SEGAbits Shenmue III Hype Train! Update: Funded but lets go further!

[Betwixt Thieves]

Sony has never been the publisher. They have stated they are offering support in development and marketing (e.g., an advertisement that also features the Playstation logo). As for Shibuya being replaced as a publisher, Deep Silver is a big step up from Shibuya, who has very little publishing experience and not much pull to get shelf space in retail locations. Deep Silver has been doing a good job publishing Sega titles in Europe.

Yu Suzuki said in an interview that Sony was helping out with publishing. Not sure what else that could mean unless he just meant they were using their name to help secure publishing. My guess is Sony backed out now that things are looking like Shenmue 3 will be released for Playstation 5.

[Tad]

Sony said they're helping with marketing and throwing some money into production from what I've seen. They've helped Yu Suzuki get Shenmue 3 off the ground at E3 and once the game is nearly out, they'll push it commercially. I'm guessing Sega had more to do with the Deep Silver deal as that's who they use for Europe.

Interestingly, Shenmue 3's other character models don't have any issues at all: http://shenmue.link/post_en/519/?en

Update: okay, this is the bigger image from the site: http://www.deepsilver.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/08/ShenmueIII_Title.jpg

Think it looks better. Ryo just needs to lose the plastic look and both need a little more work, but nothing major really.

[Moody]

There has been good games from Kickstarter. Broken Sword was a return back to it's roots, the complaints about Yooka Laylee were just dumb - the main one being it's just like the old N64 platformers...well, yeah. That's exactly what they pitched, so that's a silly complaint to me. Dreamfall Chapters was good, Shovel Night apparently is too. Not Kickstater, but the same idea of raising the funds have also seen hits in Project Cars and from what we've seen so far, Psychonauts 2 is coming along nicely.

I'm not saying you can't have good Kickstarters, I'm talking along the lines of Shenmue III's kickstarter. The developer returning to the craft that made them a success type. Keiji Inafune with 2D jump-n-shoot with MN9, Tim Shafer with graphic adventure gaming with Broken Age, Rare alumni with early-era 3D platformers with Yooka-Laylee, and Koji Igarashi with Metroidvania and Bloodstained. Kickstarter games can be really good, it's just that there hasn't been a huge critical success out of this specific type of Kickstarter.

I disagree with the assertion that Yooka-Laylee's critics. I have not played it, but from what I've heard the complaint stems not that it feels like an N64-era platformer, but that it misuses many of the tropes and mechanics, along with seemingly refusing to go along with sensible evolutions the platformer genre had.  Stuff like worlds feeling massive with no sense of cohesion, low-tier collectibles misused and placed scatterbrained about the map, an insecurity about what kind of game it is in dialogue, really bad camera, etc. People had genuine issues with Yooka-Laylee and discrediting them like that isn't really fair to them or the game itself.

Anyway, I do concede that, even if I personally end up finding Shenmue III more than good, I really do doubt that critical and public perception will be as kind. The odds are stacked. Long development cycle, decades of hype, its predecessors not exactly being general audience crowd pleasers, and the Yakuza series being a more adrenaline filled and featureful alternative are all against it. It'll be an uphill battle, and again, I really hope the game is good.

[Tad]

Most of those issues were fixed in the update before the release in Yooka-Laylee to be fair.  The reviewers had an old build. It has issues, no doubt but I do feel the negative drama around it was overblown.

It's sad to think this, but I just know how the media work and what they'll say when Shenmue 3 is released. Negativity is much easier to write than fair criticism - I'll let others decide what that says about the state of the media and not just in games either.

For me, I feel Shenmue 3 will be a fine sequel. Nothing spectacular or ground breaking, but it'll do what it set out to do; continue the story. Sure, some features will be missing and I suspect the fighting gameplay won't be as in depth, but again, it will be a fun game that pushes the story to the near conclusion and I hope Shenmue 4 will be made.

[Betwixt Thieves]

Just out of curiosity has Sega retained the rights to Shenmue and have essentially licensed the rights for part 3, or what is the legality of this? I assume Sega did more than just a gentleman's handshake to allow this to be made.

[Tad]

No one truly knows other then Sega and Yu Suzuki.

Yu says Sega have been really supportive and given him permission to make it and given him all the data files from the first two games.

This is just speculation on my part, but I think Sega helped Yu by directing his team to Deep Silver. I also think we'll see the fighting animations from Shenmue I & II return in III. There's no way they'll start from stratch with stuff like that. It'll cost too much and there's no need to really.

[Team Andromeda]

Like I said before, shameful use of Yu Suzuki by SONY at E3 2015. Not only are they not funding the project, they can't even be bothered to help publish the game .


Can only see the game being a crushing disappointment 

[Centrale]

I'm not saying you can't have good Kickstarters, I'm talking along the lines of Shenmue III's kickstarter. The developer returning to the craft that made them a success type. Keiji Inafune with 2D jump-n-shoot with MN9, Tim Shafer with graphic adventure gaming with Broken Age, Rare alumni with early-era 3D platformers with Yooka-Laylee, and Koji Igarashi with Metroidvania and Bloodstained. Kickstarter games can be really good, it's just that there hasn't been a huge critical success out of this specific type of Kickstarter.

Personally I wouldn't put Broken Age in that same category. The main issue with that one is that Tim Schafer decided to expand the scope of the game and ended up putting it out in two parts, with the second part being free. Anyone who had a problem with that, nothing is going to satisfy them. Sure, it was different than what was expected and initially planned, yet the difference is that it was much better.

Another revived series that I don't think has been mentioned yet is Wasteland. Those have been very well-received, and I think should be held up as examples of crowdfunding done right.

One thing I do agree about is that no matter how good Shenmue III is, it will get mixed reviews. All during the time when it was generally regarded as "it's never going to happen" sites would periodically post some clickbaity articles just to rile up the fanbase. There have already been hit pieces in the gaming press from sites like Polygon, lying that the Kickstarter was a scam or some kind of market research test and that Sony would be fully funding the game. Sites like that won't review it fairly. Furthermore, among the fans who have been clamoring for a sequel, there are many who will inevitably be disappointed if Shenmue III doesn't exactly match their own personal imagined vision of what it should be. The proper attitude would be open-mindedness, since that's what everyone went into the original with, but that's not the nature of the internet echo chamber.

[Tad]

The media have already decided what they think of Shenmue and we saw a taste of it with all the negative news during the kickstarter. Don't expect it to be pretty once the game has been released. Personally, I think the media in this industry is so bad I stay away and ignore it.

Talking about kickstarter...

I think if Shenmue III only just reached it's original goal, I doubt we'd get it in anything other then a Telltale type of game or maybe only just past the first village at best. It was quite risky really.

[Betwixt Thieves]

The media have already decided what they think of Shenmue and we saw a taste of it with all the negative news during the kickstarter. Don't expect it to be pretty once the game has been released. Personally, I think the media in this industry is so bad I stay away and ignore it.

Talking about kickstarter...

I think if Shenmue III only just reached it's original goal, I doubt we'd get it in anything other then a Telltale type of game or maybe only just past the first village at best. It was quite risky really.

I don't follow mainstream video game media. What negative reports were being published? I guess it is probably like news in general - negative stories getting people riled up for advertising dollars.

Most of the journalists are too young to even remember when Shenmue came on the scene so their views are already different than anyone who was of purchasing age when the Dreamcast was out.

[Tad]

It's all the typical negative stuff and the usual clickbait nonsense from "journalists". The word journalists has little meaning nowadays though as it's become completely different to what it actually means. They've lost the ability to distance their opinion from the infomation they've been given to pass on to their audience and added their own take or use out of context paragraphs to form a clickbait headline. What these idiots don't realise or care about though, is it can be quite harmful to the company or the product in terms of sales or public opinion. They then cry when said company blacklists them for their own stupidity.

Reviewers have gone to the gutter too. Remember when people first started to worry about video reviews taking over written versions? Well, the whole argument in favour for it was people can see gameplay while hearing a review. That is probably true to some extent, but what I think really happened was the publications stopped taking control of what was written. In magazines, reviews had limited space and characters so they had to give you as much infomation as possible about a game in about 3-500 words and it was great. Now though, they just throw a wall of text at you on a web page with some going over 3000+ words...I've read some of them and learnt nothing about a game.

The shorter reviews full of infomation that we used to get in magazines simply moved to under 10 minute video reviews instead. We still get some good written reviews, but it's becoming rare now. Segabits do them well and here's another example: http://www.thejimquisition.com/crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy-review/

[Betwixt Thieves]

Totally understand and agree. There used to be the section of the magazine or newspaper that had an "opinion piece". Now everything is an opinion piece as though the writer has a public duty to feed me their ignorant viewpoint instead of sharing something newsworthy.

I can't tell you how many reviews i read for Sonic Mania sharing how the game was too hard and had cheap deaths. Also complaining about that when you die you have go start a whole zone over. I understand if that is something you mention, but they actually marked the game's score down for it. These people must have never played an original Sonic game ever, or lived through the 80's. I liked how the SegaBits review mention it, but under the understanding that it was recreating the original Sonic game feel and gameplay. People would flip out if they had to play Sonic on an old 4:3 screen because Sonic Mania gives you a huge widescreen 16:9 view to see things coming your way.

It's all the typical negative stuff and the usual clickbait nonsense from "journalists". The word journalists has little meaning nowadays though as it's become completely different to what it actually means. They've lost the ability to distance their opinion from the infomation they've been given to pass on to their audience and added their own take or use out of context paragraphs to form a clickbait headline. What these idiots don't realise or care about though, is it can be quite harmful to the company or the product in terms of sales or public opinion. They then cry when said company blacklists them for their own stupidity.

Reviewers have gone to the gutter too. Remember when people first started to worry about video reviews taking over written versions? Well, the whole argument in favour for it was people can see gameplay while hearing a review. That is probably true to some extent, but what I think really happened was the publications stopped taking control of what was written. In magazines, reviews had limited space and characters so they had to give you as much infomation as possible about a game in about 3-500 words and it was great. Now though, they just throw a wall of text at you on a web page with some going over 3000+ words...I've read some of them and learnt nothing about a game.

The shorter reviews full of infomation that we used to get in magazines simply moved to under 10 minute video reviews instead. We still get some good written reviews, but it's becoming rare now. Segabits do them well and here's another example: http://www.thejimquisition.com/crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy-review/

[Tad]

Pretty much. Just as proof, I've just looked up Kotaku's review of Sonic Mania and it basically consists of a setup and then repeats itself and an info dump of spoilers right in the last paragraph. A review for Syberia 3 on another site required two web pages to basically say what another shorter review I read said in five short paragraphs.

Utterly stupid.

[Tad]

https://youtu.be/gD1RHVe9a7s

What do we think?

I'm impressed personally. The enviroments and atmosphere is spot on with the only downside being the models and animation, but this is early. Interestingly, on neogaf someone who apparently went to the kickstater dinner has stated this trailer is at least a year old and going by the released screenshots, it's seems completely accurate.

[Betwixt Thieves]

It is looking good. Only thing that could excite me more is an announcement for Shenmue 1 & 2.

Is this game highly anticipated in Japan or only in the west?

Just read the article on Kotaku (ughhhhh) that bashes the new trailer. Nice to see most of the comments are fans firing back at a terribly written "article" (if you can dare to call it that).