Damn, Era is a lot more sensitive about Shenmue than I guess. But I also guess it's a Jim Sterling video, so people just hate it on that angle for some reason/also have no idea what Jimquisitions are (seriously, it's always been whatever Jim wants to talk about that doesn't quite fall into an impressions of a new game video, that's all they've ever been).
What's worse is that people seem to have not watched the video as usual and are quick to point out things like Shenmue's influence when Jim acknowledges just that in the video and acknowledges that the first Shenmue was successful in its own right, but still always a niche title. And that's kind of the whole point of the video. Yu Sazuki has been given millions upon millions of dollars to try to create his vision with no limiters, and it has almost always resulted in underperforming titles that are unsustainable productions, particularly due to his unwillingness to compromise anything about the series and the need to keep expanding the scope. The Waterworld comparison absolutely works within that frame of reference.
Shenmue III proves that Sazuki, at the very least, is a bad project manager. $12 million is a lot to make a game with as others have pointed out, yet Shenmue III absolutely does look and by all accounts play terribly dated, and it's just not really living up to the budget and support it has received. Which is made even worse by the fact it looks to have continued the tradition of just being super niche and then hard to turn profit via the sales data.
People are allowed to like it as much as they want, but it's also really hard to deny the overall point that Shenmue is a niche series with a disproportionate amount of money thrown at it developed by a director who has no restraint in anything he does and is, by all accounts, very much a man out of his own time at this point since he hasn't developed a title besides mobile options in almost two decades.
This is just one man's analysis of the Shenmue series through his lens and I don't understand why people seem so defensive over this and so critical of Jim like this isn't his usual MO to begin with. Jim is a critic with a specific voice, you should know by now how you handle that voice lol.
