A few decades ago the masses believed video games were a waste of time for lackadaisical youths to pacify themselves while ignoring their responsibilities as both kids and young adults. As more and more people started understanding the benefits of gaming so too did the perception of what a video game is and, most importantly, the benefits gaming can bestow on a person’s life changed.
Hi, my name is James Bullock and I am a gamer who has spent the better part of his existence testing the laws of physics, exploring the vastness of a world ruined, and been a champion inside various arenas courtesy of digitized worlds both driven by reality and created through pure unbelievable ingenuity unlike anything seen by human eyes. And as a gamer I’ve discovered something else video games provide: life lessons. Today I examine a game series where waiting around isn’t a showcase of laziness, but of patience with the “Shenmue”.
Patience and Planning Are Necessities
1999 represented a lot of change in society from the fear of Y2K, to gangsta rap becoming something of a played-out sub-genre, to Sega deciding that it was time to get this sixth generation of console gaming started. Sega unknowingly released its final piece of new hardware in 1999 known as the “Dreamcast” with a litany of innovative attachments and software including a built-in modem and games like “Power Stone” respectively.
The Dreamcast allowed for creators & developers to test the waters unlike any system before them with Yu Suzuki believing that the sandbox style of action-adventure, third-person video games was going to be the next hot thing in gaming – a belief definitely proven true in the next two years starting with his own creation alongside Sega in “Shenmue”.
Set in the year 1986 inside Yoksuka, Japan, “Shenmue” has the player taking control of Ryo Hazuki – a martial artist who abandons everything he knows other than the fighting skills as he witnessed the murder of his father & fighting mentor for unknown reasons at the hand of a man of Chinese descent, Lan Di. Ryo is understandably riddled with guilt, as he couldn’t save his father through violent means as his skills weren’t up to par and the overall reason for his father’s death was a mystery to him. Instead of the game just pointing the player in the direction of progression, Ryo is made to ask anyone in speaking range be it in his family’s home & dojo or in the nearby town featuring hotdog salesmen & butchers.
It’s during Ryo’s investigation that the player discovers one of the most important factors of “Shenmue” that too is a big factor in anyone getting anything done in real life: there are schedules. People have things to do, operate at certain times, and even will go out of their way to help if it’s convenient for them. In “Shenmue” Ryo has to accomplish his investigation alongside a world full of people who go to work at particular hours, only can meet him at certain times & places, and some overall circumstances just happening because Hazuki’s at the right place at the right time.
To help Ryo get closer to finding the dreaded Lan Di the player must use the same patience & overall planning as one would in real life. And to take things a step further in an example as to patience being the biggest virtue in “Shenmue’s” enjoyment is the fact it permeates every aspect of Ryo’s life from training his martial arts skills through sparring & collecting/reading skill books, to cleaning out an old library, and even working on the dock to get some extra money. And though its sequels quelled the “issue” of having the Ryo stand in front of a hotel door for hours on end or playing Sega arcade games from the 1980s, the original decision to engrain in the player that not everything comes when you want or even need it still resonates in every aspect of one’s life including spending your entire paycheck in hopes of getting that one rare capsule toy.
Have you learned any major life lessons from playing the “Shenmue” franchise or any video game for that matter? Leave them in the comments below and, as always, thanks for reading.
