A huge disappointment

I was a fan of the original Shenmue games all those years ago. I owned both games on DC and even bought an Xbox to play Shenmue 2 on it. Bought some merchandise and signed up to the ShenmueDojo, etc, etc.

I enjoyed the, at the time, revolutionary world that Yu Suzuki and his team crafted - and while the game wasn't perfect, it was groundbreaking and memorable (in a good way). The story (of both games), well let's just say it wasn't one of the games' strong-points, but it was enjoyable if you didn't overthink it.

Fast-forward nearly 2 decades, to this.

Let me be clear, Shenmue 3 is not a terrible game in itself - it's simply mediocre.

But it's a bewildering disappointment, it's crazy to think that in the near two decades since Shemue 2 was released on Xbox that this Shenmue 3 would be the result. A game delayed 3 times due to development issues and delayed on Steam due to the publishers having so little confidence in the game to sell in sufficient quantity (on PC) that they took a money-hat from Epic rather than sell it on the biggest PC gaming platform.

The good (in no particular order):

It's Shenmue 3 - the game does feel like a Shenmue game (strange that, right?) - but those games were released decades ago and the world has moved on since then.
The world itself - though this has to be qualified, the environments are quality and the game, if you don't focus on the npcs, can look good - but the details, of Shenmue 1 & 2's worlds are missing.
The audio - though plenty of the music is reused.
Fishing - is not a bad addition to the mini-games.
The nostalgia - and a few surprise returns.
Forklifts - enough said.

The bad (in no particular order):

The story/plot - more on that below.
The grind - much (maybe even most) of the time you spend playing Shenmue 3 will be grinding.
The stamina system - whoever dreamt it up needs firing and banning from having any creative input in any game for all eternity - in a game that already moves at a snail's pace, Ryo even has to grind for food to even be able to run.
The combat system - because who wants throws, right? Combat is a massive step back.
The inconsistency of the art direction - from realistic cartoony muscle men to more realistic looking NPCs - it's a stretch to believe that Shenmue 3 had an actual art director, and if they did, that person also needs banning.
The lack of diversity in the mini-games - though tbf, this was presumably due to licensing issues.
The ending - yes, I know I mentioned story/plot but the ending really is terrible.
The wafer-thin characters - yes, Shenmue has never had the greatest character development - but wow, the new characters in Shenmue 3 are so instantly forgettable that you'll pine for characters like Yuan, Tom or Goro.
The cuts - of course, these were presumably beyond the control of YS Net, but in the last act the cut content becomes fairly obvious as you're tasked with a completely incongruous side-mission that makes little sense right before for the final battle. Yeah, dude let me run your errand - Lan Di can wait.
The lack of set-pieces - yes there are QTEs but they are fewer and less memorable.
The broken dialogue/terrible localisation - crap translations might have been hilarious and forgivable 20 years ago, they're less so now.

So back to the story/plot.

Wow, it's a mess. There's really no other way to describe it. It's as if Shenmue 3 was written by someone who had only a passing knowledge of Shenmue 1 & 2 - perhaps they'd read the synopsis on Wikipedia. As a result, lore is forgotten about, retconned, or simply ignored (even within the same game).

If you exclude the final act, the game can be summed up as simply the quest to learn a move and its reverse form. No joke.

This slog, which will entail you playing countless minigames with unskippable animations, is even thrown right back at you too. Because you know how enjoyable it is to have hours and hours of boring gridning rewarded by being slapped in the face metaphorically.

I don't want to go into too much depth, because of spoilers and I risk boring myself, let alone anyone else. But the game's one big plot twist is meh (and that's kind), and Ryo - wow, this game just destroys him as a character.

The writers must truly hate Ryo. Anything he might have learned about the Wude, and from the many people who helped him along the way in Shenmue 1 & 2, is just completely disregarded in one of the most unintentionally hilarious climaxes I can remember - you'll find yourself laughing AT Ryo, not empathising with him.

EDIT: wow, check out those achievements - imagine the hours of graft that went into those 3 - yes THREE - icons used repeatedly for all 64 achievements.

In a way, it's fitting, for Shenmue 3, that such little effort was put into the achievements.