I read this article last night: http://kotaku.com/5657756/there-will-be-a-new-shenmue-game-but-not-what-you-think
And for a while, I really really felt bad for all the Shenmue fans who saw it immediately thinking it meant a true Shenmue 3 was on the way...A lot of it was because of the way Kotaku wrote the article's title, but that's not the point.
I thought about it more as I put on my shoes and packed up my stuff to go to class and I wonder...Is Shenmue 3 even a good idea at this point?
Now I've personally never played Shenmue at all. I'm interested one day, and the next the troll in me wants to ask my friends once again "Why do you like this game?" so that they can tell me, "It's true that it's slow and clunky and buggy and monotonous most of the time but it's still good!" So that then I can roll my eyes some more. I've never seen any snippet of gameplay from Shenmue that wasn't Ryo walking around town asking for sailors, but again, not the point.
This is less a question about Shenmue as it is about its fanbase. I read a lot of the comments on the Kotaku article and observed that:
1) They're RAVENOUS fans.
2) A lot of them don't care whether the game mechanics or graphics are updated at all for the modern age of gaming, so long as they get a conclusion to the story. Which leads me to...
3) ...me thinking the grand majority is really nostalgia ridden.
Point #1 reminded me of what happened when DmC was announced. Devil May Cry was a really recent franchise that I honestly didn't think had a rabid fanbase. More fool I for thinking so, because I was really stunned to see how violently opposed they were to what in my honest opinion amounted to a change of hair color in the main character's design.
Point #2 is a dangerous one to observe. Shenmue, apparently, is EXTREMELY REVERED in the gaming community. My limited perspective only knows it to be a lot of walking, odd jobs, what looked like a clunky fighting mechanic, bad voice acting, and somehow inexplicably all of it coming together to make a good game in the eyes of everyone else. I thought to myself, releasing a 1999 game in the year 2010+ would be utterly destroyed by critics, and would punctuate the series with a huge turd stain. What was hot in 99 just isn't anymore in this day and age, and a lot of elements need to be completely reworked if a Shenmue 3 wants to succeed.
Which leaves Point #3. I don't think that fans know at all what they want regarding Shenmue 3. They revere a property from the past so much, and they so desperately want a sequel that it seems like they'll take ANYTHING so long as it ends the story. But will they really?
Yu Suzuki, the mind behind the series, is no longer at Sega. Yakuza is the closest thing to Shenmue out right now, from what I gather, and I've heard people say that Shenmue blows Yakuza out of the water, so...
What if Shenmue 3 arrives in the form of a comic book? What if the story has a lackluster finale? What if it's made by a different team from the first two? What if, in a bid to try to update the mechanics, the game is made to be more similar to Yakuza, a currently thriving game series? What if the graphics lose their Japan charm?
Or hell, what if they change nothing and they give the fans precisely what they (think) they want? A Dreamcast-quality game in mechanics and visuals, in the days of Xbox 360 and PS3?
If fans of Devil May Cry are capable of the illogically violent backlash they gave DmC...then Shenmue would be absolutely ruined forever after God knows how many years of waiting, and I really don't believe it would take much for the fans to explode...just a change of hair color, I think.
TL;DR - I think Shenmue fans need to really assess what they want before they keep up their begging to Sega. If they grovel at their feet begging for ANYTHING, they will get just that, WHATEVER Sega thinks their groveling is worth.
What do you guys think? Please be serious, I know Shenmue is a game-industry gem, but I'd love some civility. If you don't agree with me, please be mature. Thank you
And for a while, I really really felt bad for all the Shenmue fans who saw it immediately thinking it meant a true Shenmue 3 was on the way...A lot of it was because of the way Kotaku wrote the article's title, but that's not the point.
I thought about it more as I put on my shoes and packed up my stuff to go to class and I wonder...Is Shenmue 3 even a good idea at this point?
Now I've personally never played Shenmue at all. I'm interested one day, and the next the troll in me wants to ask my friends once again "Why do you like this game?" so that they can tell me, "It's true that it's slow and clunky and buggy and monotonous most of the time but it's still good!" So that then I can roll my eyes some more. I've never seen any snippet of gameplay from Shenmue that wasn't Ryo walking around town asking for sailors, but again, not the point.
This is less a question about Shenmue as it is about its fanbase. I read a lot of the comments on the Kotaku article and observed that:
1) They're RAVENOUS fans.
2) A lot of them don't care whether the game mechanics or graphics are updated at all for the modern age of gaming, so long as they get a conclusion to the story. Which leads me to...
3) ...me thinking the grand majority is really nostalgia ridden.
Point #1 reminded me of what happened when DmC was announced. Devil May Cry was a really recent franchise that I honestly didn't think had a rabid fanbase. More fool I for thinking so, because I was really stunned to see how violently opposed they were to what in my honest opinion amounted to a change of hair color in the main character's design.
Point #2 is a dangerous one to observe. Shenmue, apparently, is EXTREMELY REVERED in the gaming community. My limited perspective only knows it to be a lot of walking, odd jobs, what looked like a clunky fighting mechanic, bad voice acting, and somehow inexplicably all of it coming together to make a good game in the eyes of everyone else. I thought to myself, releasing a 1999 game in the year 2010+ would be utterly destroyed by critics, and would punctuate the series with a huge turd stain. What was hot in 99 just isn't anymore in this day and age, and a lot of elements need to be completely reworked if a Shenmue 3 wants to succeed.
Which leaves Point #3. I don't think that fans know at all what they want regarding Shenmue 3. They revere a property from the past so much, and they so desperately want a sequel that it seems like they'll take ANYTHING so long as it ends the story. But will they really?
Yu Suzuki, the mind behind the series, is no longer at Sega. Yakuza is the closest thing to Shenmue out right now, from what I gather, and I've heard people say that Shenmue blows Yakuza out of the water, so...
What if Shenmue 3 arrives in the form of a comic book? What if the story has a lackluster finale? What if it's made by a different team from the first two? What if, in a bid to try to update the mechanics, the game is made to be more similar to Yakuza, a currently thriving game series? What if the graphics lose their Japan charm?
Or hell, what if they change nothing and they give the fans precisely what they (think) they want? A Dreamcast-quality game in mechanics and visuals, in the days of Xbox 360 and PS3?
If fans of Devil May Cry are capable of the illogically violent backlash they gave DmC...then Shenmue would be absolutely ruined forever after God knows how many years of waiting, and I really don't believe it would take much for the fans to explode...just a change of hair color, I think.
TL;DR - I think Shenmue fans need to really assess what they want before they keep up their begging to Sega. If they grovel at their feet begging for ANYTHING, they will get just that, WHATEVER Sega thinks their groveling is worth.
What do you guys think? Please be serious, I know Shenmue is a game-industry gem, but I'd love some civility. If you don't agree with me, please be mature. Thank you