17 years and over 6 million dollars later, Shenmue III has finally made its’ way to PlayStation 4 and PC. A lot of fans have been clamoring for this game, and there were a lot of high hopes for the latest entry in Yu Suzuki’s saga. I am not going to spend much time comparing Shenmue III to its’ predecessors, except in one or two major areas, but I have a lot of thoughts about Shenmue III, so let’s just dive right in.

Shenmue III picks up mere moments after Shenmue II ended, with Ryo Hazuki and Shenhua discovering a mural of the Phoenix and Dragon mirrors. From there, you are nudged further on your quest by discovering that Shenhua’s father is now missing. You begin your journey in Bailu Village, spending approximately your first six hours (give or take a few) familiarizing you with the way Shenmue III plays.

Much like Shenmue and Shenmue II, you play as Ryo, talking to people, and doing various things to progress the story. I will get into further detail about what exactly you do shortly, but first I have to warn you of something. The part of the story that takes place in Bailu Village is very slow, and the plot moves forward at a snail’s pace.

I should also mention that the game does not give you any indication of whether or not there is a time limit to complete the story, as in previous installments. Because of this, my playthrough was based entirely under the assumption that there was indeed a time limit, so I did not waste time doing certain side things that I will get into shortly.

Playing as Ryo, you explore various areas and can investigate drawers, cabinets, and all sorts of other items like in previous installments. Because of this, a lot of attention to detail has gone into the investigation portion. However, it is a slow and laborious process, because Ryo tends to say the same line with every cabinet he opens. He also utilizes the same animation opening drawers and cabinets, so investigating a room full of cabinets can take a while.

Returning from previous installments is a day/night cycle, where Ryo gets up at 7 in the morning, and will automatically be deposited back at home at 9 PM. However, unlike those previous games, you can sometimes (when the game allows) fast travel back to your home or the next quest objective, and it will move time forward to whatever you need it to be to move things along.

A downside to this, however, is that Ryo’s health is now tied to his stamina. Every action Ryo takes, from training to walking, costs a portion of your health. You can purchase food to replenish said health, but money isn’t exactly easy to obtain early on, and in later areas obtaining large amounts of cash can take a lot of time.

It is obvious to me that Yu Suzuki implemented the endurance mechanic to encourage people to spend money on food and restoratives. This would give you an incentive to spend your money freely, except for one large problem. Everything in Shenmue III, except for food, is incredibly expensive. Skill books cost a thousand Yuan or more in most cases, and collectibles for sets can sometimes cost even more.

The endurance mechanic frustrated me for this very reason. I found that I was constantly worrying about money, and spending it on food because as you’ll discover, money is sometimes required to progress the story. That doesn’t even factor in the idea that you need skill books to raise Ryo’s attack stat, as well as for learning new combos that you may have a need for in combat.

There are a few fun ways to get money, the first of which is chopping wood. The wood-chopping minigame is fun, but you’ll only get between 40 and 60 Yuan an attempt, which makes it a very inefficient way of making money. A slightly more efficient method is the forklift minigame, which returns from previous installments as well. I didn’t spend much time on it though, because there are three other, more lucrative methods to gain money in Shenmue III.

The first one (and my personal favorite) is herb picking. You can collect herbs throughout outdoor environments. These herbs are part of sets, that make up various medicines. Instead of making the medicines for yourself, Shenmue III allows you to sell the sets. You can make up to 600 Yuan from certain sets, and honestly, exploring the environment was a very enjoyable part of my Shenmue III experience.

This does have a singular caveat, in that there are a limited number of herbs in each environment you visit. Because of this, it is wise to hoard your herbs and sell them only when you need money, by selling the most lucrative sets first. The second method that I would recommend, is fishing.

You can fish in each town from early in the day, until sometime around noon. You must be quick though, because you have to rent a fishing pole, get to a fishing spot, and then fish until the game forces you to turn in your rod. When you turn in your rod, you sell all the fish you caught. I found myself getting between 300 and 500 Yuan for a single fishing session, though others online have reported upwards of 700 Yuan for a particularly great catch.

The last (and most risky) method of money-making comes from gambling. Gambling isn’t free, you must buy tokens, which allow you to gamble. There are a few different gambling minigames, but you can also take part in street fights, which allow you to gain large amounts of tokens by winning.

There are other methods, such as playing Flower, Bird, Wind, and Moon, which quadruples your token count if you win. Tokens are used to purchase items from prize exchanges, that you can sell to pawn shops for money. As with any other gambling minigame though, your success is not guaranteed, so saving often is important. This leads me to my next point, you can now save anywhere.

You can also collect things from capsule machines, and undergo side quests along the way. However, a lot of these things do tend to cut into your funding, so you may have a harder time completing some of them.

In previous installments, you could only save when Ryo went home, or in very few other instances. Now, Shenmue III not only has an autosave feature that triggers occasionally, but it also allows you to save anywhere through the menu. I am a firm believer in the “save early and often” philosophy, and with Shenmue III it is just as necessary.

Before we get into the combat, I should mention that the progression system in Shenmue III has changed slightly in terms of Ryo’s stats. Instead of being entirely combo-based like the previous games, Ryo now can enhance his attack strength by mastering combos. You do this by sparring at the various dojos, repetitively using the same combo until you master it.

The big problem I have with this is that the game doesn’t always register a combo even if you execute it correctly. Additionally, as you spar a QTE will pop up that will give you a bonus if you execute the combo quick enough. The problem here is that the QTEs in Shenmue III are very unforgiving in terms of timing, so executing them quickly enough to get the full bonus is practically impossible.

Ryo can also raise his max health by doing endurance training. There are a few different training exercises that you can master to slowly build your health up by leveling your endurance stat. You could (if you focused heavily on it) max your health as early as Bailu Village once you reach a certain point in the story, and doing so makes a lot of combat encounters much easier.

I am happy that they added some form of progression system, as it gave a reason for Ryo to train, beyond mindlessly learning combos that you wouldn’t ever need to use. Training was fun for a while too, but it does become a slog after a while.

If I am truthful though, the combat in Shenmue III leaves much to be desired. It feels almost exactly like the combat in previous games, with a few minor improvements. Overall, it feels like a fighting game from the PlayStation 2 era, with clunky combos and enemies that go down fairly simply if you have more health than they do.

The differences are that you can purchase (semi expensive) healing items that you can use in battle, which are necessary for longer fights. You can also bind certain combos that you have mastered to the R2 button, which allows you to execute them instantly. This is very useful in later battles, and it saved the stamina of my fingers in a lot of places.

Sadly though, combat just isn’t that interesting and while it is a mild improvement over previous games, I can’t help but feel like it could have been done better. Games such as the Yakuza franchise and Judgment utilize a similar combat style, and yet they are both far more polished than Shenmue III, a game that just released a few short weeks ago.

With all of those things out of the way, let’s talk about some serious issues I found with Ryo’s adventure. To start with, the character models are barely a step up from the Dreamcast era. Do not be fooled by the screenshots in this article, they look less crisp in motion. The environments are beautiful, and I could clearly see a difference between them and previous games but the character designs and models left much to be desired, with a few exceptions. I should also mention that I am not a graphics snob. However, for a game that raised over 6 million dollars and then had more given to them by investors, I am a bit displeased.

I also had a problem with the voice acting, particularly in regard to Ryo and Shenhua. Neither voice actor seemed like they wanted to be there, and the dialogue had absolutely no emotion in it whatsoever. Shenhua is supposed to be worried about her father and his safety, but there is very little urgency that pushes the plot forward in that regard.

Ryo is supposed to be a hotheaded guy, fighting for justice and vengeance for his father, but not once do you ever really hear him raise his voice in anger or show any kind of emotion at all. This shows in his character model too, as his face hardly emotes, seeming to stay placid almost the entire time. Shenhua is just as bad, hardly showing anything other than a very slight smile.

Supporting characters have better dialogue, but the regular NPC’s tend to have conversations with Ryo that don’t make sense. Ryo might ask a question about having seen a person but the person he is speaking to might respond with, “I don’t need anything,” which makes entirely no sense at all. I am not sure if no one read the script after it was translated or if no one really cared, but in a lot of cases, it is jarring and eliminates immersion completely.

In a lot of cases, NPC’s repeat the same dialogue over and over. In fact, the hotel owner at one of the places you stay says the same thing every day you stay there. On top of that, you and Shenhua will have the same conversation every morning, until the plot moves forward to a certain degree. It is obnoxious.

I was also very disappointed in the story and ending as a whole. The story doesn’t really go anywhere, until the very end when it takes a sharp left turn out of nowhere, and ultimately renders the events of the entire game somewhat pointless. It also introduces characters right at the end, who are far more interesting and exciting than anyone you encounter prior to the last few hours of the game.

On top of all that, there isn’t even a small resolution to any aspect of the overarching plot. In fact, in a lot of ways, the story takes steps backward and ends far too soon to really tie up anything. I loved my time with Shenmue and Shenmue II, but at the end of Shenmue III, I found myself wondering where all the money went that was crowdfunded and invested by outside sources.

All-in-all, Shenmue III is a large disappointment for me. I wasn’t expecting a large jump in modern graphics or gameplay, but it feels like Yu Suzuki didn’t really try to learn from the problems that the previous games had. It also makes me concerned for a potential Shenmue IV, because even if it does get made, will it be a cash grab? Or will it actually bring the story closer to a (hopefully) satisfying conclusion?

Shenmue III makes just enough improvements to make it feel like a slightly more modern game. However, with all the problems it has, I can’t help but wonder if it was really worth the money that went into it. Even the over-reliance on QTEs feels like a lack of learning on Suzuki’s part, rather than a desire to stay faithful to previous entries.

To wrap this up on a less depressing note, if you like Shenmue and Shenmue II, you will probably enjoy Shenmue III for a while. There are some enjoyable moments here and there, and I can see fans of the franchise having fun with it. Do I recommend you pay the full price for it? No, but if you want to experience the next short step in Ryo’s story, do so at your own risk.

A PlayStation 4 review copy of Shenmue III was provided by Deep Silver for this review

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Shenmue III

$59.99 USD

4

Score

4.0/10

Pros

• Herb Picking was Fun
• Environments are Pretty
• Progression System was a Nice Improvement

Cons

• Too Many QTE's
• Clumsy Combat
• Dialogue Sometimes Doesn't Make Sense
• Character Models are Poorly Done
• Story Goes Nowhere