Shenmue III PS4 PlayStation 4 1

In the cold, hard, sobering light of day, let's be honest: Shenmue III doesn't look very good yet. Unlike other Kickstarter campaigns, Yu Suzuki is flogging this project on the branding alone – and it's worked. But with the funding drive already successful – and Sony admitting that it will be putting its hand in its pockets as well – it's time to start thinking about the actual game.

One of the questions that we've been pondering over the past few days is just what is wrong with protagonist Ryo Hazuki's face? Shen Hua looks reasonably okay – although not a patch on her Dreamcast model – and the environments look relatively great, but the star of the show looks all kinds of wrong. That's because these are very, very early pictures.

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"The screenshots and images posted are still in the early stages of development, and will continue to be improved," explains an update on the game's Kickstarter page. "Please help spread the word on all of your social networks so that we can deliver a Shenmue 3 that lives up to its legacy." In other words: the more money that the campaign makes, the more that the team will have to spend on polish.

At the time of typing, the project's acquired $3.3 million, but it is starting to slow down now. A new option was added for $3,000 which includes a replica of Ryo's jacket, and that has sparked an upswing in pledges, but we expect this to be a very front-loaded campaign. Naturally, it's going to keep getting donations, but we suspect that it'll top out at just a little above Bloodstained.

[source kickstarter.com]