Do you think Shenmue 3 should keep its original graphics?

[koalazeus]

In a way I'm happy that Shenmue will have this variation of graphics, something that shows an expanse of time in the game itself to mirror what is quite an epic game series. We will have the old games to look back on and enjoy, as well as having something new.

The main thing that I found jarring with these recent images was the lack of distance. You could tell it was a small environment running in computer code, but this is no doubt just a question of early development.

[Reprise]

Objectively, from a modern standpoint, the released screenshots are pretty bad. I'm not sure how anyone can look at them and think they look good, but whatever.

I'm not worried though. The game has been in development for, what? 5 months. It's early days. And even if by the end of 2017/early 2018 when the game is released, if the graphics are still bad, who really cares if the gameplay and story is amazing and fits the shenmue style perfectly? I'm hoping Shenmue 3 will just get better and better with time though and knowing Yu Suzuki's style with games development (and his love for Shenmue), he won't settle for less.

[Sonoshee]

For the last 14 years, we just wanted the story to continue. We now have that. Visuals should be the least of our worries, even if, yes, the franchise innovated in that catagory when it was first released. I'm pretty sure we'll have the same attention to detail as the previous entries, however. This is Yu after all. I'm just so overwhelmed we're finally going to get out of that flipping cave.

[Yokosuka]

Objectively, from a modern standpoint, the released screenshots are pretty bad. I'm not sure how anyone can look at them and think they look good, but whatever.

I'm not worried though. The game has been in development for, what? 5 months. It's early days. And even if by the end of 2017/early 2018 when the game is released, if the graphics are still bad, who really cares if the gameplay and story is amazing and fits the shenmue style perfectly? I'm hoping Shenmue 3 will just get better and better with time though and knowing Yu Suzuki's style with games development (and his love for Shenmue), he won't settle for less.

The positive coverage by the media was a bit surprising as well.

Of course, the context has to be taken into consideration :

- We don't know from which build these screenshots are coming from. They might be pretty old actually. Given what Cédrid has said when he got them, that's what I think.

- Infact, the development started out only some weeks ago. The last 6 months implied mainly and normally the pre-production phase (testing phase, creation of the definitive design documents).

- We don't know if the charadesigners' WIP or any other individual design part have been transferred into the main build (updated Ryo's jacket apart). At the moment, it might be pointless to do so from a developer's point of view. Nevertheless, modelizing 300 characters on average is a titanic task for an independent team. Our expectations have still to be realistic.

[Spaghetti]

Actually, the build is fairly recent according to something Cedric said on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/CedricBiscay/status/689978594978852868

Still, it's still good progress for the last six or so months. Especially taking into consideration that Bailu Village isn't the only location in the game.

Obviously these shots weren't to flaunt the game as a graphical showpiece, but instead to show they're constructing the sense of place, which I think they've done pretty well.

[mrandyk]

Everyone should really just temper their expectations until 2017. If you saw the original Shenmue games roughly four months into development you might not even recognize them as the finished Shenmue product you know and love.

[Yokosuka]

AM2 was supported by all the Sega departments. YSNet has only Neilo and both are small teams. You make a point but the Shenmue are bad examples really.

[life_247]

I think the biggest change is the HDR and bloom lighting effects of modern games. The original Shenmue games (the first especially) had very natural lighting although I always thought aberdeen SII was a bit too colourful.

However this has become the standard now for many years hopefully they can turn it down a bit but I dont know how intrinsic it is to the unreal III engine. I would image if they want to change it there would have to be a significant re-writing of the lighting code which is possibly happening seperatly to the art and level design team.

[Spaghetti]

*Unreal Engine 4.

One of the major complaints about UE3 was that all games made with the engine had a certain look due to how the engine handled shaders and the like. UE4 is highly configurable as a result, for greater control of how the game looks and the ability to... author a game's image.

This configuration of shader/lighting values won't come until later in the project, or at least until assets are near final, so we've still got a while to wait.

[Testament]

Absolutely not.

Shenmue and Shenmue II were for their time the pinnacle of realism in gaming. There is absolutely no excuse for them to drop this design philosophy and adopt graphics more than a decade old instead of using current technology.

Besides--really? Isn't this still in a concept stage? Why are we complaining about the graphics already?

[life_247]

*Unreal Engine 4.

One of the major complaints about UE3 was that all games made with the engine had a certain look due to how the engine handled shaders and the like. UE4 is highly configurable as a result, for greater control of how the game looks and the ability to... author a game's image.

This configuration of shader/lighting values won't come until later in the project, or at least until assets are near final, so we've still got a while to wait.

Whoops sorry forgot we were onto UE4 - time flies.

This is so early doors for this project - Im not even convinced the screenshots are anything other than the level editing guys cranking up the settings and just running the level designs with early character models thrown in. We are 2 years away from this game if it completes on time - which wont happen.

[mjq jazz bar]

Exactly.

It's a prototype.

The game has barely entered development. It didn't exist at all less than a year ago. The Kickstarter models were likely thrown together in a day or two just so they'd have something to show. Remember the game would not have happened at all without Kickstarter funding. They didn't spend months and years putting the game together ahead of the Kickstartet.

I have complete faith the models, the animations and the environments will look substantially better than what we are seeing right now. You have a game directed by a talented developer--one of the most legendary of all time, in fact--with most of the original crew, particularly the character designer and environment modelers. It'll look great.

[mjq jazz bar]

Not to mention they hired Kid Nocon, who seems to be extremely familiar with Unreal Engine. I'm sure he's not the only one on the team that is.

Have faith.

The game isn't going to look like an out-of-the-box Unreal Engine game. We're fretting over nothing.

[killthesagabeforeitkillsu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0JjhkWgQcg

Well, "most" aren't in YSNet... But they do have the main guys. Hence why I think they will eventually get there but not within two years.

Shenmue was SEGA's attempt at dethroning Final Fantasy with an insane budget and a big team behind. For the time, the game was a quadruple A title. Today, it's a small indie game.

So, in my opinion this should be a on going project, with no need of rushing it to meet a deadline.

[KidMarine]

Parts of it are looking very Shenmue already.