Shenmue III / YMMV

Shenmue
Shenmue II

Americans Hate Tingle: Despite the game's negative reception by critics and fans alike, Japanese reviews were much more positive.
Anti-Climax Boss: If Ryo's kung fu is high enough or maxed out by the endgame, the final battle against Ge Longqi ends within a matter of seconds.
Audience-Alienating Ending: One reason that turned away some of the potential audience was the ending, which does little but show how much further Ryo has to go to face Lan Di on equal footing, with a blatant Sequel Hook for a hypothetical Shenmue IV capping off an Unwinnable boss fight.
Broken Base:
- The game's Kickstarter campaign. From a lack of a PS4 physical version (remedied for those pledging $60 or more), not releasing it on other consoles, the extent of Sony's financial involvement ^note, vague stretch goals, no PayPal support (which was later added for a brief time), and very expensive rewards. Many refused to pledge until many of these were addressed, but fans who have been waiting over a decade for another Shenmue urged these people to put aside these reasons and pledge for the sake of the game itself, and were just happy to see the game finally being developed after so many years.
- The game's visuals, particularly the character models. Many have compared them to games of the previous generation and feel they are far behind modern games sporting realistic visuals, while others are more forgiving towards them and are just glad that the game is being made and looks better than the Dreamcast titles, not to mention the Scenery Porn is still in full effect.
- The fanbase itself was completely split following the game's release. There are those who hope that the series continues and have campaigned for Suzuki to create Shenmue IV, and those who believe that the series is well past its prime and should be laid to rest. Many within both camps hope that the story will conclude in some way, whether in a game or a different medium.
The Chris Carter Effect: Even Shenmue III falls victim to this with the announcement that the story would not see its conclusion in the long awaited sequel, with some fans expressing a fourth or even a fifth entry would be too much.
Contested Sequel: Although most people didn't expect the game to deliver the same impact its predecessors did on the industry years ago, both critics and fans are heavily divided whether the game is a fantastic continuation of the martial arts saga in spite of its flaws, or a disappointment that pales in comparison not just to the games before it, but everything else out there as well. While the gameplay has been criticized for sticking a bit too close to the old formula and throwing several modern aesthetics out the window, with many expressing that the game feels like a product made 15 years before, it's also been praised for that very reason, with many saying it wouldn't feel like Shenmue if it tried to become more like its competition. Both supporters and detractors have criticized the game for not advancing the story as much as they would have liked, which is one of the primary reasons that fans had been requesting the game for so long.
Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the toys Ryo can collect is a miniature version of Sega's Astro City arcade cabinet, home to several of Sega's arcade titles in Japan. Months after the game's release, Sega of Japan would announce the Astro City Mini, a miniature version of their iconic arcade cabinet that includes 36 games that can be played on the unit itself, similar to the Neo Geo Mini.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: An interesting case in that there were plenty of controversial changes to the formula, but at the end of the day Shenmue III plays like a direct successor to a pair of games from the turn of the millennium. And that includes wonky, stilted gameplay, a lack of a lot of quality-of-life standards the industry has developed since their release, and an obsession with invoking nostalgia for a gameplay style that was once seen as innovative that now looks quaint since other games have evolved upon Shenmue's example. In a case similar to the problems with Yooka-Laylee, not enough attempts were done to evolve the formula in any meaningful way or bring in lessons from those that came after, getting the game hammered by critics.
Narm Charm: The voice acting as expected. Although the game has an impressive English voice cast this time around, with several recognizable veterans involved, it doesn't hesitate to mimic the cheesiness of the previous games and Ryo's delivery sounds as odd and wooden as ever. And some couldn't be happier for it. Those who aren't can still choose the Japanese vocal track in the main options menu.
Older Than They Think: Some fans aren't happy with Shenhua's new design and see it as an Unnecessary Makeover, considering Ryo, Ren and Lan Di retain their original designs. However, when Sega was promoting the series when it first came out, Shenhua was depicted in a very wide variety of different outfits and was the only character to not have a Limited Wardrobe, not only to signify her importance to the story, but perhaps hinting that she would be wearing different outfits over the course of the series.
Padding: Some critics have described the entire game as padding. Nothing that happens in the game really matters until you get to the end, at which point you face a Hopeless Boss Fight against Lan Di and the game ends, not having advanced the overall series plot in any meaningful way, if at all.
Pandering to the Base: The inclusion of the forklift and Lucky Hit mini-games were seen as this, as well as the quality of the English voice acting. At some point during the Kickstarter campaign, the team asked backers whether they wanted more realistic graphics on par with current games or those resembling the Dreamcast titles, and went with something closer to the latter. Suzuki has claimed that the game was made purely for the fans, but would like to do something different if another sequel is made.
Scrappy Mechanic:
- Unlike the prior games, Shenmue III opts to tie your daily stamina to your health bar. Whereas food and drink were just for burning money to see Ryo interact, here the player is forced to either rest and waste time or stockpile food to keep their health up, especially if they happen to stumble into a fight while their health is low just from walking around for the day. Even if you remain idle from forgetting to properly pause the game, you still lose health! Thankfully money isn't hard to earn, especially if you use Save Scumming on the gambling mini-games, but it does add far more tedium and uptake than simply trying to manage your daily schedule and interactions. Fortunately, a later patch reduces the rate that Ryo loses health, enough that you might only need to eat once or twice a day if you're spending the day just wandering around.
- QTEs are back, but the timing for them during cutscenes is much stricter than before, and you'll likely fail each and every one of them. Worse, one screw-up is all it takes to fail it and start over. Fortunately, most of the time you'll have to restart a section as opposed to the entire thing, with one exception toward the end.
- Fighting enemies does not grant any XP. Instead, you power up Ryo's skills via training minigames. This essentially means that any and all non-scripted fights in the game are more or less total wastes of the player's time.
- Unlike the Battle Rally DLC which is played as its own mode, the Story Quest and Big Merry Cruise DLC can only be accessed during the main campaign in Niaowu. Although you can use New Game Plus to start in Niaowu, you have to play to a specific point before the Story Quest becomes accessible, and if you thought you could load a late Niaowu save, if Shenhua has been kidnapped by that point, neither one is accessible.
Tainted by the Preview:
- Following the Kickstarter campaign, concerns arose as months passed with the game showing little progress, and whatever was shown was usually limited to short teasers. It wasn't until 2018, close to its 2019 deadline, that actual gameplay footage was finally shown. Much of the game's early footage was also criticized for its graphics not being up to par with its big-budget competitors, especially in regards to the character models. Although the models have improved over time, the graphics in general remain a point of contention for some.
- Although many fans were pleased when the Kickstarter Backer Trial Demo finally released, there were many who had the opposite impression; mainly, that instead of playing something up to par with the current generation, they were playing a literal Dreamcast game made in the modern day with low-quality animations, semi-tank controls, poor voice acting (which admittedly was intentional), and a very unpolished combat system (It doesn't help that said combat system completely lacks throws, which were incredibly useful against aggressive opponents and are an established part of Ryo's fighting style, a mixture of Karate and Jiu-Jitsu).
Tear Jerker: Inside Hotel Niaowu, there are two guestbooks with messages left behind by certain backers. Although many messages are funny and heartwarming, there's quite a few messages in memoriam of their friends or relatives who loved the previous two games but passed away before they could play the third.
That One Level: The last part of Bailu Village can only be called infuriating. You need to defeat a thug who's taken over part of the village. The first fight with him is a Hopeless Boss Fight, so you need to learn a move from a martial arts master (a specific martial arts master - there are several in the village but only one of them will teach you the move). To get him to train you, you need to buy a 2000-yuan bottle of wine. The only way to get that much money at this point in the game in any realistic amount of time is to gamble. You can get a "lucky color" from a fortune teller that increases the likelihood of that color coming up in the game, but it's not a guarantee. Also, you have to acquire tokens to gamble, then trade those tokens for prizes, then sell the prizes at a pawn shop in order to actually make yuan off of the game. And even after you get the wine you still have to do a bunch of training minigames in order to learn the move. This sequence is pointed at by many of the game's detractors as a golden example of how outdated and clunky this game is. And then you have to do it again, but for 5,000 yuan, in Niaowu!
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- The combat system has received a complete overhaul, now requiring moves to be performed by face button combinations. Throws have been removed completely, and Ryo still receives damage by blocking. Although it's not without its fans, many fans have expressed their disappointment that the game loses the Virtua Fighter-based combat.
- Shenhua's new outfit has also drawn some criticism of fans of her original design, who believe it was just as much of an Iconic Outfit as the other characters who retained their designs, although it's not generally hated either.
- While it was inevitable that the voice cast of the previous games wouldn't return for both dubs, some fans of the English dub aren't happy that most of their replacements sound very different from them. Perhaps the worst offender is Nozomi, who has none of the soft, delicate innocence that Ruth Hollyman gave to her and sounds like a generic anime girl instead.
- An element of the original Shenmue games that made them stand out when they were new, and even hold up to some extent to this day, was the attention to detail. The games would often go out of their way to animate complex but otherwise mundane actions that most games have happen just out of frame, adding an extra layer of realism and immersion. 'Shenmue III noticeably pulls back on these sort of details, making it arguably less advanced in some ways than its predecessors, which ironically contributes to the opposite feeling that Shenmue III feels too accurately like a product of an older time.
- Even the game's logo was prone to this, using a different and less sophisticated font than the previous titles.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Both Qiu Hsu and Lin Shiling play an important role in the climax, but neither of them receive enough focus or character development throughout the story to deliver the same impact that Ryo's allies did in the previous games. Unfortunately for them, they both stay behind in Niaowu in the game's ending and don't join Ryo, Ren and Shenhua as they journey further into the truth behind the Chi You Men.
- Niao Sun was advertised as an important character for several years, and while it took two decades to finally see her in action, she only appears towards the very end as herself anyway and doesn't receive a lot of screen time to flesh out her character.
Win Back the Crowd: For some fans, whatever concerns and criticisms they might have had were quickly laid to rest with the Kickstarter Backer Trial Demo. With familiar mechanics and the improvements made to them, the new mini-games, and all of the small details put into the game, many fans found themselves playing the proper sequel they had been waiting for. However, many also had the opposite impression, as described in Tainted by the Preview above.

YMMV / Shenmue III

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