Shenmue III Reviews
Shenmue III feels like a remake of the Dreamcast game that never existed, for better and worse. It's got everything fans loved about the Sega classics, along with some of their baggage. Still, the best of the series is the greatest it's ever been. It can feel as bloated as the originals, and some mechanics feel unnecessary or are poorly explained. If you're curious about that fabled Shenmue charm, though? This is the best entry to date.
Shenmue III is a good game, but feels quite dated.
Shenmue III is a game lost in time, but that's probably the greatest compliment you can pay this long-awaited sequel. Newcomers will be utterly bemused by its slice of life-style idiosyncrasies, but for franchise fans this is the faithful follow-up that they've been waiting almost two decades for.
A game that feels like it time travelled to 2019 from the Dreamcast era and I think that is just fine with the fans. They got what they wanted and I am thrilled for them, but anyone coming in to see what all the noise is about is likely going to come away confused as to why it took 18 years to create the game in front of them.
Shenmue III is like a ship lost in time, which looks archaic not only against the background of modern game mechanics and the far-stepped Yakuza series, but also the first two games of the series. Creation Yu Suzuki viscous, slow, with a huge number of restrictions and the halo of nostalgia, which will be understandable only to fans. For everyone else – this is an average story about martial arts and love, which you can try on cold winter evenings after drinking and setting off fireworks, even if after that you will have only one finger. For Shenmue III, this will be more than enough.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Shenmue III had to noticeably cut some corners, but is a true sequel with some new tricks up its sleeve. Newcomers will likely not really get what the fuss is about, but this is a very enjoyable game that I think will be appreciated more as time goes by.
I didn’t head into Shenmue 3 with high expectations due to its budget but the game still failed to meet even those lowered expectations.
For 99 percent of people, we'd recommend giving this a miss. There are better games out there and what Shenmue 3 does do well, largely the world and the process of digging into it, is ruined by the many many things it doesn't quite pull off. If you're a big fan of immersing yourself in a world or you loved the earlier Shenmue games, go wild, but your money would be spent better elsewhere.
Shenmue 3 is an uncompromising love letter to fans of the original games, make no question about it. If you weren't on board before, then this will do little to sway your opinion, as modern conventions have been largely ignored in favour of preserving a 20-year-old experience. While it's not perfect, Shenmue 3 is about as solid of a sequel as we could have expected after all this time.
Is Shenmue III dated? Absolutely, but the game proves that, like most genres, open-world adventures still have a thing or two to learn from the past. Shenmue III isn't always as player-friendly as it could be, but its lively, uniquely-handcrafted world is truly absorbing. Here's hoping this isn't the end of Ryo and Yu Suzuki's epic journey.
Shenmue III is a game true to the past, perhaps too much. Yu Suzuki manages to attract die-hard fans of the original game, but will hardly conquest the heart of the new generation.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Shenmue IIII pushes its epic story forward while holding firmly onto dated concepts, game design, and narrative presentation, but it will likely please die-hard fans of the series. Everyone else, meanwhile, might wonder what all the fuss is about.
Shenmue III is a weird experiment that makes you feel like playing a Dreamcast game now a days. Yu Suzuki created an interesting game just for his fans.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The game fulfills a vision of steadfast humanity within the framework of a martial arts revenge tale.
Shenmue 3 Polarized: For some, it's the fulfillment of a dream, for others it's a frumpy game design in a nicer garb.
Review in German | Read full review
If you’ve never played a Shenmue game, that honestly might give you trouble. But if you have played Shenmue, then you’ll feel like you’ve come home with Shenmue 3.
With this episode Yu Suzuki wanted to pay tribute to all the fans of the series, without which, it is useless to hide it, the third piece of the mosaic would never have seen the light. If trying it you will be disappointed for the dated technical aspect and for the now outdated design choices, know that this is how the game would have been if it had been released in 2003/2004, as scheduled. And that's exactly what the fans expected.
Review in Italian | Read full review
A throwback to be appreciated.
But sentimental value only goes so far. Shenmue III should have been the final game in this trilogy, all loose ends tied up and (re)vengeance served. Instead, Suzuki-sama hopes to continue Ryo's story and with little improvement made over the past two decades and I fear that a fourth game will stick to this same stagnant formula. Disappointed as I am with this news, my real hope is that he can pull off a fourth and final game sooner than later. Because as much as I love this series, I'd be lying if I didn't admit to feeling let down with this revival and worry about ever seeing the end of this tale.
To put it politely, Shenmue III has the potential to charm existing fans of the Shenmue saga, if only in how much it painstakingly recreates the stilted beauty of its two predecessors. However, if judged on its merits alone and/or by a non-Shenmue fan, this game just feels like a whole bunch of wasted Kickstarter money. If there's one thing that Shenmue III proves, it's that bringing new fans into the fold was never Ys Net's goal.