Shenmue III Review: 10 Ups & 6 Downs

1. I See...

For a game whose primary focus is narrative, it really should go without saying that the script, plotting, and dialogue are of the absolute utmost importance. Unfortunately, it seems it really did go without saying amongst Shenmue III's writers, when they didn't know better.

Particularly in the first part of the game, there is a frequent discordance muddling Ryo's conversations. Very basic questions are met with nonsensical, sometimes gibberish responses. Maybe it's supposed to represent the language barrier in the heart of rural China, but that was never an issue when Ryo learned Cantonese on a boat between Shenmue I and II. It often feels as though the script never passed the eyes of a native English speaker before going gold, which considering the game's global development, is inexplicable.

The narrative beats are somewhat erratic. A popular character from a previous game is reunited with Ryo with nothing more than a cursory greeting; they've only been separated a matter of weeks in game terms, but one showing up in an entirely different city is a coincidence worth comment. The resolution to an 18 year cliffhanger is brushed under the carpet in all of thirty seconds, as if to draw a line under it - despite all the obviously-quite-profound mystical nonsense. Ryo, despite almost never having a dialogue option in the game, can for no reason at all refer to an old lady as 'gorgeous', in a complete betrayal of his character. The compassionate but naive Shenhua is similarly, albeit briefly, bastardised in an even more galling manner.

Shenmue was never especially known for its strong dialogue; this was, after all, the game which gave us the immortal, "years ago, I was Chinese." But shoddy translation in a less globalised world could be blamed for those endearing slips. Are Shenmue III's script shortcomings an attempt to recapture that? It just doesn't make sense. Literally.