Shenmue III: Was The 18-Year Hiatus Worth It?

After purchasing 'Shenmue I and II' on a nostalgic impulse buy, as well as learning that Shenmue III was in development as a result of a Kickstarter crowdfunding initiative, I could not wait to get my hands on the next chapter of this simplistic, but legendary story. I thought that I was only one of a handful of admirers of the Shenmue series, but the money raised for the Kickstarter completely blew me away. Despite the branding of Shenmue I and II as being 'commercial flops', there was no question that there was something special about the series when it came to the story and characters.

After playing through 10 hours (give or take) of Shenmue III, I can reliably answer the question I posed in the title. Shenmue III was worth the 18-year wait. However, to talk about the video game itself, I cannot say that Shenmue III is a great game, but rather a decent game.


I will talk about the generally positive things about Shenmue III first. Shenmue III picks up right where Shenmue II left off 18 years ago, where Ryo Hazuki is continuing to search for his father's killer, with the help of a woman named Ling Shenhua. The storytelling still feels strong, engaging, and direct as ever. A beautiful soundtrack accompanies the open world (though it unnaturally switches to a new song every time you enter a new area). The graphics are acceptable, but not anything amazing by today's standards.

I will highlight two specific strengths about Shenmue III that was enjoyable. The fighting system felt fluid and challenging (in a good way). You cannot get by through button mashing, and it is hugely beneficial for you to go to the martial arts dojo to learn new combat moves, as well as to build your attack and endurance. It is easy to block and dodge the attacks of your opponents, and counter with the moves you learned for maximum damage.

There are huge amounts of mindless diversions in Shenmue III, which can really fill your time and provide a nice break from the main story. There are the classic Shenmue mini games, such as playing arcade games, trying to win something playing Lucky Hit, or loading cargo driving a forklift. There are also brand new arcade games you can play, and you now have the option to do things like gambling and fishing. I can tell that Shenmue borrowed heavily from the Yakuza games when it came to providing side content, which is definitely a good game to borrow.

Now, I need to address what I consider the central issue of Shenmue III. Although Shenmue III was an upgrade to Shenmue II in every way, it only felt like a marginal upgrade, and Shenmue III still suffers from the same issues as its predecessor. For a game be a marginal upgrade over the previous installment that came out 18 years ago is simply not good enough.

The pacing of Shenmue III is still quite slow. At the heart of it all, you are still running around the village asking the residents questions about whatever thing you are trying to find out at this moment, and I can assure you that this is still quite boring. The dialogue and voice-acting still feels disjointed and a bit monotonous, and I would have liked to see a bit more emotion and personality. Worst of all, there are still a numerous amount of quick-time events (QTEs) that pepper many instances of the game. Maybe it was the difficulty setting, but I found the QTEs to be excessively quick, and it felt like you needed lightning-quick reflexes to execute the button prompts.

Another criticism that I hear people say about Shenmue III is that the game completely ignores today's gaming trends, but I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing. A number of open-world adventure games that have come out recently feel very similar, and in turn, feel tedious because you feel like you have already played games with similar game mechanics before. Shenmue III felt like a nostalgic breath of fresh air, even with the pacing issues. I was just happy to play an open-world game that felt different.

Overall, despite all of its issues, I still enjoyed playing Shenmue III. The side content and mini games are a lot of mindless fun, and the combat system is not terrible anymore. The pacing and horrendous localization can still be a turn off for some, but it was still somewhat better than Shenmue II. I will only recommend this game to other Shenmue fans who have had the nostalgia playing the previous Shenmue games as I have. For anyone else who wants to get into the games, I would advise that you avoid this series.

There is one last thing that I would like to mention (I guess you can call this a minor spoiler). When you get to the second large area of the game, if you go to any of the shrines, there are areas where there are small tributes to all of the people who made donations to the Shenmue III Kickstarter, which I thought was a nice touch and a way to bring all of the donors into the game.