It's strange that the game that popularised the idea of the open city is so opposed to privileging the player as a free agent. Instead of wandering, we must obsessively micromanage time to fit in with the schedules of Yokosuka's inhabitants. To miss a meeting is to wait for the next day, and to feel every minute of the full duration. Ryo is too young to drink, and even if he wasn't he probably wouldn't drink any way. The setting sun does not herald adventure for us because Ryo has to be home for his mum so he can collect his allowance in the morning. He is strange, and his body moves in a blocky, strange way, which eventually comes to make its themes of alienation and obsession manifest in the way we play Shenmue. To adopt Ryo's body is to absorb his hangups, his estrangement into the process of what is already uncanny: reentering the relic world of Shenmue, and learning to read all of its ghosts.