony Microsoft and Nintendo had, so Sega's strategy of investing extensively in software, perhaps at the expense of developing a more powerful console or making sure that other developers supported their console more, is a much broader issue of strategy than whether Shenmue was a colossal failure or not.

a look at the wikipedia article for the Dreamcast seems to bear out my theory-

"Sega spent US$50–80 million on hardware development, $150–200 million on software development, and $300 million on worldwide promotion—a sum which Irimajiri, a former Honda executive, humorously compared to the investments required to design new automobiles.[32][45]"

if shenmue was a failure, then so was every other Dreamcast exclusive. really the failure was the console's hardware and marketing. it was the weakest of its generation of consoles, and the extent of sega's software strategy, where they were investing heavily to be competitive in genres that other first party developers wouldn't go, like sports, ended up alienating EA which was a pretty decisive factor in the console ultimately failing to gain widespread popularity.

it turned out a lot of developers didn't want to have to compete with that many first party titles in a marketplace where the first party manufacturer is that deep into the software market, with that much of a competitive advantage in software development resources as well as marketing if they were going to invest in supporting sega's console. First party developers don't have to pay themselves royalty fees either, which also worked against developers' perception of Sega and the Dreamcast.

Nintendo had first party franchises that no third party developers really saw themselves competing against directly, Sony and Microsoft had only a handful of major first party exclusives- they opted for the more ultimately successful strategy of subsidising other developers' games in exchange for timed exclusivity.

if you're namco developing Tekken 4, you're probably not going to want to have to pay royalties to the company that makes Virtua Fighter 4 and still have to compete against that game when Sega has more resources than you and doesn't lose any profits on royalties. I guess this was the issue a lot of developers had with the Dreamcast, and with the level of investment EA needed with licenses for their sports titles, there's no wonder they didn't want to support the Dreamcast. Who wants to put money in their competitor's pockets when there's that much investment at stake?

Sega tried to take the best of Nintendo and Sony's approaches to the PS1/64 generation, but unfortunately the market trend away from the primacy of first party games and towards third party titles solidified with the PS2 generation and the Dreamcast had the wrong approach.

it's probably small consolation to Sega, but all that investment in software is also the Dreamcast has more of a cult following than any past console aside from the NES/SNES.
by shenmue852
Sun Sep 24, 2017 3:18 pm
 
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Re: Yu Suzuki talks about Shenmue 3 and memories

Everything sounds really good from the interview, however this part...

"
You have to remember that all the city / village residents in 1 & 2 had a "real" simulated life, thats a really complicated and tough quest and the budget for Shenmue 3 is probably not big enough to do that again.

Question 3 to Yu:
Will there be voices and sound for everything in the game?

Yu's answer:
We don't know yet. To tell the truth - the amount of text is getting bigger and bigger and not all of it is planned, so we don't know if all of it will be available with sound.
"
It will be very rare seeing a lot of NPCs in the villages but few of them doings their rutines or none of them, standing in their positions. Will they be there at night too?

Another thing is voices, Will Ryo ask a question to a NPC and this one would not speak and only a text will be displayed?

it sounds worrying, but if you think about it Shenmue II only had individual schedules for a few characters- Fangmei, Joy, Eileen, etc. I don't think you saw Jianmin anywhere except the park, you wouldn't see him walking home. Most shopkeepers, unlike Shenmue I, didn't have names, and were pretty much only seen at their shops and then they'd be gone at night time

In the first game you'd see the shopkeepers and all NPCs go about their personal lives, eating at specific restaurants etc, and since Shenmue II was structured around traveling rather than living in your hometown, you didn't really notice the difference, and mostly just noticed the few characters that did have schedules. another difference was that Shenmue II had quite a few characters that mostly couldn't be found during regular gameplay, like Xiuying and Ren.

also, I think Shenmue III was always intended to be a departure from the environments of the first 2 games, and the lack of detail in the NPC's would be made up for in the depth of interaction between Ryo and Shenhua. Hence the idea that the game would expand inward rather than outward. I think nostalgia for the first 2 games compelled him to make Choubu the size of the areas from the second game when it was intended to be set in pretty small scale settings.



if none of the characters had schedules that would suck. but i'm pretty sure that what he means is that it'll basically be like wan chai in shenmue ii in terms of character detail.

as for voices, the lack of npc voice in Yakuza is one of those things that makes it feel less special than Shenmue. So I hope they voice as many characters as possible.
by shenmue852
Sun Oct 01, 2017 4:55 pm
 
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