Shenmue 3, the impossible sequel, is the third entry of Yu Suzuki’s legendary Kung-Fu adventure series that spawned the Open-World genre and took the industry by storm with immersive storytelling the likes of which the industry had never seen.
Despite this, SEGA were quick to cancel the series once they crashed out of the console industry in 2001, with poor sales relative to its costs giving SEGA little motivation to revive it. Come E3 2015, fans could be forgiven for thinking they were dreaming as Yu Suzuki announced that Shenmue 3 would be funded via a Kickstarter campaign and developed by his own company YSNet.
The game itself would go on to break Kickstarter fundraising records and the project would eventually get a publisher in Deep Silver, but almost everything about this highly unique development process screamed danger with alarm bells ringing at every turn. Suzuki, for example, not only needed to build everything in the game from the ground up despite the series being an established franchise, on systems he had never used, but also had to hire an entire development team (that Suzuki stated took a year to assemble) as YSNet at that point had but one employee. If this wasn't enough, Suzuki had to appease 20 years of nostalgia from two of the greatest games ever made but with only 30-50% the budget, or for a more modern Open-World comparison, 10% of GTA 5’s budget.
For most this would seem like quite the daunting task, but for an industry legend considered to have reinvigorated the arcades in the 80s and 90s, one who even offered to forgo his salary to develop Space Harrier his own way and who had a term to describe design solutions popping up in his head when dozing off at his desk between his favourite work hours of 2am and 4am, this was an exciting challenge.
The game starts in Bailu, Shenhua's mountainous home village, with Ryo and Shenhua continuing their search for her missing father, while simultaneously searching for clues into Ryo's father's mysterious death. The investigation, while charming, adds small details to the story that mostly provide more questions than answers, leaving the player to string the clues together.
Bailu has a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere with stunning visuals that complement its cast of colourful and fully-voiced characters. The area itself is soaked with an almost quantifiable humidity, so that when you first run down to the village with the sun filtering through the trees and the morning dew lying on the grass, you'll both delight in its beauty and wonder whether it's a real place in the Chinese mountains you can actually visit. The interaction afforded to you in the village adds another layer of realism, with each villager having their own distinct personality, only opening up to you once they know you are with Shenhua and then remembering your name and sharing details about their lives as the story progresses. This warm and familiar feeling that the game creates is very welcoming and is perfectly capped off by long option-based conversations between Ryo and Shenhua which develop the characters further, making Bailu feel like your new adopted home.
There are aspects of the game that soon make it clear that this isn't a AAA title though, with the character designs ranging from partly realistic to an overly bright and colourful doll-like design with inconsistent shading. Having characters that look like they have been lifted out of Shrek is unfortunate, and can be a bit jarring if you've just finished playing the re-release of Shenmue 1+2, but considering how expansive and immersive this game aims to be, it stands to reason that limited resources would result in leaving potential on the table. These aesthetic issues also extend to the animation quality, which varies cutscene to cutscene, but gets less distracting as you get into the gameplay. In addition, when considering how the visuals have improved over the development, it's hard to feel too caught up with them.
One aspect of Shenmue's Open-Worlds that differs from current games in the genre is that parts of each area open up as the story progresses, allowing you to maximize the enjoyment of said areas before opening up the next. This method of linear storytelling through the Open-World also shows another of Shenmue's strengths - its depth, with each area having a reason for its inclusion.
This is also true for its new interlinked systems, which give everything purpose and introduce new gameplay loops that the series hasn't seen before.
Ryo now has an ever-present health meter and Kung Fu stats that are affected by running, fighting and training. Run around like a headless chicken from the offset and you'll be forced to walk and similarly if you run into a battle head-on without training, it will likely result in swift defeat. Training is therefore essential, and is such a perfect fit that you’ll wonder why its taken this long in the series to be included. Different training methods are available outside the game's dojos and exist as simple timing-based minigames ranging from a brilliantly addictive Bruce Lee-style one-inch punch minigame, to maintaining a horse stance pose for the duration of a time limit.
As you train, you'll need to replenish your energy by purchasing food from one of the food stalls, with money that you'll have to work for. That's where you'll be introduced to yet another addictive minigame in the form of wood chopping; the more logs you hit perfectly, the more money you make. Hunting for the cheapest food prices at the numerous food stalls with varying daily prices then introduces some freedom in your training regime. With your health meter refilled and Kung-Fu skills improved, you can then get to working your way up the local dojo's ranks and watch as your nameplate moves up the ranking board on the dojo's wall. This gameplay loop has such a great sense of achievement that you can almost hear the Rocky music playing in the background as you train.
Another new system, the 'Prize Exchange System', allows you to trade for desired items that can be acquired via an abundance of methods. It could be through herbs found in a field, bought at one of the numerous shops available in the town, won at a festival-like prize game or even traded at a prize exchange store once you've gained enough gambling tickets. These new systems give everything a purpose and make every in-game day different, imbuing in the player a great sense of freedom despite being forced to work within a routine.
The story itself is a bit thin on the ground, but the familiarity created by Bailu's Open-World - its visuals, residents and the light-hearted and humour-filled interactions - make it feel like you are leaving Ryo’s hometown all over again.
The second area, Chobu, is a beautiful, activity-filled town located on a river with traditional temples and fishing areas mixed with shopping streets and markets. This large and far busier area contrasts well with the relaxing rural Bailu with around 150 stores/stalls, two arcades, a fighting arena and the reappearance of a forklift job.
An advantage of Chobu having so many enclosed shops and buildings, in contrast to the open Bailu, is that the player gets to enjoy another excellent staple of the Shenmue games - the soundtrack, which comes into its own with each shop/building getting their own unique track. The day and night tracks of the Shenmue shrine, a 4th-wall breaking building made to celebrate the fans' contribution to Shenmue 3's incredible journey, are truly exceptional and are alone worth listening to over and over on loop. Another inclusion in each shop is a figure of the town’s hidden mascot character 'Chobu-chan' that wins you shop cards when you find it and can once again be traded for fighting technique scrolls. This non-mandatory activity is a stroke of design genius that makes you want to visit each and every shop and pore over every little detail provided inside it, whilst getting to appreciating each of their bespoke audio tracks.
Unfortunately, Chobu's increase in size and detail has the side-effect of making the larger areas of the town feel partially empty with few freely walking NPCs while also forcing the pop-in effect (the game's characters loading to their location after you expect to see them) to make a return appearance in its more crowded areas.
SEGA granted YSNet the license to develop Shenmue 3 for free, but it seems, pardon the assumption, that their goodwill ended there with Yu Suzuki’s own SEGA’s creations (the arcade games and fighting system) no longer included in the game. This meant that the fighting system had to be built from scratch and unfortunately, due to resources required to develop it, did not include throwing techniques, a central part of the previous fighting system. Despite this, the newly created system is actually more approachable than before and although a downgrade overall, is still enjoyable. The integration of the fighting arena, and final fight in Chobu in particular, really allow it to shine.
Bailu’s lack of a story could easily be forgiven with the presumption that the story would pick up in Chobu, but regrettably this does not materalise. The main plot points from the first area are almost replicated exactly, to the point of even having similar looking enemies and special moves, while Ryo's investigation and the overall story of the series sees little progression. The character development is also spread too thinly across the new story-based characters, making them feel under-developed and somewhat redundant, in turn, wasting opportunities to develop existing characters in Shenhua and Ren and their relationship as a trio. This is especially true for the humourous and pirate-like scoundrel in Ren, a key character from Shenmue 2, whose personality contrasts Ryo's bland and law abiding character perfectly.
The ending of the game provides an epic battle with swathes of enemies leading up to the fated confrontation fans have been waiting 20 years for, with Lan Di, the man who murdered Ryo's father. Some might find its conclusion underwhelming based on the length of the wait for this game, but as Shenmue 3 is merely an iteration of the story (Yu Suzuki wishing to finish on Shenmue 5) it’s well actualised. It also shows the potential of what a larger budget could have produced with the quality of the cutscenes far and away the game's best, even rivalling the best seen in Shenmue 1+2, with great camera angles and scene direction.
This instalment is acutely aware that any attempt to replicate its interactive movie predecessors would result in disaster and instead focuses on making this an almost standalone experience with the addition of game-like RPG systems and Open-Worlds packed with tons of activities to immerse and entertain the player. These amendments, in addition to the extra activities and collectibles, add a level of replayability that even the previous games lack, making the entire experience take upwards of 60 hours to fully complete while the story itself can take less than half of that.
Verdict - 8/10
+ Beautiful environments, well designed towns and immersive atmosphere
+ Long conversations with Shenhua and highly interactive NPCs
+ Wonderful soundtrack
+ Addictive gameplay loop with the newly introduced systems
+ Great new training and job minigames
- Lack of story progression and new character development
- Inconsistent character design and animation quality
- Fighting system lacks throwing techniques
With a fraction of the budget of current Open-World games, Yu Suzuki miraculously willed to life the impossible sequel, faithfully encapsulating everything great about the immersive series while also allowing it to stand on its own merits. Inevitably, there are issues that come with producing such a grand vision on a small budget, but they are relatively minor and don't detract from the overall enjoyment of the game. Shenmue 3, in part to appease core fans, maintains its slow pacing and lack of mainstream devices from the previous entries, but in doing so may have made it harder to attract a new audience to fund larger and improved sequels. Despite the never-ending uncertainty of if and when the series will see its end, what fans can be absolutely sure of is that Yu Suzuki's star has far from faded and that more magic from the creative genius is yet to come.
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