Shenmue 3 Kickstarter

[Arenegeth]

Shenmue characters were like the most realistic looking characters around during the game's release, those three exceptions in those pictures (which I consider only the first to count anyway) do not account for the overwhelming majority of characters who look pretty realistic.

I don't disagree that it may have been a bit stylized even back then, it was realistic compared to anything contemporary though (stuff like wrinkles and spots were rare on character faces back then).

But these new characters look straight out of a comic book, way too cartoony, that old master dude in the trailer even clashes with Ryo's more 'realistic' look, making that scene look a bit comedic, which was probably unintentional.

Let's be honest here, they simply couldn't be faithful to the artistic direction of the original, because they couldn't afford it. We all knew what we were signing up for, is OK, the fact that they got the characters to look half decent after that original Kickstarter trailer, is a miracle.

[Blu]

I disagree, the characters look just fine. They're not cartoony. They look as realistic as Virtua Fighter characters tend to be, which has been an influential piece to Shenmue. I think this trailer really does the game justice and I have to say I'm impressed with how nicely it's coming together.

[Reprise]

I find the debates surrounding Shenmue 3 interesting. Personally I want the game to act as a throwback to that era and stick rigidly to its roots - with some elements of modernisation - in much the same way many neo-retro games act like throwbacks to classic 8-bit and 16-bit titles. Whilst some people are more concerned with the game appealing to as wide an audience as possible and want it to be a AAA title.

It's a gross simplification and everyone has different views that can't always be pigeon-holed, but that's how I see some people's views.

Personally, I've just always wanted a version of Shenmue 3 that is as true to Yu's original vision as possible. It could be on the original engine from the original games, or what we have now for all I care. I just want a real Shenmue game that feels like Shenmue.

I thought the trailer was weird, but I loved it! It oozed that awkward, quirky Shenmue-ness that no other game can replicate. Also how similar did the fighting gameplay look to the original engine? It's uncanny how close they have got it.

[Arenegeth]

A lot of non-fans (and some fans) are shitting on the trailer right now, and not the way I did, if you count pointing out that the NPC characters look too cartoony as 'shitting' on it. But is really getting blasted out there, especially the animations and facial expressions.

I don't know what all these people expected given the budget, I mean the game has like less than half the budget of the average Yakuza game (and that's low for industry standards), though I think it was a mistake to hire that Indian studio to handle characters (I don't know what they were doing in Bloodborne but it wasn't detailed character human models, I can tell you that) instead of a cheap Chinese studio that would probably be more comfortable handling east-Asian characters anyway.

But people were expecting too much I think, personally the only problem I have with the cartoony characters, is that it may pull me out of the immersion of the world, since the first two games, to this day can be pretty immersive with all their attention to detail, even with the otherwise dated graphics.

I just hope they didn't make any compromises to the gameplay to cater to any 'new' audience (doesn't seem like they have so far) cause the 'normies' ain't biting.

On top of that, I hope the story comes to a conclusion with this entry, and we finally get our closure, because if we expect III to rake in the sales, for a IV to get made, given current reactions by most non-fans, yikes we'll be waiting for another decade and a half for the conclusion and that's if we are lucky...

[BogusMeatFactory]

You actually don't know the budget they have, since they received funding from outside the kickstarter.

[Arenegeth]

You actually don't know the budget they have, since they received funding from outside the kickstarter.

Yeah, I don't know the exact budget for a Yakuza game either, is more like an estimate (something like 26 million I think) since a lot of these companies don't have to reveal this information to non-shareholders.

But it couldn't be something crazy, since a big time publisher (or Sega themselves) would have been involved otherwise.

But don't be too hard on them man, they did what they could with what they had, some decisions could be handled better perhaps, but at least we are getting the sequel finally. The moment Sega chose to give up on the franchise a long time ago (for good reason, financially speaking) it was highly unlikely that any sequel we got, was going to live up to the AAA behemoth that was the original games.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I big time publisher is involved. Deep Silver.

[Arenegeth]

Ubi Soft is a big time publisher, EA is a big time Publisher, Take Two is a big time Publisher.

Deep Silver is a small-time Publisher from Germany, that was recently acquired by THQ Nordic.

But most importantly, I don't think they ever said Deep Silver has anything to do with the funding of the game, it only handles the Publishing. There's no reason to assume that they are bankrolling the game unless otherwise stated.

But what are you insinuating here? That they actually have the budget to rival something like a Yakuza game, but instead choose to make a game that looks subpar compared to most western indie titles (I like it well enough, aside from things previously mentioned, but objectively speaking)?

You do realize that the game's current visual state is not attractive to the majority of outsiders (as the recent comments on the trailer demonstrate) AND a portion of the fanbase right?

Is almost like you're calling out the studio for gross incompetence, where I think it was the best they could manage with their limited budget and relatively limited time.

The Indian studio was definitely a mistake, but other than that, I don't think the game could have ended up looking much better, especially if they actually created a decently sized world like the first two games.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Hey, if you want to hold the game to some unrealistic standard, that's on you. I'm not in control of your expectations, so you are more than welcome to be enfuriated and I am more than welcome to just go with the flow and judge the game when I play it.

[Arenegeth]

I think you are talking to someone else here.

I think that some of the characters look too cartoony, not all of them, the kid in the trailer and the main characters look realistic enough, so does the chick in pink Ryo is fighting at some point (which is part of the problem since they clash with the weird proportions of the other characters).

Other than that I'm happy with how the game looks and I didn't expect anything more than that, the cartoony characters might have been a result of the low budget or the studio they chose to hire to handle the characters, maybe both, maybe neither, I'm pretty convinced it wasn't a clear artistic direction choice though because of the clash between some of the minor characters and the main ones.

I'm not infuriated at all though, and I'm still looking forward to the game like before, in fact, I'm a little bit relaxed they got Ryo and Lan Di looking half decent, especially compared to what they showed us before, and even Shenhua, she doesn't look bad exactly she just looks too different.

But I'm not gonna delude myself that is sheer perfection, it objectively looks bad compared to contemporary AA games, it just does, say you compare it to something like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, another game of similar budget, it just looks a lot better in comparison.

So yeah, I don't know what you think I'm saying, I'm just being objective here, I still like the general vibe about the game, the first two games are still some of my favorites of all time, and I'm still glad we are getting this sequel after all these years.