What Shenmue 1 and 2 were is a thing that doesn't exist anymore. Most of what it was trying to do is now done with most hit games. More detail given to every dumb object in the world than you'd ever be able to appreciate or experience to the extent that it makes the world seem both intimate and infinite. Also "realism".
The thing is, a lot of people got tired of that shit before they found the sailers. I was a fan, personally, and enjoy all of the first two games. The second one did a great job of being the same as the first but with nearly all the annoying crap fixed. However I'm pretty sure that out of the dozen or so people I know locally that owned a Shenmue game at some point...I think I'm the only one that cleared either of them.
How does a mega budget game with no fans survive? You either have to make this shit fluid and fun and get the sales or make it this thing where you wander, molocule by molecule, through the perpetual dusk of 80s nostalgia with the mindfulness of a 100 year old monk, generating very poor sales and never having the revenue to build the world as complex as you want it to be.
It's not that I want it to fail, I just don't see what "success" would look like. Will it be glacially paced and wooden? If not, is that a good or a bad thing? Are we seriously going to keep going with that shitty fighting system? A gimped Virtua Fighter with QTEs? It could actually play well, like Devil May Cry or whatever but...that would just be completely f*cking wrong, to me anyway, and with what looks like PSP graphics? Who wants that? Keep in mind that there aren't enough actual Shenmue fans to make this game pay the rent (aka: this is a failed series for a reason) so at least half of these players are "normal" gamers we're talking about. Assasins Creed and Mass Effect fans. What will satisfy them and OGs and sell more units than the old games?
We'll see, I guess. For sure I was sad to see the series die when the end of Shenmue 2 was so incredibly cool and thought provoking. Will Ryo avenge his dad or will he...grow out of it, basically, as he matures beyond simple motives and outlooks? I cared at one point but do I want to really know now? I too have different goals than I used to. What game do I want to play in order to learn the end of the story?
I hate almost all new games but I do play new installments of old series. Do I actually have the patience to play a *real* Shenmue 3? One with controlls *barely* better than Resident Evil? I don't know. Probably not. Do all the kick starters? Seems doubtful. It seems doubtful that a new generation of kids will emerge, in love with shitty controlling games that were once state of the art but now look 15 years out of date because everything from Japan does now.
I don't know what I would want from this. What do you want from this? A box with a 3 on it, obviously, but beyond that?
Keep in mind, I may be a hater but I'm the a$$hole that bought Shenmue 1 and 2 (not on XBox you f*cking traitors) and beat them both mutiple times 15 years ago or whatever. So it's not like I don't love Yu Suzuki and all that but...the Dreamcast is dead, friend. It was the saddest thing in the history of gaming, but it sure did happen and you can't go back.
