In the first game, you play as teenage martial artist Ryo Hazuki who witnesses his father’s murder at the hands of a Chinese man, Lan Di. As a massive fan of the games, I’m here to give you my thoughts on how well Shenmue holds up in 2018. In 2018, SEGA decided to strike while the iron was hot and give us the HD re-releases of Shenmue 1 & 2. On the 3 rd of every month, they let the world know that they would never give up on Shenmue. Since 2012, fans have taken part in a monthly Tweetathon. Shenmue had once again grabbed the attention of the gaming world but SEGA fell silent. Fans answered the call and we can all look forward to the continuation that never seemed plausible in 2019. Shenmue 3 was announced by Yu Suzuki as well as the now famous Kickstarter to fund the game. In 2015, that dream took a huge step towards becoming a possibility. Shenmue fans have fought for many years in the hopes of making that a reality. I’ve often dreamed of a re-release on modern platforms. Next year, it will have been 20 years since it all began. Originally, it released in 1999 on the SEGA Dreamcast. I played it to death in my younger years and have often reminisced ever since. Shenmue is one of my favourite video games of all time. Whereas newcomers will flounder a little with the game.Well, this is a review I never imagined I would be writing. Ultimately, Shenmue III is going to appeal more to the fans of the series who want to continue the saga from where they left off 18 years ago. It just feels dated to me, but that might be perfectly fine for fans of the series. But the character animations are stilted and janky as if from an older game. It has modern-day trappings, no loading screens and updated visuals. To me, Shenmue III seems a game with old-school mechanics wrapped up in a modern-day package. But to me, button mashing and blocking seemed to work the best for most fights. Sure, Ryo can learn different techniques at the martial arts hall. While not overly complicated, it amounts to little more than button mashing for the most part. Cutscenes are also strangely edited, often fading to black at the moment you think it has finished only for the scene to continue.Ĭombat is a staple of the series. He’ll often open a conversation with the same person he’s spoken to multiple times with “Excuse me, I’d like to ask you something …”.Ĭharacter animations are clunky and the controls just seem laboured, especially when navigating through conversations. However it’s hampered by awkward, often cringeworthy, dialogue between Ryo and those he talks to. Visually, it looks pretty darn good, with nice vistas and plenty of places to explore. Right from the outset, Shenmue III seems like a modern day game lumbered with old game mechanics. Or talking to villagers to find out what happened to missing stone mason, the father of Ryo’s close friend Shenhua.Īs the mystery widens, so does the game world, and as the story progresses, Ryo must piece the clues together to find who killed his father and face the ultimate show down against his arch nemesis.īut, Shenmue 3 is new and HD shiny, right? Which, to be honest, is quite a pedestrian affair, restricting you to the village to carry out fetch quests. The opening few hours take place in Bailu village. To fill you in, if like me, you didn’t play either of the previous two games. Set in 1987, Shenmue 3 follows on directly from the cliffhanger ending of part two, and sees the return of Ryo Hazuki. There’s a lengthy catch-up video. I’ve decided Shenmue 3 is a strange mix of old gaming mechanics wrapped up in a modern, shiny new skin – and I’m not sure it works entirely well in today’s modern gaming landscape. I never played the original Shenmue, released 18 years ago on the Dreamcast, nor did I play Shenmue 2, so I went into Syu Suzuki’s (crowd funded) third Shenmue game (Shenmue 3) without rose-tinted glasses on or a feeling of nostalgia.
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