Within a few minutes, though, that happiness had morphed into concern. Many of the series’ problems, I realized, hadn’t been fixed. The voice acting was atrociously bad and the characters conveyed little emotion during cutscenes. Ryo looked at everyone with a dead-eyed stare that was excusable in the Dreamcast era but now looks creepy and uncomfortable. The hand-to-hand combat felt stiff and generally lifeless, too. I rattled off a few combos but was largely underwhelmed by how they looked on screen.

At the end of the demo, I put down the controller and realized that nothing had surprised me or surpassed my expectations. And that sucks. I’m grateful, of course, that Suzuki has been given the chance to continue Ryo’s story. And I appreciate that the legendary game designer hasn’t messed with the series’ structure and vision. I just wish everything had a little more polish and didn’t feel, well, quite so much like an old Dreamcast title.

For better and for worse, Shenmue 3 is more Shenmue.

Creator and director Yu Suzuki and publisher Deep Silver said while Shenmue III is almost done, “the game simply needs a little more refinement before being truly finished.” The crowdfunding campaign for the sequel took place in 2015, and the game was initially supposed to arrive in December 2017. The release was pushed back until the second half of 2018, and then again to August 27th before the latest delay.

At least this time around, the delay is down to a few months rather than a year or more. In that sense, it does seem Suzuki’s Ys Net team is edging closer to finally getting Shenmue III ready for PS4 and PC.