At Digital Foundry we’ve talked about ‘impossible ports’ before – games like Doom 2016 and The Witcher 3 on Switch that seem to deny technological limitations and still bring the essence of the original experiences to a new audience. Shenmue 3 is something very different, but equally as unlikely. It’s an impossible , a game that shouldn’t really exist owing to a whole host of reasons, but somehow here it is. It’s a miracle that I’m now playing a modern sequel to a game that came out 18 years ago, a game that was – by all financial criteria – a major flop. Its sheer is something to be treasured, but fundamentally, is it actually a good game and a worthy sequel? I’d say that the results are mixed. This is Shenmue viewed through a modern lens, which is absolutely fine. However, it’s also a sequel produced very much as an indie production with limitations that impact the scope of the project, and by extension, how refined the game actually is.
A lot has changed since the original Shenmue was released. Its announcement and subsequent arrival on Dreamcast were quite an event – the culmination of everything Sega-AM2 had learned throughout its storied history. It was one of the most expensive games ever produced at time of its release – a truly lavish production built on a proprietary engine designed for cutting-edge console technology.
Almost two decades later, the world in which Shenmue 3 has released is a very different place indeed. With a presumably smaller budget and fewer resources, Ys Net has selected to utilise third party technology in the form of Unreal Engine 4 to produce the game for multiple, established platforms – a night and day shift from Shenmue’s origins. From triple-A blockbuster with a ginormous budge to indie development, Shenmue has changed, Suzuki has changed – and today’s games industry is a very, very different place.
The multi-platform side of the equation is where I feel Shenmue 3 does actually disappoint. All pre-launch marketing and demos have been on PC and the launch was actually our first chance to look at the game running on PlayStation 4 consoles. Resolution is lower than expected at 864p on the base console and 1080p on PS4 Pro, but still looking fine overall thanks to Unreal Engine 4’s excellent temporal anti-aliasing solution. However, both console versions run with an unlocked frame-rate that delivers a stuttering, highly variable experience.
Shenmue 3 runs north of 30 frames per second at least, but a frame-rate cap should be an option here – at the very least, it would bring the experience into line with the original titles. As things stand, running unlocked doesn’t really work for me. PS4 Pro has a five to 10fps advantage over the base unit, but the experience doesn’t feel right for me on either system. For this reason alone, I’d take the PC version. Beyond resolution and frame-rate, PS4 and Pro deliver the exact same visual experience – clearly a set target for Ys Net as this graphical experience is entirely consistent with the PC version on its very high setting. This is all fairly typical of a third party UE4 title, so it’s not entirely surprising but still, I had hoped for more.