Shenmue 3 - Review @ RPG Site

RPG Site has reviewed Shenmue 3:

Shenmue III Review

Let's get this out of the way: Shenmue III is for Shenmue fans. It's not a starting point for the series, and the short recap video does not do much to catch people up on this somewhat standard tale of mystery and revenge. Shenmue III is obviously a love letter to those who have waited for decades to see the series return and the continuation of Ryo Hazuki's story.

So, is Shenmue III the triumphant return that series fans have been waiting decades on? Not really, unfortunately, although the target audience will still get some enjoyment out of this title.

[…]

Characters are as stiff as the lines they deliver, and they possess this uncanny valley quality to them that makes watching them move and interact with the world somewhat unsettling. Children look like caricatures of themselves, Ryo walks as if he's bound to the tank controls of old PS1 titles, and Shenhua is pretty but seems unable to express any emotion on her face at all.

Shenmue III is a game of half-measures. It ultimately delivers on its promise of the continuation of the Shenmue story for fans that have been waiting on it for years, but that doesn't mean it delivers on that promise well. Shenmue III could have been so much more, or at least tried to wrap up Ryo's tale, but instead, we are left with another cliff-hanger. Deep Silver and Ys Net delivered a game that works but is as unambitious and dull as Ryo's dialogue.

Score: 3/10

More information.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Henges… that tells me all I need to know.

I watched quite a lot of gameplay from the entire series and I really don't get what people like about this.

The dialogue is just plain bad, the voice acting is so bad it flips around to being funny, the story is bland and cliché-ridden, the gameplay isn't challenging at all, almost everything is just the worst "feature" of gameplay history - QTEs -…
Who willingly does that to themselves?

What I don't understand is why some say part 3 is worse than the others. Looks exactly the same to me…
Which makes this review pretty bad. Criticizing a game for sticking to its own series' mechanics makes zero sense - it is quite obvious from the review the game was never for the reviewer (I mean, she rightfully questions who this was actually made for).

Originally Posted by TheSHEEEP
I watched quite a lot of gameplay from the entire series and I really don't get what people like about this.

The dialogue is just plain bad, the voice acting is so bad it flips around to being funny, the story is bland and cliché-ridden, the gameplay isn't challenging at all, almost everything is just the worst "feature" of gameplay history - QTEs -…
Who willingly does that to themselves?

What I don't understand is why some say part 3 is worse than the others. Looks exactly the same to me…
Which makes this review pretty bad. Criticizing a game for sticking to its own series' mechanics makes zero sense - it is quite obvious from the review the game was never for the reviewer (I mean, she rightfully questions who this was actually made for).

She says everything you said; how does that make the review bad? Should she have written "the gameplay, story and dialogue are great for people who like terrible gameplay, story and gameplay"? She's reviewing the mechanics. Whether the game sticks to them is irrelevant. Whether the mechanics make for a good game is what she's reviewing.

Originally Posted by Vindicator
Reviewed by Elizabeth Henges… that tells me all I need to know.

The name doesn't matter. Play the PC version with k+m and any score close to 1/10 is expected.

Not what PC Gamer says: https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/shenmue-3-review/

Is "Ryo" or "Ryu" Japan's equivalent of the Western name "John"?

I sponsored the kick starter and regret doing so to this very day. I learned a valuable lesson there.

Originally Posted by skally_wag
Not what PC Gamer says: https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/shenmue-3-review/

PC gamer? i9 shills that rewarded DA2 with 94/100 and declared MGS5 as 2015 GOTY when everyone and their mother knew TW3 is the king?

Get real. 83% after stating "the cumbersome controls" in the text?
It's a trolling site.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
She says everything you said; how does that make the review bad? Should she have written "the gameplay, story and dialogue are great for people who like terrible gameplay, story and gameplay"? She's reviewing the mechanics. Whether the game sticks to them is irrelevant. Whether the mechanics make for a good game is what she's reviewing.

Mysterious as it is, there are obviously (few, judging by the game's sales numbers, but anyway) people out there who dig this.
These are the people the game was made for, including its bonkers mechanics.
Criticizing a game for sticking to what its fans want is just silly and shows that this reviewer should never have been reviewing the game to begin with.

You cannot judge a game in a bubble, you have to check what it wants to do and to be first to do it justice.
A game that achieves what its developers want it to achieve is a good game, no matter how crappy its mechanics are to the rest of the planet.
A person's personal enjoyment of a title doesn't necessarly say anything about a game's quality.

So while I cannot fathom why anyone would like a game like this, based on what I have seen of the game and the other games in the series, it is indeed a good game. Based on what it wants to achieve to begin with (which is the only relevant metric).

Just like idle clickers can be good games - while I have no idea why anyone would want to waste their time like that. But my personal enjoyment is not relevant to judge a game.

Originally Posted by TheSHEEEP
You cannot judge a game in a bubble, you have to check what it wants to do and to be first to do it justice.

Judging the game in a bubble is precisely what you're suggesting one should do.

A person should enjoy the genre of the game they're reviewing. But what you're requiring of this hypothetical appropriate reviewer is that they specfically enjoy this exact game, which obviates the need for a review in the first place.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Judging the game in a bubble is precisely what you're suggesting one should do.

A person should enjoy the genre of the game they're reviewing. But what you're requiring of this hypothetical appropriate reviewer is that they specfically enjoy this exact game, which obviates the need for a review in the first place.

This isn't even remotely what I was saying, it seems to me you are just being obtuse on purpose to get a last word in.

A reviewer needs to know what the game's fans want and expect and what the developers of the game want the game to achieve (in game mechanic terms, not monetary success).

If the author is a fan of the genre, or if they are enjoying it or not, should not matter.
A proper game review is not much different than any other kind of product review. A person's enjoyment of a title is subjective, sure, but games can be rated/graded on much more than "how much did person X enjoy this".

However, it does makes sense not to let someone review a game if it is known they cannot stand the entire concept behind the game.
Even if such a person tried to be objective about it, they would likely fail and their bias would make it into the review anyway. And the result would just be a rant like what I wrote above or what almost every Steam user "review" is.

Same would be true the other way around, btw., a glowing fan would likely "forget"/"miss" to bring up some very valid criticisms.