Split-Screen, Analog Fun. A Reflection of Console Gaming

This is a screenshot of me playing the first Golden Sun on a Macintosh emulator. The emulator has a Github repo which can be forked, and the emulator can be had and played from the dev’s website.

Video games prior to the second decade of the twenty-first century were not yet integrated into the internet, for the most part. The video game industry hadn’t yet made its headlong foray into the Internet of Things. This meant that video games were somewhat of an individual experience, an activity which depended on a player’s own solitary commitment of time and energy, completely independent of another’s investment of the same.

Of course, this was only the case if you had no friends. If you had friends, if they had similar interests, then you probably would have invited them over for a merry split-screen hang at your place, to the occasional chagrin of your parents if they overstayed their welcome.

Far too many of my days and hours were whittled away crushing it on Super Smash Bros. Melee or Halo with Friends, or watching one of my friends run over innocent bystanders in a GTA campaign. Far too many hours were spent trying to obtain golden stars with eyes on them in Super Mario 64. Even greater quantities of time were spent experiencing the story of a game called Shenmue, which is quite possibly unfamiliar to most. This game came out in 1999 on the SEGA Dreamcast gaming console.

I must talk about this game in more detail, as it holds a special place in my soul.