Latest Shenmue III Trailer Highlights Combat and Training System

Ys Net's Shenmue III is a little more than two weeks away from its release date, and in a recent interview, series creator and founder Yu Suzuki spoke about Shenmue III's combat and its essence. As with the previous entries, Ryo Hazuki spends a great deal of time and energy training and sharpening his style of Jujutsu. Training regularly at the Dojo will provide you with an opportunity to build Ryo's variables and learn new techniques. The following is a translation of some of the talking points Yu Suzuki covers:

"What is Hazuki Style Jujutsu?

Yu wanted to have a character with strong roots, who carries across his beliefs with him from Japan to China. His martial arts, which Yu named "Hazuki-style jujitsu," is symbolic of that.
Yu's concept has for this style is that its' flexible: it is not about only attacking and defeating your opponent, but also about deflecting your opponent's attacks.

Story Advances as You Become Stronger

You'll come up against opponents as the story progresses: middle-ranking enemy bosses, high-ranking ones and so on. Occasionally you'll need to defeat them to progress.
To become a stronger fighter, one method is obtaining Skill Books. Used well, these will enable to you to progress the most efficiently because you can combine them with potions to restore your health. Some players advance by spending all the money they earn on potions to help in winning fights.

Variable Difficulty Setting

Yu considers Shenmue to be an RPG, so wants even players who aren't good at fighting to be able to complete it.
There are 4 levels of difficulty available (Story Mode, Recommended, Challenge Mode and "You'd Better Not!").
Story Mode reduces the difficulty of battles etc.
There is also Challenge Mode, but according to Yu "it isn't that difficult" and he recommends choosing this level for Shenmue fans."

In June of 2015, Shenmue III launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised $1 million dollars in 1 hour and 44 minutes, the fastest game to reach $1,000,000. Despite raising $7,179,510 from 81,087 backers, Ys Net later received additional funding from both Sony and publisher Deep Silver. That decision drew some criticism from loyal backers. In a more stunning decision, it was announced that the Windows version of Shenmue III would be an Epic Store exclusive, leaving backers of Shenmue on Steam furious, as they felt their loyalty was betrayed. Steam backers were offered a deal of accepting the Epic or physical port, a copy for PlayStation 4, or a full refund.

The first Shenmue was released on the Sega Dreamcast in 1999, along with its follow-up in 2000. While praised for being a true living open world game and labeled on of the best games of its era, the Shenmue series were commercial failures relative to the cost of development. Shenmue II would later be ported over to the Xbox, following the Dreamcast ceasing production and being discontinued in 2001.

Shenmue III's release date is set for November 19th 2019 for Playstation 4 and the Epic Store on Windows