Simon S.

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Played the free weekend on PC. Ultra settings, and the game is a blurry mess. Everything except for the center is blurred out, which makes it for the only non-VR game so far to make me feel sick playing it. I spent time reading threads with people trying to fix this, but it is NOT possible to disable this effect. The game isn't available on Steam, so it would be hard to purchase even if it was good. But with the issues I'm having playing it, the story that seems to be rather boring, and the world despite an interesting concept was executed rather poorly (lots of empty space with not much to do), I wouldn't recommend jumping through the hoops to get it. This is coming from someone who enjoyed Far Cry 5, and obviously FC3. It's safe to skip this one, and here's hoping Ubisoft executes FC7 better (and makes it available on platforms that people actually use).

I love Yakuza games, and this gets a recommend simply because it's part of the series. It's one of my least favorites though due to the idea of having four main characters. Due to this, I was never motivated to actually explore or improve any of them, or feel like I'm the main character that's part of the story. It was the first Yakuza game I kind of just rushed through to get to the ending due to this lack of investment in any of the characters. Technically it's a large improvement over Yakuza 3 and you can see how the series was progressing. The main plot was kept interesting from start to finish too, and I can see how they though having multiple characters will allow the writers to come up with some interesting new ideas and side-quests. Sadly, this approach does not translate to a good experience for the gamer, making you feel like you're watching a couple of dudes from the sidelines rather than feeling immersed as the main character throughout the story. Yakuza Like a Dragon nailed it perfectly with having multiple companion characters with interesting stories and side-quests, while still retaining you as the main protagonist. I hope they stick to this formula. I'm already dreading playing 5 with multiple protagonists again until I can get to the apparently excellent Yakuza 6 to play the entire game properly with Kiryu.

They definitely needed at least 6-12 more months to actually finish the game and make it closer to what this could have been. The city is lifeless, they definitely needed to focus on things to do and interactions outside of the missions, including additional NPC interactions, businesses to interact with, friends, romances etc. Oh and of course big time on the NPC behavior and AI. What we got are just missions with shallow blandness around, and no real role-play since we are playing essentially a predefined character, with the limited customization and range of dialogue options sadly not having much of an impact on the experience. From the environment perspective, we just got a nicely decorated frame populated with simple bots without any functionality. We were promised this immersive city that we could actually feel like we're in it, but they could hardly disappoint more on this promise. It's hardly more interactive than GTA Vice City was 18 years ago, and even much smaller games have gone way past what Cyberpunk offers since then. The interactivity within the world is definitely disappointing to say the least. It's almost like they didn't even start working on the actual functionalities and interactions within the world that they promised and they definitely needed the extra 6-12 months to actually deliver an immersive world, and I believe they could pull it off if they were given this time. This is such a shame, since the city is there, the beautiful assets are there, and now that there's time to put it in the oven and do all the fun things to create an immersive world around them they decided to just make them appear/disappear and move semi-randomly to release something they could call a game. If we're talking about releasing this barebones version we got but without most of the immersion-breaking bugs and performance issues, probably they still needed a month or two more months at least. The glitches range from immersion-ruining to game-breaking. While the game looks much better on PC than it does on the consoles, its performance is very poor considering how little there is actually happening apart from dumb NPCs and cars doing nothing except of moving on their paths. There is definitely plenty of low hanging fruit to make a lot of optimization on the CPU and GPU sides. We're in this weird place that they released it before the game was remotely close to being finished. It's a pretty canvas with the main story baked it, but it's not built upon yet. The main quests and side quests are there, but everything else is essentially missing from the game, the world has nothing to do in it yet which is the opposite of what people expected. At the same time if CDPR decides to undo this damage and fix their reputation by dedicating the same effort that they should've to finish it now, much fewer people will experience it. Most people are finishing the game in this sorry state now and not planning to re-play it all over again once it's truly finished. The reviews have been written, people made their minds up about the game, some people return their copies. For most people, as well as for the reviewers who already rated the game as is and will move on, it will be simply too late. If this game ever lives up to its promises, most of us won't be there to change our minds that this game was not just a major disappointment after all. If I was a dev at CDPR thinking I'm working on this amazing, complex RPG pushing the boundaries for the genre, I would feel absolutely devastated.

By far the most confusing thing about the reviews that rated this game at below 8/10 is that their main criticism is always about the game being slow paced and lacking conveniences (skip time, teleport to destination etc.) familiar from other modern games. That is like saying that meditation or spiritual experiences are slow paced and boring because you don't have work you absolutely need to accomplish asap. Shenmue games have always presented you with experiences, worlds that you could feel with all your senses like no other games have come close to. This isn't like an RPG where you have to run to side quests all the time. This is like life in far away land in the 80s. You are experiencing life and things happening around you at all times, and it's really beyond other gaming experiences you might have with typical open world games where the worlds don't feel authentic and make you feel lonely instead. Shenmue makes you feel like it's a deep, complex world that you belong in and really live in. You aren't pretending to be on adventure, you actually believe that you are and your senses experience it as if it were true. No other game I've ever played came close to giving me that. This is what truly makes Shenmue so amazing, and a spiritual experience like no other game for many of us. And making them appeal to gamers who would like to teleport to their destination and push to complete the game as soon as possible, as opposed to truly enjoying it, would kill the main thing that makes Shenmue so special and unlike just regular games. It is misunderstood, because people don't understand the experience it can deliver if you realize that some games give you much more if you don't just rush to complete them. If there aren't many other games like that, that's Shenmue. I don't believe it should be judged by the same criteria as other games, simply because it realizes that it's biggest value is soul, and that's what it banks 100% on.