The Quiet Between Strikes: Shinobi and the Discipline of Waiting

Quiet Mode: Gaming reflections from the pause menu of life.

A shinobi strikes with silence, but the breathless strike only matters after the pause.

In Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, you learn quickly that rushing is your undoing. Sure, it works for the initial low-level ninjas you encounter. But soon after, you realize charging forward carelessly doesn’t make you stronger, just vulnerable. But what carries you beyond this vulnerability, you may ask? Patience, the art of holding back so your strike lands when it matters most.

And that lesson feels perfectly at home in October, a season built on pauses, with holidays around the corner and the gentle touch of winter beginning to make itself felt in the air. The months that follow are typically quite busy with many events that matter, making October an optimal time to gather ourselves and prepare.

Shinobi doesn’t reward flailing. Every attack matters and every mistake has a cost. The true art of the game isn’t in endless motion, but instead what happens during the spaces between the motion. You wait in the shadows, measure your timing, feel out the environment, determine the enemy’s attack and movement patterns, and act when the moment is right.

The silence sharpens the action into the strike - lethal to opposing ninjas. The quiet teaches you to be present, to notice, breathe, and to let anticipation build. Without the quiet, the strike lands flat, and becomes a simple attack that can easily be dodged. Only with calculated delay beforehand, can the strike become deliberate and decisive.

October works the same way. The rush of summer is well in the rearview mirror. The chaos of the holidays hasn’t begun yet, but it nears. It’s a month defined by stillness, and space. The crunch of leaves is underfoot, the bite of cold air, the longer shadows of a late-afternoon sun - all reminders that this time to pause is here, but fleeting. It’s time for preparation. This is a time that nature slows down, trees shed their leaves, and so should we let go of what is not needed anymore.

This understanding started to sink in when I reached the Kozaru. That’s where I found the game stopped forgiving button-mashing, and started to teach me what silence can do. I knew something had to change – fast.