This has spoilers for the Last of us and The Last of Us part Two.
In an old blog post I wrote about the opening cinematic to Shenmue. I didn’t really have a reason to write it, other than it’s the intro to the game that made me truly love video games. The way people love Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy Seven, Mario 64, I love Shenmue. It made games not just a fun pastime, but opened my eyes to a medium that became an essential part of my life.
Shenmue did two things that were like nothing else I’d ever experienced, it was grounded in a reality that was also a world away: Nineteen eighties Japan, in Yokosuka, Dobuita about an hour away from Tokyo, basically Japan’s equivalent of Slough. There really shouldn’t be an excitement about exploring this place, a rough neighbourhood not too different to Holloway road. There’s a dirtiness to Dobuita, with sailors stumbling the streets after dark, a few rude bikers that tell you to “kiss off” when you ask them for information, your friends run hot dog stands and work part time at florists. You practice kung fu in a parking lot. There’s very little glamour to the world of Shenmue. I think in that, there’s an appeal in exploring a world so dingy. Especially as a child, you’re in a space you know your character shouldn’t be, it makes you more apprehensive than going into a spooky castle in Zelda, because your real-life self is so much closer to these uninhabitable grown up worlds. In Shenmue, one of the scariest moments is fighting some drunk locals in a bar.
What Shenmue also did is give me a motive beyond the usual video game context (rescue a princess, save a home-world) the story is intensely personal, your father has been murdered and it’s up to you to find the man who killed him, and also to find out why. When Lan Di takes the Dragon Mirror from your household, you know that in following this journey of revenge, you’ll get closer to uncovering something bigger than your own personal story.
With this combination of a fascinating world and urgent story, the first thing I did when I was able to control Ryo was knock on every door in the game. Literally, there was not one door I did not knock on. If there was a door to knock best believe I was knocking on it. Nearly every single time I knocked on a door I’d be met with Ryo saying “I guess they’re not home” and “Hmm, maybe I’ll try again later” these two stock phrases drilled into my brain over and over again until there’d be a moment, when one door in a block of flats would half open and an the voice of an old lady would say “oh, hello D’Yo San, I’m tired, come back another day” During this moment my whole body would freeze, the camera would then go back behind Ryo’s back, and I’d go to another door. Not only was I obsessed with finding out who Lan Di is and what car he drove and if anyone knows the whereabouts of any sailors, I was obsessed with having the type of interactivity that allowed me to knock on doors as knocking on doors and randomly talking to anyone was almost as fantastical as riding on Epona, not only that, for me, it was a more appealing fantasy. Feels weird saying that out loud.
Of course, Shenmue didn’t live on like Mario, Zelda or Final Fantasy did. It didn’t even live on like Duke Nukem did. A game so ambitious, so ahead of it’s time, so daring to be slow, to the point of skirting on the edge of boredom, to some, was firmly plotted in it. The story got cut short, never to be finished- and developed a cult following, but it wasn’t made for one, it was at the time the most expensive game ever made, and had a part to play in the downfall of it’s developer and publisher, SEGA.
I’ve spent a long time seeking out single player stories that have the same spirit of Shenmue, but very few have hit the mark, I think a big part of it is the value of life and death- in Grand Theft Auto you can kill anyone at anytime. In Shenmue you can talk to anyone, at anytime. Shenmue has one death, and the game revolves around it. On your block (a part of the town that’s a loading screen away from Dobuita) everyone knows you and loves you, when you talk to people, they commiserate you on your loss. Your friends will pop by and ask why you haven’t been at school and when you stay out late Ryo will lament that staying out will have Ine San (the house keeper.. Not mum. Really thought it was his mum) worry. There’s a constant sense that this is a person in a world that cares about him, and that he cares for, and in chasing Lan Di, you’re leaving that behind. So many games reach for freedom for the player at the expense of creating a world you care about. Very few games have had me want to knock on every door.
Then came the Last of us. A game with a masterful opening story, characters I loved and a world that was appealing as it was bleak. I recently completed the Last of Us part 2 and am compelled to write about it and the links to Shenmue as I kept on thinking about the parallels between the two while playing.
For those that don’t know, The Last of us is set in a world, again, like ours but unlike Shenmue taking us to the past, LoU goes into a dystopian future: a type of fungus has infected humanity, and with no bombs being released, nearly all of humanity has been wiped out. Many houses and shops are still standing, with grass and trees growing out of and taking over them, nearly everything has been ransacked nearly a decade ago, so you scavenge for the scraps of supplies inside each abandoned tattoo parlour, office block, or teenagers room with posters of films all over the walls.
Exploring the bleak world in the LoU reminds me of Shenmue, there’s a childish glee, a sense of cheekiness in jumping over shop counters, going through strangers draws and closets and sneaking under the cover of magazine racks. It’s taking the world you’re in and turning it enough to become warped, but enough for you to still see a world you can almost fit into.
In the Last of Us two you play as Ellie, and just like Ryo Hazuki, in the beginning of the game you witness your father/father figure, get brutally murdered. You then set out to find the killer, with friends and family trying to talk you out of it.
What I love about Shenmue and LoU is that the blend between feeling like you are the main character, and being a passenger on their journey, like your role as a player is not to control every decision the character makes, but to be their fairy godmother helping them along the way. Often you can take your character to proverbial watering holes, but they won’t always drink. This has positive and negative effects. Ryo sets off to find his fathers killer, but you can spend the whole first day of the game buying capsule toys. That disconnect if you’re not invested in the story is what put so many people of Shenmue in the first place.
LoU however has an almost perfect marriage between the characters motivations and the player’s curiosity. When you run into a room and immediately scavenge for trinkets and items to help upgrade your ammo, it’s not out of the self interest of the player to upgrade, it’s a testament to the skills Ellie has developed from being a hunter and provider in this unforgiving world. It makes perfect sense to read notes because often the reveal secrets about secret areas that will give you more (precious) ammo, they even write in a love for science fiction for Ellie, so when she finds X-Men style trading cards, of course she’ll glance at them.
(Just to make another- probably insignificant- link between Ryo and Ellie is the use of a notebook. In Shenmue Ryo put everything in a notebook and it was your way of keeping track of the story, but was an insight to how he felt about certain people, the true evolution of this is what Ellie has, it’s amazing reading Ellie’s notebook. There’s teenage poetry, sketches, confessions of love for characters in the game. I love the use of Ellie notebook so much. One of those small touches that actually helps humanise Ellie just as well as it’s cutscenes)
There’s a part where LoU2 falls flat, and it’s something that Shenmue one and two got right with the phoenix mirror and LoU1 got right with Ellie’s immunity to infection.
This is the why of Shenmue’s story coming into play again. As Ryo progresses with his journey, there’s a real sense of him losing himself in revenge, but as a player, there’s the underlying mystery of the phoenix mirror, the item Lan Di stole. There’s something bigger than a personal story and the closer Ryo gets to his target, the more the mystery unravels, the more the player loses themselves in the greater story. This allows you to let Ryo fall deeper into this world as you believe that what he will uncover could wind up being more important than a story about revenge.
With Joel you are tasked with looking after Ellie, who is immune to infection. While you look out for her and begin to become someone who can feel compassion and love again, there’s the underlying element that she’s one of the most important people in the world, and that your journey is vital for the human race.
LoU2 has an incredibly powerful personal story, but unlike the aforementioned games, there’s no underlying plot, no deeper narrative than Ellie wanting revenge. Getting closer to Joel’s murderer has her lose so much of her humanity and as a player you wonder if it’s worth it, because Ellie struggles with it too and there’s no other larger narrative to cling onto. No greater good. When halfway through the game the player gets to control Abby, you see more of the world of the game- which is amazing- but nothing close to a story that has higher stakes than killing Joel, which is far away from the fate of humanity that underpinned the first game.
I still loved the world of LoU2. I loved the character of Abby, her meeting Lev and Yara who help her become a more empathetic person, deciding to side with them over the faction that gave her an identity after her father died (that of a bloodthirsty soldier) to realising the futility of war she’s been part of-while on the nose- is brought to an electrifying conclusion.
I was still hoping for a moment when Lev would reveal he was immune too, it would’ve been a perfect mirror to what happened with Joel and Ellie, and Ellie really would’ve seen what Abby had become to someone else, that she’s not the same person who murdered Joel, and like Joel, like anyone, is capable of change. In a way I think Ellie can understand this, but it’s more up to me to interpret than anything else in the game, and the flashback to Joel as she’s about to murder Abby seems to make it more about Ellie thinking of Joel than Ellie seeing what Abby has become.
In some ways the character of Joel looms too large over the world of the LoU, reminiscent of Darth Vader in the Star Wars cannon, everyone seems to revolve around this beloved character that really shouldn’t matter as much as he does. He was killed and it’s awful, but people die in this universe everyday, b.
I really wish that LoU2 had something more to say about the world it had created, about the infected, about the rising powers, instead it gets so focused on the bitterness of it’s two main characters that when paired with the situation of the world we’re in, feel so petty.
I think is has been the most valid criticism of LoU2 and it’s what has it just behind what I loved about Shenmue and LoU. There needs to be a greater good for the player to see, even if the main character doesn’t.
What LoU2 does get right though, more than Shenmue and LoU, is environmental storytelling. I’ve never felt so engrossed in a world, there’s not one window you can’t break, not one room that doesn’t have something unique about it, every letter left behind feels like it was written by a unique person in a desperate situation. The naughty dog/Uncharted formula of walking with a companion and talking with them is done perfectly, especially with Ellies partner Dina, I’ve honestly never felt a love for a couple in a computer game the way I have for these two.
So while LoU2 is missing a core of narrative, the amount of small wonders it creates evens the scale, one thing I can say about The Last of Us part 2 was that I absolutely loved opening every draw.