Worst DLC in a game ever.

[You]

My god, all three DLC contents have been terrible. Such a chore to play and none of them have been fun at all.

Honestly, I love Shenmue and have stuck with this game right until the end, even though the game has frustrated me every step of the way.

All of this DLC has been pointless and worse still, an absolute chore to play. I type this now as I spam save having to get 9 exclusive pieces of clothing that I will never use just for the final gold trophy. Who decided this was a fun idea, and to include no new mini games AT ALL...

Even the base game has frustrated and punched me in the bollocks at every stage it possibly can. I am so relieved it is all over. I will never play Shenmue III ever again.

Watching videogameDunkey's movie on Shenmue iii cheered me up no end though. (Warning do not watch that movie unless you have completed the game as it has heavy spoilers)

[Kazuha-Migiwa]

So instead of just accepting that its not fun to do. You're making an pointless thread just to tell us that?

[DavySuicide]

On 17.3.2020 at 5:04 PM, Kazuha-Migiwa said:

So instead of just accepting that its not fun to do. You're making an pointless thread just to tell us that?

 

It's not pointless. He wrote his idea about the extra content, that's totally okay. And he is right about it. It's simply milking a cow and the franchise hasn't deserved this pile of shit imo. 

[You]

Ok, I am back. My first post was a bit of a rant, however I will explain in great "constructive criticism" detail why the Shenmue III DLC is the worst DLC ever created.

Let's examine them all in detail

 

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Story Quest Pack
----------------

If there was ever a case for content being cut out of a game and being resold back to you, then this DLC is it.
This DLC unintentionally comes with what I liked to call "bonus gameplay content", the real life sub quest of finding out where the hell it is and why won't it activate and having to google it.

The devs at Shenmue III must have thought it a great idea to make this DLC just like one of the side quests, easily missable.
Yes that's right. By the time you bought this DLC you might already be too far in the game to actually activate it. If you haven't got a previous save at a certain point TOO BAD!
You aren't ever going to be able to start it. You're not starting this baby till NewGame+ and of course you're gonna have to go through 65% of the game again.

 

Oh and once you start the DLC you'd better complete the DLC right through to the end, accidentally continue the story and BOOM you're screwed out of finishing the DLC. And the game won't even warn you about it.

Anyway, so how is the DLC? Well everyone's least favourite part of Shenmue II makes a return, the Chawan sign mini game!
Except this time it's all random and ultimately pointless. The "story" for the most part involves you walking to various places dotted about the city and making Chawan signs, then you walk back to the same table and talk to a guy, sometimes it is a different person. That is literally 80% of the DLC.

 

A plus point perhaps, albeit small, there is one new location created for this DLC and you get to go inside some Restaurant locations you haven't seen before. Although sadly using recycled enemies.

 

The trouble is, once you complete this DLC, you'll suddenly realise that even though the Chawan cups remain on all the tables (as if to taunt you)
You won't be able to sit at any tables anymore and if you didn't randomly try to do Chawan signs at every location in the game or "Spent over 100 hours waiting for Chawan Signs" because the game didn't tell you to do them before the final quest. Then you're screwed. Most of the game's trophies involve you accidentally ordering some food and drink which is completely random, you basically just have to put random cups positions in various locations and hope for the best. This cannot be even considered gameplay and considering the game has a strict time limit, if you waste too many days and then you will die, this seems a stupid decision.

Also, this DLC is called "Story Quest Pack", what the hell is this name? Sounds like a 2008 trophy listing name.

Still, at the very least, wasting entire days by using Chawan Signs 3 times in a day, I highly recommend you use this for the "Big Merry Cruise" DLC so you can skip to the next day.

Big Merry Cruise
----------------

The previous DLC, content just being cut out the game and then sold back to you later, well this DLC, is the exact opposite.
So the devs at Shenmue III thought, how can we fit a new location into the game, we've already designed the town so how can we put more content in? Let's just put a ship at the dock. No explanation, there's just a boat there now. And it stays there forever, every single day, and forever not actually going anywhere. Well that's a lie actually, because progress the story a bit too far and BOOM boat vanished, and forever, just like the first DLC.

 

So amusingly named, this is in fact no "Cruise", it's basically just a big room of content tacked onto the second city via a boat, not even merry either, but a room with gambling and mini games in it, it is literally all the stuff you have seen or played before elsewhere in the game copy and pasted here.

 

They didn't even make any new minigame content at all, even some of the NPC at the tables appear to be recycled. Which is incredible when you think about it because the ship is small and doesn't have many new locations so the amount of effort put into this one room of content is incredibly low effort.

 

You've also got some sub stories which due to the bolt-on nature of this DLC, they take place entirely in the ship only, nobody walks onto or off this ship, ever. Not even NPCs. So it is basically a jail for the customers on it but of course is a lazy bolt on as not to affect the base game content in any way.

 

There are special tickets that can only be earned once a day by playing one of the mini games, which game is chosen, is at random.
Most of the gameplay in this DLC will have you save scum saving and spamming your special tickets for several hours on a roulette wheel to get something ridiculous like 12 times the jackpot for secret costumes because otherwise you have to waste ingame time to go to the next day. And like the aforementioned instant game over after playing the game for too many days, it's in your interests to save scum because you can't play the rest of the game safely waiting for the next day because the DLC might vanish if you progress too far.

 

Seriously, you will be spending about 3 hours spinning a roulette wheel and reloading your game every 10 or so spins if you don't randomly hit the jackpot within a few spins.

 

So yeah, a few new sidequests and just gambling mini games. There isn't even a single fight in this whole DLC.

 

You have waste your precious hard earned main game cash here, which you of course need to buy shitty scrolls in the main game that are worthless anyway, you'll get some new outfits to wear, which of course you will never use or even care about.

 

Worst of all, you'll start a sub quest at 7pm and then because it is night time be teleported back to your room a few hours later, you'll save your game of course because the game asks you before you sleep.

 

Then when you do, next day you rush to the boat only to realise you failed the sub quest because you did not finish it on the same day because the stupid game is there to dick move you over at every possible opportunity and does not tell you this. Of course because you already saved over your save file and didn't make a new one every single time, you're now forced to go back to a previous save or restart the whole DLC again because you are locked out of a trophy forever.

Battle Rally
------------

Perhaps the most pointless DLC of all the three, a DLC which exists OUTSIDE of the game and has to be accessed from the main menu. Forgot your moves, training and progress on the main game, this is a whole new adventure spin off and your main save data couldn't care less.

This DLC just shits all over Shenmue canon and story continuity etc. Lots to unpack here.
Split into two seconds, searching for Bailu Chan and racing battles.

First off, the game basically forces you to find all 120Bailu Chan first before playing the "fun" part. Or course you can start the races straight away, but you will run slower, have less health etc so why bother.

 

Well you can do the races whenever you like, but why would you want to do them while you are at your weakest? There are trophies for coming in 1st and you need a fast time so of course you want the best chance of obtaining them.

So you are forced to find all the Bailu first, and boy is it a chore. One of the best things about Shenmue is the attention to detail of daily life, waiting at bus stops, going to places, experiencing all the fun of life in 1986.

 

In this DLC however, Ryo has had a brain implant that allows him to detect Bailu toys next to him, as if is he fucking Robocop.

You remember that fun sub game after completing Metal Gear Solid 3 where you run around the forest shooting monkey toys in the trees? Well it's kind of like that but without shooting and 10 times more boring. Sometimes you're staring right at one but the game won't recognise it because you're not at the exact correct angle and not center enough in the screen for it to be registered where it needs you to be.
Other times you will just spin the camera around and accidentally lock onto one without even realising it.

Things are of course helped along by Ryo having a beeping sensor in his head that allows you to know when he is near a Bailu, but it is dumb because walk to the edge of the area you are trapped in annd Ryo will just magically decide to not go there and force you back into the area.

So you have about 6 areas to find 20 Bailu and for some reason you can't bring up your minimap like in the main game to check your map next to a guide. The looped music will get on your nerves but in order to hear the radar you will have to put up with it instead of listening to your own music.

Just like in the original Shenmue III story the humming blind lady, her audio is so loud in one area and can be heard far away so she'll drown out the beeping noises and you'll have difficulty finding a couple of them near her house.

 

Then we come onto the race part, it's like a Tekken Force mode, a great idea in principle but unfortunately is really bad due to the high speed you are required to kill enemies to get more time.
You have to be fast to get the high scores, too fast to be honest and you don't really even have the time to fight, so you need to kill quickly. The time really pushes you, you'll be angry at an enemy blocking your attacks let alone when you get hit by one.

Worst of all though this race takes place in Shenmue III with its awful battle system. In any other fighting game, even Shenmue I and II, a combo of four buttons will have you doing punches and kicks while you are pressing the buttons. Not in Shenmue III though, the combat in this game sucks so bad in that Parappa The Rapper style you have to mash out a whole ton of buttons and Ryo won't even start to move until you have finished tapping and the game decides what move you decided to execute. Ryo will literally stand there and not even respond until your button command has finished. Sometimes it takes as long as 2 seconds before Ryo will actually hit an enemy allowing for time of you the human having to press the buttons quickly, suffice to say this means you have to stick to moves that can be pulled off quickly and able to quickly button mash out.

After all you are against the clock so wasting a second every time you want to attack is not good. This combat system is passable in the main game since you don't have a time limit to fight against, but here the battle system really fails hard. It's almost as if the devs knew how awful this combat was which is why you can assign moves to trigger buttons to just press the combo buttons for you and pull them off instantly.

I struggled to get 1st on a couple of the races even after doing all the Bailu and being fully powered up, so I looked for a guide.
Here is an exact quote from the guide by "BIG BOSS" on playstatiotrophies.org

"I recommend playing as Ryo because of his Elbow Assault move. It's very quick and powerful. Just run forward and use to use the Elbow Assault move on everybody"

And indeed it is true, due to how shit and laggy the combat is in this game, spamming the elbow works wonders, the fastest move in the game and it does a lot of damage, is literally the only and best tactic.

 

No skill required either. They pulled out all the stops in this DLC and they went to the effort of having 3 characters (or 4 if you count the stupid secret character....) which is a great addition, however choosing anyone else other than Ryo makes the challenge more difficult. Oh yeah I forgot to mention, Ren is here in this DLC despite him never appearing here in the main game, why is he here? No explanation, just live with it.

Race mode, a nice idea for a mode but is so broken, it's either too hard or incredibly easy depending on whether you use Ryo and spam his Elbow or not. The move is far too strong and fast to pull off and the CPU rarely blocks it or even if it does you just keep spamming Elbow again unti it hits.

Nice play testing there by the Shenmue III team.

ALso, what fighting game uses left analoue stick only and NOT DPad anyway for a fighting game? Even Tekken 3 Tekken Force mode on the Playstaton 1 is better than this. I cannot think of a fighting game like Virtua fighter that stopped you using dpad to fight. The game battle system is so lame, the devs decided to use the dpad to have you be able to drink health ups in battle, something which the original Shenmue games did not allow you to do.

Your rewards are just the same as the other DLC, things like T-Shirts, which are basically just like all the other T-Shirts in the game, the same gfx but with a different texture attached. Yeah T-Shirts mostly with designs on the front, where you spend 98% of the game looking at Ryo's back. No EXP or Money or anything, why not give the player some bonus money that they can use in the real game to cut down the grind?

In the context of the game, why are we looking for these Bailu, why is Ren in this location? Why isn't Shenhua helping? SUely SHE should have been the character you play when searching for Bailu? Why is an NPC we spoke to twice and sparred with once in the main game a playable character? Why is a giant Bailu chicken a playable character? So much effort seems to have been put into this mode but why? They could have spent their time, you know, literally anywhere else in the game improving the combat system or adding more story content to the actual game than any of these 3 DLC entries...

 

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1/10

 

Only worth the money if you want 100% trophies on the game, these trophies are fairly easy but really boring.

 

Utterly awful DLC to be honest, and only recommended for die hard fans like myself. It sucks that even after backing the game on Kickstarter, I had to pay for all of this DLC.
Nobody asked for shitty DLC to an adventure game and I am pretty sure none of it was on the kickstarter backer stretch goals.

 

I am a huge super fan of Shenmue which is why it pains me to write this, I stuck with the game till the very end even getting 100%

 

I doubt I will ever go back to Shenmue III, too many other things in life to do. Well, maybe one day I will return to Shenmue III base game, but definitely the DLC, never touching the awful DLC ever again!

Edited September 28, 2022 by enaysoft

[Sikutai]

I am not a Fan of DLCs, and yes I agree a bit. But the first (Battle Rally) was great, I loved it to search the Chobu-Chans.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Sikutai

[V-Trigger]

For me, the whole game was a piece of shit.

 

[You]

12 minutes ago, aranhaFEILONG said:

For me, the whole game was a piece of shit.

 

 

Well, unfortunately I'm very sympathetic to your comment.

It's kind of amusing to come back to this thread over a year later and reread my rant on this DLC.

 

I mean I would correct my spelling mistakes and bad grammar in places, however why should I bother?

If Shenmue III couldn't even be arsed to put in coherent gameplay and quality assurance, why should I bother either?

 

It's tempting to think my Shenmue III kickstarter exclusive box might be worth something one day, I doubt it though.

 

Also, for anyone else frustrated by this game, you should all watch this movie, which now stands at 1.6 million views and 95% upvote rating, it details why the game is bad and it resonates with me on so many levels. *WARNING* So of course it contains story spoilers, you have been warned!

 

 

Edited April 20, 2021 by enaysoft

[MatThaRiPP3R84]

i had a dreamcast but never played theese games before, bought all 3 today so I'm gunna see what i've been missing.

[PIOTREK27-1982]

Shenmue ended after the second one. What did you expect from a guy who didn't make one game in years? Never backed this game since Shenmue is empty word for me. Yakuza 0 is best Sega rpg game since first two Shenmues. Name doesn't make game good, it's the creative people that are behind it. It seems Suzuki is many years after his prime

Edited April 20, 2021 by PIOTREK27-1982

[arcanehornet_]

The guy who made Shenmue 3, Yu Suzuki, has openly admitted that he doesn’t play video games and that Shenmue 3 wasn’t influenced by modern games in any way.

 

Unfortunately it’s not surprising now these DLC’s and game turned out at all. 

 

And the fact that he got a shot at making a third story and chose to NOT wrap up the story, instead leaving it on an unsatisfactory cliffhanger, just shows that he’s stuck in the past. He plans to make Shenmue 4. Shenmue 4 will never happen.

 

Truly a tragedy.

[You]

On 5/11/2021 at 4:59 AM, arcanehornet_ said:

The guy who made Shenmue 3, Yu Suzuki, has openly admitted that he doesn’t play video games and that Shenmue 3 wasn’t influenced by modern games in any way.

 

Unfortunately it’s not surprising now these DLC’s and game turned out at all. 

 

And the fact that he got a shot at making a third story and chose to NOT wrap up the story, instead leaving it on an unsatisfactory cliffhanger, just shows that he’s stuck in the past. He plans to make Shenmue 4. Shenmue 4 will never happen.

 

Truly a tragedy.

 

I agree. I mean it wasn't even a cliff hanger. The whole game was like a distracting sidequest.

 

It was indeed a bit of a dick move for Yu Suzuki to go on about Shenmue as a "trilogy" for so many decades, and then when FINALLY getting a once in a lifetime chance to go back to Shenmue, and mostly funded and backed by his fans. What did he do?

 

He didn't progress the story, not one bit. The game did feel like Shenmue a fair bit, and the graphics were great, but the atmosphere and sense of progression was gone. The combat is awful now, and Shenmue was likely the game that made QTE back into mainstream gaming, and there was only a few in the entire game. If this is what he had planned for Shenmue 3, then I have no hope at all for Shenmue 4.

 

It was really distressing reading some of those diary entries in the hotel that were backed by fans, some of them were backed by friends of family of loved ones who had passed away already, but Shenmue was their favourite game of all time while in life. All their hopes and dreams and messages once the Kickstarter game had been funded and before Shenmue 3 had started being made. How sad most of them must feel now.

 

20 years is such a long time and of course many people will have certainly died already over 2 decades of waiting. There's no guarantee that even Yu Suzuki will be alive if and when Shenmue 4 gets made. It genuinely is frustrating to love and get involved in a gaming series for such a long time, to then know that there will be no ending or closure for it.

 

Even now I think of that running race DLC and I just think to myself "All those programmers and designers were working on this, when the ending and final 10% of the game is so awful. They could have been working on that instead..."

 

I still feel quite bitter about Shenhua's new face and clothing. Which they changed and made worse for no reason, the original rough design they had at the Shenmue 3 kickstarter reveal was way better. Her role in Shenmue 3 was utterly pointless. Not having a Shenmue 3 at all would have been better.

[Glorious Fury]

Personally, I'm glad it got made. Whilst not as good as the first two, it was nice playing a Shenmue game again despite it's flaws. I think the dated feel works fine for fans of the original Shenmue games but for new players or Yakuza fans it certainly was going to be a big miss. Combat is much worse however, Suzuki with his Virtua Fighter success has no real excuse here despite not making a game for many years. Story wise though.....certainly could have been left at a better point and progressed more than it did. 

 

The trophies however.......I think the devs may have smoked more herbs than in Bailu Village and Niaowu combined when coming up with that fishing trophy. I'm surprised it's got a moderately high completion rate, it may be one of the most boring trophies I've completed. 

[You]

45 minutes ago, GloriousFury9414 said:

Personally, I'm glad it got made. Whilst not as good as the first two, it was nice playing a Shenmue game again despite it's flaws. I think the dated feel works fine for fans of the original Shenmue games but for new players or Yakuza fans it certainly was going to be a big miss. Combat is much worse however, Suzuki with his Virtua Fighter success has no real excuse here despite not making a game for many years. Story wise though.....certainly could have been left at a better point and progressed more than it did. 

 

The trophies however.......I think the devs may have smoked more herbs than in Bailu Village and Niaowu combined when coming up with that fishing trophy. I'm surprised it's got a moderately high completion rate, it may be one of the most boring trophies I've completed. 

 

Nah Suzuki had no choice in that regard, sure he managed to get the rights to Shenmue, but Shenmue I and II has a ton of Sega stuff in it. Like all the Hang On, Outrun (Which in the end Yakuza would be allowed to use) and all the Gacha featuring Sonic and Virtua fighter characters. Of course all the fighting engine using shared movesets from fighters like Akira and Sarah. He can't use any of that.

 

The fighting engine is awful, hence why you can heal yourself in battle. I wish they had not gone to the effort of making sub games or gacha items. Trying to get Red Car, Blue Car and other such nonsense, and trying to pick up herbs without a mini map, and then padding out the game by blocking your progress with giant purchases so you have to grind somewhere. I'd have preferred a mostly story driven conclusion, the mini game and exploring is great in a setting that is already set out. But like Bailu is so poor, and old skool farm related, but then you have a games arcade in it despite the fact it looks suspicious to if they even have electricity there at all.

 

This is also the added issue, when you collect so much cool stuff on Shenmue I and II, but then Shenmue III all the moves, all the gacha, and for the most part, all of your items are gone forever. For a game all about Kung Fu and Zen and learning experiences it honestly sucks to have 2 games of progress taken away from you. Which additionally is sad because there are lots of allies like Tom at the burger stand and many Kung Fu guys like the one in the park in Shenmue II who teach you moves throughout the story in fantastic cut scenes. All of those moves are taken away from you. You train in the park for hours on Shenmue II, do then be forced to do horse stance / walk in a circle on this game for 30-60 minutes, just to get some extra stamina because otherwise I will die too quickly in battle.

 

Awful.

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by enaysoft

[Glorious Fury]

13 hours ago, enaysoft said:

 

Nah Suzuki had no choice in that regard, sure he managed to get the rights to Shenmue, but Shenmue I and II has a ton of Sega stuff in it. Like all the Hang On, Outrun (Which in the end Yakuza would be allowed to use) and all the Gacha featuring Sonic and Virtua fighter characters. Of course all the fighting engine using shared movesets from fighters like Akira and Sarah. He can't use any of that.

 

The fighting engine is awful, hence why you can heal yourself in battle. I wish they had not gone to the effort of making sub games or gacha items. Trying to get Red Car, Blue Car and other such nonsense, and trying to pick up herbs without a mini map, and then padding out the game by blocking your progress with giant purchases so you have to grind somewhere. I'd have preferred a mostly story driven conclusion, the mini game and exploring is great in a setting that is already set out. But like Bailu is so poor, and old skool farm related, but then you have a games arcade in it despite the fact it looks suspicious to if they even have electricity there at all.

 

This is also the added issue, when you collect so much cool stuff on Shenmue I and II, but then Shenmue III all the moves, all the gacha, and for the most part, all of your items are gone forever. For a game all about Kung Fu and Zen and learning experiences it honestly sucks to have 2 games of progress taken away from you. Which additionally is sad because there are lots of allies like Tom at the burger stand and many Kung Fu guys like the one in the park in Shenmue II who teach you moves throughout the story in fantastic cut scenes. All of those moves are taken away from you. You train in the park for hours on Shenmue II, do then be forced to do horse stance / walk in a circle on this game for 30-60 minutes, just to get some extra stamina because otherwise I will die too quickly in battle.

 

Awful.

 

 

I think more than anything, all the gameplay faults, grind etc it was the sheer ballsy move from Suzuki to leave the story at the point he left it, hoping for a sequel. He claims the story is half way or so, surely he could have made some adjustments to progress the story faster as getting another game after 3 is a stretch anytime soon. It felt very deflating to fans of the series who really wanted a conclusion, or at the very least a strong amount of progression.

 

Another factor is how unmemorable all the new characters introduced were. I can't even remember the names of any introduced off the top of my head but still fondly remember the likes of Nozomi, Tom, Master Chen, Guizhang, Joy from the previous games. At least Ren was in. 

 

Still, I did enjoy it but I'd be hard pressed not too as I love the Shenmue world, even if a little disappointed. Shenmue 1/2 are easily in my top 10 games of all time.

[Toxicmatic-]

i agree, im trying to 100% the game rn and the dlcs trophies are bs.. now i understand why they were free lol'