In January of this year (2023) I was going through an extremely bad period of my life. My depression was at an all time low, and I started to show a few symptoms of being schizotypal (which have since disappeared a little bit). Around the same time, the next game in my backlog was this game.
As I was playing it, something strange happened. I started to feel extremely happy. Shenmue taught me about the intricacies of life: how to keep a schedule, how to be more friendly towards people, how to explore and interact with the world around you, and so much more. It does seem silly to talk about how a game has changed the way you act in real life, but it happened for me.
For a game to do this to a human means it transcends the lowly status of being a "video game". Shenmue I & II is a magnificent sprawling work of perfection that rarely shows its age. Everyone should play it; not just gamers, but salarymen, wives, children... everyone.
As I was playing it, something strange happened. I started to feel extremely happy. Shenmue taught me about the intricacies of life: how to keep a schedule, how to be more friendly towards people, how to explore and interact with the world around you, and so much more. It does seem silly to talk about how a game has changed the way you act in real life, but it happened for me.
For a game to do this to a human means it transcends the lowly status of being a "video game". Shenmue I & II is a magnificent sprawling work of perfection that rarely shows its age. Everyone should play it; not just gamers, but salarymen, wives, children... everyone.
2 Comments
I will say that the forklifting job section is one of the weaker parts of the game, but I found it relaxing. I also don't think it shows its age at all; so many modern games have a similar gameplay loop in the form of copy and paste side quests haphazardly plastered around an open world map (see: BOTW, any modern Far Cry game, Elden Ring, etc.). The difference between all of those games and Shenmue I is that the forklifting sections comprise maybe 1 hour of gameplay, so it's decently tolerable.
Ramaladni
5 months ago