My point was that Deadly Premonition feels much more like Shenmue than... almost any other game that also exists. Ultima and Dragon Quest are still very different, and there are games that are far more similar to Ultima than Dragon Quest and games far more similar to Dragon Quest than Ultima.
But when I think about Deadly Premonition, I'm reminded of my wife mentioning that it seemed highly similar to my playthrough of Shenmue 2, and she's right. They share almost every single core gameplay element - from the schedules to the weather system to the QTEs to cumbersome controls to the puzzle/profiling hunts to quirky NPCs to giant open-world/city to the need to get money/sleep, etc. etc.
If you were to say "hey, I liked Deadly Premonition's game structure, what games are like it?" the first example that would jump out would be Shenmue. There are differences, of course (unless you think vehicle sections and forklifts are interchangeable), and the tone is different (DP interrupting its wacky daytime shenanigans with dissonant horror vibes), but in execution they're very close in execution.
That's sort of what I'm getting at. A lot of the things Jim has complained about that's in Shenmue are present in Deadly Premonition. A lot of the things he praised Deadly Premonition for are in Shenmue.
I totally get what you're saying.
Ultima and DQ aren't universes apart (especially if we're talking about the actual Ultima and Dragon Quest games as in U1 and DQ1).
It might as simple as Jim not getting Shenmue to click while DP with as absurd as it can be manages to.
I don't really like FFVII but I adore FFVI and I mean mechanically despite FFVII being pretty much the very evolution of VI.
It is surprising but it's not out there.
I think Suzuki wasting everyone's cash for over 10 years is probably the reason why he's less forgiving on Shenmue than one would expect.
Despite what it looks like here, I don't think that game was that unprofitable to make for anyone but Epic.
Deep Silver is probably the reason Epic nabbed the exclusive so part of the cost might be mitigated to them.
Sony got a nice bit of marketing at e3 out of it.
Heck even Epic got something out of it.
The fans got the game and Suzuki gets to continue a story 10 years in the making.
It might be one case where everyone won here
regardless of the performance of the game in the market.