Random Shenmue IV Thoughts.

Sorry for the double post but i had more thoughts i wanted to share about Shenmue so i did a new episode today of Shenmue Talk.

This time i learned how to make the google voice even more slower so is more enjoyable to hear in my opinion.

In this episode i shared my opinion about Luoyang, Shaolin Temple, Pagoda Forest and Dengfeng, some places that i feel that Ryo will go in Shenmue IV. If this happen will be so awesome and beautiful to see, this places are beautiful.

Some photos in the video by Switch/Phantom River Stone Blog.

Shenmue helps me a lot dealing with many things in my life so doing this videos is so calm and peaceful to me, i enjoy so much talking about Shenmue and doing this videos. Shenmue is so special to me that sometimes i can't even describe with words, it is a beautiful feeling what Shenmue mean to me and in my life.

LetsGetShenmueIV and thank you all for the support. ❤️

 
Imo modernisation wasn't the main problem with Shenmue 3. I can accept limited facial animations and limited dialogue options because of the budget.

I hope if they make it, they don't have those annoying sections where bosses keep defeating you in cutscenes and they have a more intuitive, faster battle system closer to the old games, revamp the stamina meter, if not ditch it entirely. In my view make money a bit easier to earn like Shenmue 2 as well.
 
Demon's Triangle said:
Imo modernisation wasn't the main problem with Shenmue 3. I can accept limited facial animations and limited dialogue options because of the budget.

I hope if they make it, they don't have those annoying sections where bosses keep defeating you in cutscenes and they have a more intuitive, faster battle system closer to the old games, revamp the stamina meter, if not ditch it entirely. In my view make money a bit easier to earn like Shenmue 2 as well.
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I agree, I don't think having better facial animation would make a difference. Many AAA games still have super wonky facial animations for NPCs.

The battle system needs to feel more instantaneous, for sure. You should be able to mash buttons and it feel satisfying. That's my biggest criticism: the basic punches and kicks don't feel great. You need to learn combos for it to improve.

With the stamina meter, I like having a reason to purchase food at shops and vendors, even if the execution wasn't perfect. I think with a bit of tweaking (e.g. not having to eat 20 garlic a day) it could feel very natural, and a perfect fit for Shenmue.

I also agree that making the player lose in a cutscene after an in-game fight is not elegant game design. The problem is, the game is predicated on A master teaching you A move to progress, and this has a lot more impact if you've actually fought the foe and lost previously. Most players are going to get demolished the first time round, so I see how they ended up on it. But yeah, it's not perfect and should be avoided next time.

Personally, I much prefer money-making in S3 than in S2. Collecting herbs is great passive income, chopping wood gets me in the zone, fishing is chill. Making money in S2 is not that fun, imo. It's definitely quicker via save-scumming, though.
 
orient said:
With the stamina meter, I like having a reason to purchase food at shops and vendors, even if the execution wasn't perfect. I think with a bit of tweaking (e.g. not having to eat 20 garlic a day) it could feel very natural, and a perfect fit for Shenmue.
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IMO? Drop it for traversal, roll it into an expanded version of the RPG mechanics along with pretty much everything else you do in the game.

Training should be the top of the tree in terms of boosting your stats, but there should be limits on its effectiveness or frequency to discourage grinding. Tie all secondary and tertiary activities into the system to deliver XP gains, skills, and perks to reward explorative play that engages with the world.
 
Spaghetti said:
Training should be the top of the tree in terms of boosting your stats, but there should be limits on its effectiveness or frequency to discourage grinding.
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This. Ryo becomes way too overpowered once his Kung Fu increases to a certain level. It would have been better if players had been given the option to train once each morning and grown gradually as they made their way through the game. To be fair though, training in S3 is still better than the other two games in the series.
 
I think I like the concept of eating certain food
helping train certain moves and/or statistics.
(I think it was alluded in an interview,
as a concept that, ultimately, could not be done.)

For the battle system, I'm still not sure, but I feel like having
a trigger to force-do the current combo-string of face-buttons input
(even if you could still add some for a more advanced move.)


Ultimately, this is tricky to find improvement points,
as I can't say what would or wouldn't improve the game for the others.
(And, maybe the most vocal people
are the ones that stay stiff in their stances,
about their preconception of the games ?)
 
Tbh I'm hoping they remove healing items... I didn't feel like they added anything to the game at all, just made it feel like a formulaic RPG which cheapend the Shenmue experience

Food should just be a cool eating animation like the Soda from previous games, maybe makes time pass faster since Yu wants time skip feature
 
I like that the food have meaning in Shenmue III and i love the way the training is in this game, I like the way it is in Shenmue III i just think it needs improvements, In Shenmue IV we will probably see this improvements.
 
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The food is really a double edge sword. I like i somehow because it makes you to plan your fights in advance and gather enough food as healing item to surive the fights. It can be quite bothersome though to earn enough money to get the medicine to heal in fight. For conviance the auto heal feature in the fights like in S1 and 2 is really better and should come back in the upcoming games.
 
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I tolerated the food mechanic but it should not be in Shenmue IV. I want to soak up the feel of the locations of the game & not have to constantly worry about the health gauge.
 
I think it would’ve been neat to tie food into the conversations with Shenhua in the kitchen. Your choices could influence the dialogue, etc. there were other ways to make food serve a purpose, imo.
 
tomboz said:
This. Ryo becomes way too overpowered once his Kung Fu increases to a certain level. It would have been better if players had been given the option to train once each morning and grown gradually as they made their way through the game.
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Was thinking something similar.

Additionally, training exercises could stop providing XP gains past a certain point until Ryo has progressed through the story enough to unlock an advanced form of training that increases the difficulty and switches up the mini-game mechanics. Think horse stance to horse stance while balancing teacups, ala Drunken Master.
 
9dragons said:
The food is really a double edge sword. I like i somehow because it makes you to plan your fights in advance and gather enough food as healing item to surive the fights. It can be quite bothersome though to earn enough money to get the medicine to heal in fight. For conviance the auto heal feature in the fights like in S1 and 2 is really better and should come back in the upcoming games.
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The snake stuff for in-combat healing feels antithetical to the whole point of the game in my opinion. It's optional, of course, but it really does feel like a band-aid solution for difficulty spikes, in a way that using items in JRPGs usually doesn't.

Here's my solution for food and stamina in S4:
  • separate health from stamina
  • start off with 3 stamina points
  • full stamina gives you an XP boost while training
  • 0 stamina temporarily reduces your max health
  • training consumes x1 stamina
  • fighting consumes x2 stamina
  • eating gives +1/+2/+3 stamina, based on price
  • you increase max stamina and max health by training. The more advanced training techs you learn, the more stamina they consume (similar to Spag's idea)
This way there is incentive to eat to maintain max stamina, while completely removing the "drain over time" mechanic, and the penalty for having no stamina isn't completely crippling, like in S3.

There you go, YS Net :coffee:
 
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Baisha was cut out of Shenmue III but we know that Yu Suzuki worked in this location for the game, i remember seeing an image of Yu Suzuki working about Baisha with other person.

Maybe now Yu Suzuki have many things about this location ready.

What if Baisha is almost ready or ready and he decided to put Baisha in Shenmue IV? let's imagine that Baisha is complete with NPCs and things like that, this will be a good thing because Yu Suzuki can put Baisha in the game and spend the Shenmue IV budget with other locations, with the story, cutscenes and much more.

I think is possible that maybe the location is ready and they decided to put Baisha as one of the first locations in Shenmue IV maybe after the cliff temple, or maybe we will never see Baisha in game format.

If Baisha was in Shenmue III i think it would be after Niaowu, I'm not sure where Baisha would fit into the story, but maybe after Niaowu.

I think with Shenmue IV is possible that Yu Suzuki will speed the pace of the story so he can end the story in Shenmue V.

Maybe Ryo, Shenhua and Ren will travel by train to many locations like Sergeynest said, maybe we will even see a time skip in the story, i saw this in other stories so is possible this happening in Shenmue as well. Yu Suzuki is aware that is hard for him to have more opportunities to continue this beautiful saga, i feel that for Shenmue IV there is a possibility that things will happen this way.

Like i said other time Shenmue IV have the potential to be a beautiful, emotional and intense game with a lot of important fights, important characters appearing, revelations, emotional moments, plot twist moments and much more.

Shenmue III is a slow pace game similar to the first game and i like that especially in Bailu Village, Shenmue III is about other things, and i think if Shenmue IV happen it will have similar things to Shenmue II.

Shenmue IV - The Chi You Men Arc, i would love to see this happening.
 
They need to bring it on! we are on the cusp!
 
I was just looking at the credits again and looked at Keiji Oyakasu, who's the "Second Director" on Shenmue III and the director on Shenmue I & II. He has his own studio, StudioFake. Did his studio contribute most of the Shenmue III developers? I wonder what their staff is like. The site says they have 18 employees. StudioFake is listed in the credits and Shenmue III is on their website. I know they do support/collaboration with all sorts so not a huge find or anything, but I like knowing there's staff ready to develop another game.

- StudioFake site

Seems like he'd definitely be involved in Shenmue IV so one to keep an eye on perhaps...
 
ShenSun said:
Yu Suzuki has been exposed to modern games

Shenmue 4 finally announced...

H3Fn6l.jpg


Lan Di doesn't stand a chance
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