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.