Shenmue Dojo

Sorry, but I really hate articles like this :( there was a similar one on Videogamer a few months ago. I just don't get the logic behind this point of view, and I think it's pretty selfish too. There are thousands of people like myself who ARE waiting for Shenmue 3, and one creator who, as you say, is determined to finish it.

I can't think of anything else as culturally important as Yu Suzuki being given the chance to finish his tale. All the "what if it's shite?" chat is irrelevant; Shenmue isn't Duke Nukem, a licence to be passed to the highest bidder, it's a personal journey by one creator, a rare and special thing.

blacktorn wrote: Yu is still looking for a partner to deal with,we're probably looking at fall 2016 at the earliest for anything being released.

"I think comparing Shenmue to Skyrim or GTA is completely wrong for numerous reasons. The article groups them together based on surface qualities (open world, lots of NPCs), and then assumes Shenmue wouldn't stand up against the other two. How wouldn't it? And how are the other two games more progressive? Just because they came out later, with bigger budgets?

GTA is a game about running errands for morons in cutscenes and blowing shit up and killing people. You cannot live in GTA's world; you have to destroy it. It's designed that way. Skyrim is a spreadsheet game about thousands of interchangeable NPCs, quests, and loot items. It's about low-level goal attainment and RPG stat building and a core loop of addictive play. I don't want to be addicted to a game. I don't want a game designed to manipulate me to keep me playing.

What about Shenmue? Shenmue is about co-existing with the environment. You don't blow up Yokosuka or Kowloon, you walk through their streets, talk to their residents, and follow leads in an amateur detective adventure. The gameplay varies between exploration, fighting, QTEs (done well!), mini-games, and context specific gameplay moments like the tape recorder sequence in Shenmue 2.

There's no repetitive mind-numbing violence in a Shenmue game the way there is in GTA, Uncharted, Gears of War, Bioshock, etc. Both games feature a handful of fighting sequences, and they are justified in a narrative context. Why is that somehow dated now, or bad? Just because the graphics are bad or the voice actors suck? Those are surface aesthetics, and they are irrelevant to whether the core game design is good or not."

as close to being announced as it has ever been over the past decade