REVIEW

Shenmue III Review

by Rob Pritchard, December 11th, 2019

In the past few years, SEGA have been resurrecting several of their dormant franchises such as House of the Dead and Super Monkey Ball, with each of these new entries achieving a reasonable amount of success. The latest in this trend of revivals is Shenmue 3, the long awaited third instalment in the cult classic action adventure series which originated on the Sega Dreamcast. Funded partially through Kickstarter, with additional funding coming from their publishing partners, is Ys Net’s continuation the shining jewel in Shenmue’s crown, or an adventure that needs a few more years of training in the dojo?

The story of Shenmue III continues the journey of Ryo Hazuki, a martial arts disciple who is travelling the world to avenge his father’s murder by a powerful man named Lan Di. After learning that Lan Di has been seen in China, Ryo travels there with his new companion, a young woman by the name of Ling Shenhua. Along his journey, Ryo learns more about the mysterious Phoenix and Dragon Mirrors that Lan Di desires, and their connection to a mystical treasure that can only be found using the ancient artefacts.

Shenmue III’s core gameplay consists of speaking with various NPC’s within each area, interspliced with sections that require you to put on your detective cap, and occasional battles that rely on Ryo’s knowledge of advanced martial arts techniques. The pace of the narrative is distinctly slower than other games of its type and will often require you to wait until a certain time of day before you can perform the next objective. Mercifully, you are now able to instantaneously skip ahead to the required time, instead of waiting around as you had to do in previous entries of the series.

Despite this improvement, a major annoyance occurs during the many times that you travel across the world map, as you will be asked to repeat the same task with different individuals, only to be met with the same response from each person. While it is a necessary mechanic to put the player forward, it feels like it was simply copied and pasted across the NPC’s, rather than giving each character a different perspective on their surroundings.

The combat feels very similar to the bouts in the Yakuza series, except you are often faced only one enemy instead of a group of foes. You are given the opportunity to increase your health, martial arts prowess and endurance by training at dojos and training dummies, which are essential for completing battles against some of the tougher opponents. New skills can be learned by finding scrolls scattered around the world map, or by completing various tasks set by the NPC’s. Although they do not appear often, the detective sections are easily the most polished area of Shenmue III. Unlike most investigation sections, you can move in both 2D and 3D space simultaneously, so you will not need to move the game camera to a specific viewpoint in order to locate an essential clue.

Although a lot has been done to build on what made Shenmue appealing to it’s fanbase, it is clear that a lot of innovation and features from the previous gaming generations have been ignored over preserving the appearance of a sequel that was produced only a few years after Shenmue II. One of these minor criticisms is that the mini map does not point you in the direction of your next location, which can be off putting if you are used to having a navigation aid to help you proceed.

The graphics of Shenmue III retain the same aesthetic style as the first two instalments of the series, albeit with a high definition facelift that can be expanded all the way to 4K. The frame rate can sometimes stutter on the standard PS4, but most of the time it ran as smoothly as the HD remasters of the first two titles. Alongside this, the soundtrack of Shenmue III is one of the game’s highlights, showcasing beautiful instrumental tones with a mixture of higher intensity music during the battle scenes.

The inclusion of an English dub in a localisation is often a cause for celebration, but in the case of Shenmue III, it is a mixed blessing. The voice acting is often wooden, and the dialogue can sometimes be completely out of step with the statement that the previous character has made. It is unclear if this happens as often in the Japanese dialogue, but the number of times that it happens can break the immersion almost at once. It is slightly disappointing that this is the case which such a highly anticipated release, but hopefully the developers can push out a patch in the future to fix some of the worst offences on the list.

Overall, Shenmue III is an experience that will be best appreciated by the fans of the franchise. While it has ambitious scale and an immersive narrative, it’s slow pacing, poor English localisation and a reluctance to implement changes that have proven successful in similar franchises keep it from being the step forward that the series deserves.