A'ight, my take:
R.E combat.
Yu has said for a while Shenmue III's controls would be simplified-
- but before people start losing their shit, that's not synonymous with dumbing down the gameplay. In fact, Yu has talked about other complexities like strategy, physics and environment interactions, breaking up groups of enemies into more manageable pockets, etc. It seems like Yu will be asking players to fight more with their heads rather than their fingers, if you get my meaning.
He's also said before that the stretch goals for combat were basically things done in the older games but will be revised and made more sophisticated with modern technology, so it's not like an enormous departure in some respects.
Yu has elaborated on his position recently, with that maybe a fighting game engine in an adventure game is not a perfect fit, and he definitely has a point. There's room for the storytelling to come across more in the fights, feeling more like Ryo is a martial arts savant by pulling off elaborate moves and cinematic feats with simpler controls, that you don't really get when you're just cheesing Chai in the YOU Arcade with Crawl Cyclone.
And let's be real, there's a real sense of enjoyment in stuff like dodging and countering against enemies in the original games, but that's rarely ever more than two button presses. Having fun with Shenmue's combat does not exclusively rest on your ability to pull off Demon's Triangle every time.
Like I said with the example of cheesing the Chai fight; there's a disconnect between Ryo being good at martial arts in the story and the player being good at the game (or at least knowing how to win).
Again, I love Shenmue's combat and I spent a lot of time with it pulling off the harder moves, but in terms of looking good, and feeling like this great martial artist, that always came from the simpler stuff like dodging attacks, counters, and the occasional flashy harder move thrown in.
More often than not you're trying and failing to pull off those complex button presses before you finally get it right, and I think Yu wants to pull back on some of those more gamey behaviors and think more "what would I do if I was this character" when overwhelmed by enemies, and that's maybe also why stuff like the environment, physics, and splitting enemies into smaller groups are going to be integral parts of III's combat.
Like, if you wanted a fighting game you'd play one, not an adventure game.
If we were just told it was changing with no more information or justification that'd be a little concerning, but as it stands, I can kinda see it in my mind's eye and imagine what it'll be like, or thereabouts.
And we also have to remember the past. Shenmue's fighting engine was a simplified version of VF (seriously some of the timings and button presses are much more forgiving and easy to remember), and yet had plenty of depth if you cared to look for it.
Shenmue in general was designed for simplicity, as Yu imagined it as a game even kids can play (just look at the footage of him being excited seeing a kid enjoying the game at TGS pre-release. Also as someone who played Shenmue as a kid, I can attest to its simplicity), so it's not this huge departure to keep that at its core. Just don't assume simplicity means lowest common denominator.
Shenmue_Legend wrote:
Ideally, the fighting system should be so good that you can make the fights look like the ones during cut scenes.
This is, I think, Yu's train of thought on the matter.
But where he's diverging from most of us is that the player must be really skilled to get to that point, and I personally believe he's right considering his justification about Shenmue ultimately being an adventure game.
I know we'll replay the games over and over and put in the countless hours to get really good at more complex fighting moves, but what about the people who just play it through once? Asking them to get as good as a player at a fighting game might be a turn off, because it's maybe not really what they bought into the game for.
They could be a quick thinker who is good at other types of games, but maybe their capacity for button presses and memorisation of moves is lacking. I know there's been some talk already in this thread about it maybe "making the fighting for dumb people", but other things Yu has said indicate using your head more in combat and providing a challenge other than just being quick on the gamepad. Does that really sound like he's making it for stupid people? It sort of sounds like the opposite in some respects.
And y'know, Yu has talked about having a strong interest in making the game challenging for players who found elements of the original games easy. Scaling difficulty has secretly been one of Yu's major legacies in gaming. The basic and intermediate combat controls may be simple for most players, but what's to say there isn't something further for players with more skill?
Ultimately, Yu wants the player to feel good. It's a video game, and that's what video games are largely for. He knows this, and has been practicing this methodology for basically his entire career. You can even see this in something like After Burner with how the game would sort of lock on to enemies unbeknownst to the player so they could feel like they're good at the game. I can't really blame him for following the core pillars of how he makes video games.
We'll see how it all works out.
Even unrelated to the simplification, stretch goals like AI Battling look set to clear up an issue with Shenmue's combat regardless of the change to a new engine; a better, dynamic lock-on system of sorts. Gives me reassurance Yu has his head on straight and isn't just changing things for the sake of it.
Sorry for the text wall.
Generally we should wait to see, or even play it. But all the same, I think it's probably the right decision on lots of levels to reinvent Shenmue's combat in the same spirit of how the original was developed, while aiming for greater player satisfaction and better storytelling.