After watching this a few more times I don't really see what's justifying such a negative reaction.
The faces need work for sure, but the environments and the animation aren't terrible by any stretch.
Are there actually any backers in here posting with a negative reaction? I'm assuming everyone calling it garbage and a disaster had no real interest in it anyway.
I guess my posts probably come across as negative. I don't actually think it looks terrible, but the faces are definitely going to be the first thing to catch basically anyone's attention. I can see them improving before release, as they contrast heavily against the body animations, which I'd expect to also be far lower quality otherwise. I still think that they should have gone with a Dreamcast-era look, as tbh this is basically a day I saw coming a looong way off. Here's a post I made in March 2014:
I don't think the number of people that would pledge, or the amount they would pledge would be of significant enough difference to make the jump to a more greenfield development worthwhile. Most of the people that really want to see the series completed (as in "multiple hundreds of dollars" want) are more concerned about the project simply existing, than it being cutting edge in any way. Time has actually built up a decent amount of nostalgia for how Shenmue looked, and redoing all the graphics actually has a good chance in harming people's sense of familiarity with it, if not done well.
I think just lifting assets from the DC version wholesale would not only sidestep a lot of the criticism the game draws by seemingly aspiring to modern standards whilst not having to budget to compete with something like Yakuza on that front, but it'd also likely help the budget spread further, so there would be more Shenmue 3 included at lower tiers than the goals we ended up with.
I'm a $250 tier backer, in case you're wondering. No regrets. Despite the criticisms I may have with some of the choices made, at the end of the day I'd rather have paid $500 and the game ship looking exactly as it does in that trailer, than have spent the next decade or two wishing that we had any signs of life for the IP.
Shenhua needs sorting though. Seriously, lol.