Polygon published an article and interview on the game's budget concerns, might be worth a look:
http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/17/8795017/shenmue-on-a-budget
Interesting article but doesn't tell us anything that we haven't known or had our suspiscions about. Yooka Laylee and Bloodstained devs already had secured some financial backing. I have no doubt that Yu Suzuki has his sources as well.
The one major fact that Polygon points out that I agree very much: Sandbox games were still very new at that time, so it's no surprise that it cost so much to make. But nowadays it's a fairly common genre, produced at a considerably lower cost than before.
Take Sleeping Dogs, take any of Rockstar's non-GTA sandbox games, take Saint's Row. I doubt any of them cost as much as the original Shenmue did (and I assume the budget was for the whole saga, not just one game).
To say that Shenmue 3 will be a much smaller world, does not strike me as shocking or troublesome in the least. Because when you atually look at both games in terms of size:
-Shenmue has the Hazuki residence, the neighbourhood, the town and the harbor;
-Shenmue 2 is larger since you have the Abeerdeen area, the various quarters and the top, Kowloon which is actually smaller, but feels bigger because of interior of several buildings and Guilin, though most of it is linear;
And most important of all, unlike the characters in other sandbox games, Ryo walks from place to place, if he drove a car or even a bike during most of his adventure, you would be surprised as to how small it is. The fact that you spend the time walking around makes the world seem larger.
So yes, the claims that Shenmue could be made with a smaller budget don't strike me as troublesome. But there is one thing that I need to know for sure and it's how you will control Ryo in his adventure.
D-pads are barely used anymore. You'd control Ryo with the D-pad, stiff, rigid but precise. You make him loom around with the analog stick. I'm curious to see how players will control Ryo with dual analog sticks and I imagine it's because of that that the fighting system is going to undergo some major change.
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