I got the chance to put my money where my mouth was following the surprise announcement of a Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of Shenmue III during E3 2015. And the settlements truly felt like real places. I jokingly concluded my review of the first game suggesting I’d become one. Series creator and video game luminary Yu Suzuki never gave up hope for future installments though, perhaps buoyed by some of the most fervent fans of any media. By the time Shenmue II released in 2001, prospects for future entries in the series were dim. They were contributing factors to Sega discontinuing the Dreamcast and exiting the console manufacturing business altogether. The first two games were some of the most expensive ever made and although well received critically, wound up being commercial failures. The fact that Shenmue III even exists is somewhat of a miracle.
And yet, Shenmue III is in many ways a game about embracing the banal, for better or worse. I know relatively little about the rigors of game development, but it seems ludicrous to offer such attention to detail for something as banal as navigating a flight of stairs. In Shenmue III for instance, whenever the protagonist Ryo walks up or down a flight of stairs, his feet hit every step.
SHENMUE 3 PC REVIEW FULL
It was a brief comment in Dave Halverson’s review of Dragon Quest VIII from the November 2005 issue of Play Magazine, and not especially relevant to the full review, but it’s stuck with me ever since: “…given the detail, that the lead character is not dynamic to steps and slopes does take a bite out of the realism.” I wouldn’t say I’ve paid attention to the functionally irrelevant detail of characters walking on stairs in every game I’ve played since, but sometimes I notice.
0 kommentar(er)
