I don't usually pay much attention to E3. So much of what is announced is a tease and winds up delayed or whatever. But! I could not ignore all the Shenmue 3 stuff in my Twitter feed any longer.
For those who don't know what Shenmue is, it was a pioneer in open-world gaming created by Yu Suzuki (Virtua Fighter, just about every great Sega arcade game) and Sega's AM2 dev team. It follows the story of Ryo Hazuki as he searches for a Chinese cartel boss who killed his father right in front of him. The first game hit the US in 2000 for the ill-fated Dreamcast and was essentially a commercial flop. Just as the second installment was about to come out on the DC, Sega killed it despite running print ads and promoting the shit out of it. Then the plug was pulled on the DC.
Shenmue 2 was released in Europe (In multiple languages, including English) and Japan and a lot of people imported it. Then in 2002, Sega released the finished game in the US and worldwide on the original Xbox. Again, it didn't sell well, but it gained the series a lot of new followers. Sega would not greenlight the development of the third installment due to the game's poor market performance and huge development costs, though. (It was originally slated as a six part game)
13 years and two console generations later, we have our project in the works. It just set a record on Kickstarter, raising 2 million dollars in a day. Sega would not go ahead with it without the fans footing some of the bill for the development. It is going to be on PS4 and PC (I think) and will be available (hopefully) in 2017. Yes.
My only question in all of this is what are they gonna do to bring the generation+ of gamers that haven't played the first two up to speed? Shenmue 2 on Xbox came with a DVD that had all of the events of the first one as sort of a movie. Hopefully it'll AT LEAST be something similar this time.
Ah, nurse lady is on her way... Where is my gun?
Rei~
For those who don't know what Shenmue is, it was a pioneer in open-world gaming created by Yu Suzuki (Virtua Fighter, just about every great Sega arcade game) and Sega's AM2 dev team. It follows the story of Ryo Hazuki as he searches for a Chinese cartel boss who killed his father right in front of him. The first game hit the US in 2000 for the ill-fated Dreamcast and was essentially a commercial flop. Just as the second installment was about to come out on the DC, Sega killed it despite running print ads and promoting the shit out of it. Then the plug was pulled on the DC.
Shenmue 2 was released in Europe (In multiple languages, including English) and Japan and a lot of people imported it. Then in 2002, Sega released the finished game in the US and worldwide on the original Xbox. Again, it didn't sell well, but it gained the series a lot of new followers. Sega would not greenlight the development of the third installment due to the game's poor market performance and huge development costs, though. (It was originally slated as a six part game)
13 years and two console generations later, we have our project in the works. It just set a record on Kickstarter, raising 2 million dollars in a day. Sega would not go ahead with it without the fans footing some of the bill for the development. It is going to be on PS4 and PC (I think) and will be available (hopefully) in 2017. Yes.
My only question in all of this is what are they gonna do to bring the generation+ of gamers that haven't played the first two up to speed? Shenmue 2 on Xbox came with a DVD that had all of the events of the first one as sort of a movie. Hopefully it'll AT LEAST be something similar this time.
Ah, nurse lady is on her way... Where is my gun?
Rei~
I've always wanted to play a Shenmue game! I've never owned a Dreamcast or an Xbox anything... :( You'd think that Sega would at least make them available as downloads or something. I've seen all the different Shenmue sites over the years and it's pretty obvious that there are tons of people who want this game. I know Kickstarter and sites like it haven't been around THAT long, but it makes you wonder if it would have come out sooner had they been out years ago. I looked it up and that money was raised in 9 hours! That is insane! Glad we got the PS4, sweetie! I can't wait to play it with you! :) And don't hurt the nurse! lol Love you! XOXO ♥♥♥
ReplyDeletelol Five minutes of explanatory crap and then BAM, game. Have fun! No one will understand anything, but I guess that might not matter. I couldn't figure out what was going on for most of Ergo Proxy, and that didn't seem to make any difference. Mwah! <3
ReplyDeleteI will happily explain the goings on if they don't release anything prior to the game coming out, honey bunny! :3 I don't understand most anime, darling! XD So many of them have so many characters and backstories, they can get very convoluted... Love you ladies! :3333 *Hugs und kisses*
ReplyDeleteRei~