Friday 3/20:
I mean, after a peculiar fetch quest for a random pawn shop owner. Talk about weird pacing! That Chai photo was pretty cringe worthy too, but not everything can be a home run. More important was everything that came after it.
We finally meet Niao Sun more than twenty years after first seeing glimpses of her in early artwork and video. She looks really darn cool, that fiery red a nice contrast to Lan Di’s cool green. It would have meant a more to the average player if they had done a better job of building her up (her disguise throughout the game was hardly necessary since Ryo wouldn’t have known who she was anyway), but it was still exciting.
I enjoyed the big martial arts fight lead up to the boss, heading up the giant stairs to the abandoned (but surprisingly well-maintained) castle. The pacing suffered a little when it hopped over to Mr. Hsu and Shiling (we didn’t need the mildly-comedic dispatching of a guard repeated three times!), but it was cool watching Ryo and Ren charge forward, and Grandmaster Lei doing his cool, calm thing against the thugs along the way.
A half-dozen thugs with random faces showed up at one point–apparently backers, and making me slightly jealous I didn’t go that route (it was probably beyond my already-four-digit donation, admittedly).
The door-kicking was fun, but highlighted one of Shenmue III’s smaller issues: no branching QTEs, or QTEs that accommodate for mistakes instead of just restarting the scene. Apparently, the programming was there, just rarely utilized.
I liked the battle with the three bodyguards before Lan Di. I know some people would have preferred actual boss battles (and I can appreciate that from a gameplay perspective), I think the point was to highlight just how far along Ryo has come as a martial artist: Ryo, who once struggled with generic thugs, can now handle Lan Di’s personal bodyguards with relative ease.
Niao Sun revealing her big power play was interesting lacking context, but I’m sure IV will dig into that. I wasn’t sure what to expect of her as a character, but it dawns on me that helping Ryo throughout the game was her way of weakening Lan Di’s position.
The big finale, though, a showdown with Lan Di while the castle burns… way cool! Yeah, Ryo can’t handle him yet, but he did much, much better than Iwao did (and for six months of training, that’s pretty impressive!). Lan Di was smooth as silk, though, and remains incredibly imposing even with Ryo getting noticeably stronger.
So, as we head into IV, there’s a lot to be excited for. I’m hopeful that the Great Wall scene is one we get to experience. Niao Sun is now coming into her own–what does that mean for Lan Di and the Chi You Men? They clearly still want the mirrors: are we looking at a three-way dance with Ryo, Lan Di, and Niao Sun all vying for the mirrors? What exactly does Shenhua bring to the table? Thus far we’ve only seen hints of her power.
The challenge now is waiting for the next game!
Beyond the Memory 