![]() ![]() The environments look fairly beautiful and detailed, but the faces have the nostalgic familiarity of a Shenmue HD remaster with slightly smoother edges. The two characters wander into a nearby rural village, and suddenly I’m back in the world of Shenmue, a world that has apparently not been touched by any of the past 15 years of mechanical advancements in game design. Shenmue 3 begins literally the moment after Shenmue 2 ends, with Ryo and his new partner Shenhua Ling, a young woman also tied into this prophecy, trying to discover where Ling’s father has been taken after a kidnapping that seems tied to the murder of Ryo’s own father. It was a hell of a cliffhanger, especially when you consider how many years it took for there to be any payoff. Shenmue 2 ended with the revelation that Ryo was part of an ancient prophecy, possessing one half of a pair of mirrors which, if united, might cause the end of the world. Ryo takes to the streets with his martial arts skills, and a willingness to move crates with a forklift to pay the bills, and tracks his father’s killer across the world to get revenge. I play as Ryo Hazuki, a teenager living in Japan whose father was murdered. It’s a game that spends all of its time looking backward. What it doesn’t do is move the series forward, nor does it seem interested in looking to the future to see what Shenmue might become. Faithful to a fault, Shenmue 3 feels like a time capsule of a game, flooding me with nostalgia while also reminding me just how far games have come since the original two Shenmue games. Shenmue 3 is, for better and worse, exactly what I expected it to be, based on the original two games in the series. Usually there’s some gimmick added, or an aspect of the design modernized, but there’s almost always something unexpected to shake up the formula, to add something to our understanding of what the series can be. In addition to the base discounts, Epic's voucher system is making a return, meaning each time you purchase a game valued at $14.99 USD or more (or whatever your local equivalent may be), you'll receive an additional $10 USD discount voucher applied to your purchase at checkout.Įpic's Holiday Sale is underway now and will be coming to a close on 6th January next year.When playing a game like Shenmue 3, a sequel that has almost two decades of expectations, hype, and pressure riding on its shoulders, it’s rare for the end result to be exactly what one would expect. ![]() Today's first freebie coincides with the start of Epic's annual Holiday Sale, which brings discounts of 10-95% across a wide selection of games and add-ons. And although the company hasn't spelled out its schedule precisely, a leak last week (which correctly named Shenmue 3 as the first freebie) claimed the first 14 titles would remain free for 24 hours while the final game would stick around for a week, until 6th January. Watch on YouTube Shenmue 3 - Launch Trailer.Īs for what comes next, Epic is keeping its remaining mystery gifts a mystery, but it has confirmed it'll be introducing one new freebie every 24 hours for the next 15 days. It is, then, perhaps a little niche as a launching point for this year's series of festive giveaways on the Epic Games Store, but still one worthy of your time, provided you're in the mood for action that feels like it was sealed in a time bubble and spat forward 20 years to the present day. Picking up where Shenmue 2 left off, part 3 sees protagonist Ryo Hazuki resume his quest for vengeance after the murder of his father in the original, delivering a new chapter that Eurogamer's Martin Robison called both "archaic and arcane" and "a worthy successor to what many consider an all-time great" in his review. Shenmue 3 is, of course, the long, long, long-awaited third instalment in developer Yu Suzuki's classic action-adventure series, which finally arrived in 2019 following a gap of 18 years between it and its predecessor. Tis the season of festive sales in video game land, and the Epic Games Store has now thrown open its shutters and bellowed news of its own discount offerings into the cold winter night, which includes the return of its daily "mystery gift" free games, starting with Shenmue 3.
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