Hello! Welcome back to the Video Game City Week. In this piece, Aamir makes the case for including Shenmue 3’s wonderful Hotel Niaowu in our ultimate video game metropolis.
Hotel Niaowu
My parents used to take me on various holidays when I was a child. The hotels we stayed in were odd — simultaneously cosy and alien, a place to rest and eat with family while also encountering a swarm of strangers in a far too polished environment. I don’t think I’ve come across a hotel in a game that captures this cosy yet alien sensation quite as well as Shenmue 3’s Hotel Niaowu. The interior of Hotel Niaowu feels as perfectly tidy and elegant as the hotels I recall in reality, with its golden chandeliers and maroon leather sofas. The receptionist, on the other hand, is eccentric and oddly casual, throwing your room keys down on the table in front of her before humming and attending to the curlers in her hair. If you pay more money she also allows the character you play, Ryo Hazuki, to use the lobby telephone, where you can actually call some of the people you knew from the previous games, such as Ryo’s mother-like figure Ine-san, or his close friend Nozomi. You feel, as you talk to them, like smiling, the way you would smile when speaking to an important person after a long time.
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