From almost the very beginning, video games have drawn inspiration from Chinese literature
A gamer’s pale cheeks reflect the glow of a screen lit by the introduction to the hottest game of the season. For the first time, the player will be in control of Sun Wukong’s famous staff, will crush the skulls of hideous yaoguai, and clear a path to India for their master.
No, this is not a contemporary story. The gamer is not playing Black Myth: Wukong.
It is the summer of 1984. Ronald Reagan is in the White House. The Soviet Union is going to boycott the Olympics. The gamer is standing in an arcade in Osaka, having just pumped a 100-yen coin into a cabinet to play Capcom’s Son Son: Let’s Go Tenjiku, a rudimentary side-scroller based on Journey to the West.
From almost the very beginning, video games have drawn inspiration from Chinese literature.
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