Why can't they just make him look like this?

I've been with contact with Robert Pontow from Deep Silver, who is working on Shenmue 3.
I told him about Eric Kelso, Paul Lucas, and Lisle Wilkerson, and how they want to return to Shenmue 3. This is his reply:

Hi, thanks for contacting me. Would you have any email addresses of the voice actors, their agents or any other means of contacting them? Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to discuss anything over FB, so we would need to take an official way to get in contact with the voice actors. But I am sure that Yu Suzuki would be happy if we can secure the same crew for Shenmue 3. Best regards

This means there is hope yet. I will try to find a way to get in touch with those three, I'll tweet Shenmue AM2 podcast who had been in touch with them recently. If you guys know anything that might help, let me know too


This also confirms my suspicion that they didn't know that the VA's wanted to return

Belgiumfan wrote: March 30, 2018 (+51 days)

$6,868,709 (+$14,790) ($290/day)

75,696 Backers (+180) (+$82/backer)

May 17th 2018 (+48 days)

$$6,891,136 (+$22,427) ($467 per day)

75,957 backers (+261) (+$85 per backer)

Hopefully didn't screw the numbers, did them myself.

Looks like there has been quite a significant bump in the per day average since the announcement of Shenmue I & II!

Some of them don't even get credited! (See: Tose)
Depends on their contract. Also, I recall some of the members of the team being in the office having their faces blurred out on the group photo, so it may be a second job to some of them (work at SEGA during the day, help out for a couple of hours at the end of the day with Shenmue 3). I've heard stories like that before. Those people normally just get "Special Thanks" credits.

The more I see the most recent clip of Ryo and Shenhua, the more I like it.

I agree that a Shenmue III showing doesn't exactly need Yu, but he's effectively the face of the project and the person most of the press would be interested in talking to (for both Shenmue III reasons and for his legacy). If there's going to be a showing of any substance at all, press interviews would be on the cards too, and that will likely be centred around Yu.

He might be accompanied by Harry Morishita, one of the producers, but I don't really expect Yu to bring like... programmers with him. Even when he does trips to Monaco, Cologne, wherever - the development is still ongoing at the studio and those programmers are probably going to be needed. Yu can at least delegate some work to Keiji Okayasu, although I have a sneaking suspicion Yu still gets work done even on the business trips.

Are you a PMP? You use a lot of project management parlance.
I'm a P-I-M-P 8)

Sorry, no. Since Shenmue III went into development I've gotten really interested in how game development works in general, and a lot of project management terms came with that. Some of that was spurred by Yu himself talking about using Agile, which added a lot of context to what we've been seeing in the iterative approach.

But, what if the flashback are told from another perspective than in SH1&2 ?

I read that Yu said in some interviews he would like to explore differences in perceptions.
So, alternate perspective flashbacks would not only recall event,
but also paint them in a new light for players that went through SH1&2.

Hum, all of this make me curious :
How much time worth of dialog will there be stored in the game ?
How much was it for SH1 and SH2 ?

I did a little digging around and found out that for the first game the script had about 42,000 lines of dialogue and a count of 330,000 English words, according to this community gaming database . If you take the average reading speed of 180 words per minute, the entire Shenmue 1 would have roughly over 30.5 hours of recorded dialogue audio. More surprisingly, the script was bigger than RPGs like the first Mass Effect and Tales of Vesperia!

Hopefully Shenmue 3's budget will hold and we can have once again a fully voiced game.

Sony were also weirdly quite selective on which 3rd party games/publishers got into the press conference too. Maybe Microsoft sucked 'em all up?

Either way, start setting your watches for Gamescom. Only two and a half months to go.

KidMarine wrote: It's not much, but there's another little image of Shenmue III on the screen

They're walking out of the cave!

That sky! Shenmue III absolutely nailed it.

I'd say late Q3 2019. Wouldn't surprise me to be Q4, though. If Q2, then I'll be very pleasantly surprised.

When other characters in Shenmue III look like this:

https://abload.de/img/4mlliieg0kt5.png

https://abload.de/img/l4qfq2uo6kzz.png

https://abload.de/img/ylwpa5h7tjt6.png

- singling out Mr Muscles as the definitive representation of Shenmue III's in-progress graphical design is a bit silly. These characters don't look like they're from Street Fighter 5, and I'd argue neither does Mr Muscles, really. He may be a big ugly bastard, but that's by design.

http://sm.ign.com/ign_mear/screenshot/default/screen-shot-2017-05-29-at-80305-am_aj23.png

Ren's gang in Shenmue II, by comparison:

https://i.neoseeker.com/ca/shenmue2_conceptart_VfMWk.jpg

Even if AM2 were pushing for the most realistic graphics the world had ever seen with the originals, the manga-inspired design still runs through the characters pretty heavily, and I'd say that's more recognisable now that realism in graphics has moved on so considerably.

Im more concerned about the animation thats going to be applied to these graphics. From what they've shown, they've proven they don't understand animation basics.

Oh, really? What do you think is more likely... that the professionals working on Shenmue III somehow have landed this job without understanding animation basics? Or that a consumer who has been shown work-in-progress footage doesn't understand what they're seeing in regards to the overall game development schedule?

Yu doesn't even play other games, for the precise reason that he doesn't want to be influenced by them and start following trends. While that may mean he has to reinvent the wheel on occasion, it at least ensures that everything we see is a "Suzuki solution" to whatever design challenge the game poses.

I wish I could of upgraded from my $300 package to the $500 one. so I bought a few extra digital copies. I wonder how much finding will shoot up.

Personally, I'm expecting TGS. Gamescomm would be nice, but TGS seems more realistic. December for PSX is a bit too far off, but even if it doesn't make that show, I'll be pretty bummed, but never turn into one of the vitriol trolls calling it vaporware.

The original Dreamcast games were projects from at least 1996 onward (at least a rough guesstimate for the Dreamcast work, not Saturn version), which weren't revealed until late '98. Even after, Suzuki didn't show much of it, really. At least not compared to today. He's old school, let him play it close to the chest. We all know he will make a great game one way or another.

Getting a real Sleeping Dogs vibe from that screenshot. Awesome !

Just gonna drop this here

https://m.imgur.com/GSHe5vT

A cool 1,500.00 from me.

I upgraded my pledge from $175 to $250 and another $60.

I recently raised my tier to 250$.

1,500.00 tier.

I pledged $190 to be in the $175 tier. It was an honor to help make Shenmue 3 a reality and am so happy to hear again just how generous the Shenmue fanbase is.

Just gonna drop this here

https://m.imgur.com/GSHe5vT
I noticed that too, thanks for making a gif. (Source: The kickstarter documentary video pinned to the forum right now)

I'm assuming that was the footage they shot in 2016. It's really great to see it was looking like a playable game way back then, whereas we didn't get to see the first official gameplay screenshot until today almost 2 years later. I can't wait to see any other early footage they can show, it will be even more fascinating once we have the finished product to compare it to.

A serious well done to the fans, I wasn't expecting this as well as this quickly!
Now, a trailer and gameplay at gamescom would be amazing.

I'm saving up for my next payday so I have a cushion to go ahead and up to the $450 tier, if it is still available by then.

Surprised they didn't confirm participation at Gamescom, but I've got a good feeling they are going to do that on August 3rd, similar to SEGAs reveal of 1+2's release date trailer.

This community astounds me. I've followed many Kickstarters, but I've never seen any pull in that much money last minute via Slacker Backer. I'm wagering a lot of people upgraded their pledges.

I honestly feel it will blow through to $7.5 million before it ends, granting us the fully fleshed out combat system which is what I really wanted.

Yeah, we were probably going to get it anyway,(they cant say that because nobody would continue to contribute) but if the area expansion goals beyond are funded by DS, then reaching the High Ground System means we get the fully realized experience.

...As long as those people don't forget to actually buy [a few] copies at launch as well ;-)
Remember folks, the game has yet to sell a single copy as things stand.

Re: the PC version. Their wording seems to indicate that the game is included on the actual disc (discs?). If it isn't, then it's a PR fuck up on their part (as well as a bummer for us; this was why I pulled the trigger on my second pre-order pledge in the first place).

I just upped by pledge, and will be purchasing two copies at launch. \:D/

$1800. Picked to be with Nozomi

https://i.imgur.com/HsXEiJe.jpg
I bought the $175 Dollar Artbook initially, but since then I have also added 2 extra copies :), I might even extend to the Collector's Edition with the CD by the end of it if I can afford it. I really want this do succeed and I'm really proud with the community as we reached the 7million stretch goal mark!

Anyone have an idea what the 7.5 Million Stretch Goal ‘High Ground Battle System’ might be??

Neo Zeed - Please explain the High Ground Battle System stretch goal for #Shenmue3?

YS: It enables Ryo to have more interaction with his surroundings. I think it will be fun to increase the reaction chains.

(http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48420)