Shenmue 3: 10 Things It Must Do To Appeal To The Modern Gamer
Making a cult classic accessible for the next generation.
The Shenmue games were destined to become cult classics from the moment they were released. Steeped in Japanese culture, the games offered a narrative flow unlike practically anything else on the market at the time and revolutionised the way we play games thanks to its FREE (Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment) system bringing the world to life like nothing before it.
Couple that with the fact that it was released on the Dreamcast - which was assigned to the scrapheap as soon as the PS2 arrived - and you have all of the ingredients for a game that would be played by few, yet admired by many.
Thankfully for those who never got to experience the original in all of its glory, this year's E3 saw the announcement that a Kickstarter was to be launched to facilitate the development of the long-awaited third game in the series. Said Kickstarter hit its goal less than 24 hours after being announced, so now we know that at some point towards the end of 2017 (hopefully) the long wait will be over and fans the world over will finally be able to continue Ryo Hazuki's story.
However, Shenmue is very much a product of its time and there are many things that the games it inspired have done to change the industry in the years since its release. The fans' money is in the bag, but the third in the series is going to have to do a lot differently to appeal to the modern gamer.
10. Fewer QTEs
QTEs weren't actually the brand new thing they were claimed to be when Shenmue was released - having first appeared in Dynamite Cop on the SEGA Saturn - but it was most definitely Shenmue that brought them to the fore and popularised them.
In the original games, the QTEs were used to make many of the cutscenes as interactive as possible, with many scenes changing based on whether or not you managed to mash the right button. They were revolutionary sequences for the time, so much so that every developer and his dog crawled all over themselves to use them in their own games.
This has led to the entire idea becoming utterly over-saturated to the point where many people are completely sick of QTEs altogether. Many simply see them as a pointless addition to scenes that don't need them - rather than as a way to make cutscenes interactive - so Yu Suzuki and company are going to have to be very careful about how they use them if they want to keep such scenes in Shenmue 3.