Game Development Giant

"...It would be great if Mars Entertainment didn't release that game later."

When recalling this past history, Minoru Arakawa ended with this sigh, and everyone present also knew what game he was referring to. For Nintendo at the time, "Zelda" "Legend" was the closest they came to seeing the dawn of a comeback. Although in the days that followed, they had more than one victory against Mars Entertainment, there was never a time like this that allowed them to defeat them. There is such confidence in completely defeating one's opponent.

Jester is now holding the survey data of "The Legend of Zelda" for almost a month since its release, but he is a little depressed. He knew that this game was excellent, but he did not expect that it would be so excellent.

He doesn't care about the high sales volume of this game. For him, if the game sells well, it can only mean making money. If he wants to have the right to speak, it is useless just relying on the game selling well. It must be a game. Platform, that is, home game consoles sell well.

Because games are all cartridges, they must be used on specific home game consoles, and this company's cartridges can only be used on this company's game consoles and cannot be used on other companies' game consoles. , so as a platform carrying games, the share of home game consoles should be the most important.

According to the data surveyed by the research company hired by Jester at a high price, although they still have an absolute advantage in market share, if they don't do something to save themselves, they may be quickly caught up by the other party. .

When Jester told this data to everyone in the "Fire Emblem" development team, it could be seen with the naked eye that the expressions on almost everyone's faces became solemn.

There is more than one copy of "The Legend of Zelda" cassette in Mars Entertainment. The development team of Fire Emblem alone has two copies. They experienced this game when it was first launched. Almost everyone is interested in this game. This game has received high praise, but that's just it, because in their eyes, the "Fire Emblem" they are making surpasses "The Legend of Zelda" in every aspect.

And the most important thing is that the cassette of "The Legend of Zelda" is not equipped with a battery, which means that you cannot save the game when playing it, so if you want to play through it, you must complete it in one go, and this time they What you are doing is indeed a game that can be saved at any time.

After the people in the R\u0026D team played it, although the game was indeed good, because the market share of NES was too low, they did not think that the game could really sell well. In their speculation, they probably thought that this game would be a big hit. It will be a well-received game.

Even though Jester expected that this game would boost the sales of nes, what he didn't expect was that it would push it so hard.

Now, in the face of the latest survey data, everyone, including Jester, has felt the heavy pressure this game has brought to them. This kind of pressure is indeed stressful for people who are used to it easily. Some discomfort.

"Right now our fans are still waiting for our game, so we have to speed up our game. If we can't get it out before their interest in our game dies down, then it will be a disaster for us. Sexual.”

...Jester had an unfamiliar feeling about the future that had changed beyond recognition. He didn't know that "The Legend of Zelda" that he had changed now had nothing to do with the history of video game development that he was familiar with. He didn't know what the results would be in this world, but after seeing the data over the past month, he couldn't help but feel a little worried.

After Jester had a thorough discussion about Fire Emblem with the development team, the development team decided that in order to speed up the completion of the game, some systems that were planned to be added in the later stage would be cut off to improve the speed. The systems that were cut off were all It does not affect the gaming experience very much, so it is recognized by most people.

After the heavy pressure of "The Legend of Zelda", the speed of the Fire Emblem development team suddenly accelerated, and even the overtime hours made Yu Suzuki's Japanese team from Sega a little dumbfounded.

Jester also devoted almost all of his energy to the development of "Fire Emblem". He delegated other trivial matters to others to handle. Things such as establishing a film and television company and developing new cards were all ignored. He put it behind him. In his eyes, there was nothing more important than completing "Fire Emblem".

Even if Claudia comes regularly at least once a month, he can shorten the time and shorten the time. Claudia is also very critical of this.

Two months after "The Legend of Zelda" was officially released, and the game's total sales exceeded the 1.2 million mark, while Nintendo held a celebration party to celebrate, "Fire Emblem" was finally released on Mars Entertainment. In one room, the development is completed.

When the development team finished typing the last code and the program could run normally, everyone was filled with tears of excitement, and then everyone hugged each other vigorously. In the past month, they almost couldn't take off their clothes unless they really couldn't. Things to do, otherwise, you will work overtime every day, and some people may even work overtime for several days in a row. If you feel sleepy and tired, you will not go to bed, but just set up a bed in the company's break room and fall asleep. This kind of day goes on. It has been a month, but they have completed the development task that was planned to take more than two months to complete.

In order to cooperate with the promotion of "Fire Emblem", Jester interfered in the internal affairs of "Game" for the first time. It cannot be said that he interfered. He just suggested whether the magazine could publish a supplement with the theme of RPG games, because now " The popularity of "The Legend of Zelda" also caused a certain consumer boom in the United States, so the magazine quickly agreed to this suggestion.

The so-called supplements refer to magazines that are sold at abnormal sales times, that is, during the time interval when the previous issue has been released and the next issue has not been released. It is similar to the supplementary issue of a newspaper. It is only available after some very important issues. The news will only be published when it happens. The usage of extra-number is very strict. General matters are not qualified to use extra-number. It may not be accurate enough to use "very important". To be more accurate, it is only when the news is very, very important. I know how to use extra numbers, which means that the news is so important that it must be released immediately instead of waiting until tomorrow.

For example, news such as the explosion of the atomic bomb, the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, the death of Taizu, the successful bid for the Olympic Games, etc.

Of course, an entertainment magazine is not so serious.

During Fire Emblem's testing activities, Jester did not have a method like Nintendo's method of dispatching permanent employees to monitor leaked cartridges. After all, the United States is not Japan. Mars Entertainment's testers are located all over the United States. It is not easy for them to come to California for a game. It is unrealistic, and it is even more unrealistic to send people, but despite this, a certain amount of confidentiality work must still be done.

Referring to the way Blizzard tested games in later generations, Jester asked Mars Entertainment to sign a confidentiality agreement with everyone participating in the test. Without their permission, they cannot leak it to the outside world.

...Although some news will still leak out, in Jester's opinion, what is needed now is the leakage of various gossips.

Fire Emblem appeared in this era, before the three major Japanese RPGs were born, and its impact on the entire gaming industry was unparalleled. Jester knew this deeply. Although Fire Emblem was a niche in later generations, This is simply because there are so many great RPGs out there.

Moreover, in order to make Fire Emblem as popular as possible, Jester has weakened the SLG elements of this game as much as possible and highlighted the characteristics of RPG.

The rules and regulations of this game are almost like a textbook explaining what is a real role-playing. It is not a beautiful and innocent story like Nintendo, nor is it a complex data judgment like DND. The real RPG is " Fire Emblem".

This is what "Game" magazine said in the supplement, an article they wrote after playing the beta version of Fire Emblem. Even when rating this game, the editors of "Game" couldn't even give an accurate number, because in their opinion, "Fire Emblem" is perfect in every aspect, but To give him a perfect score seems to be a kind of blasphemy against him.

Because they had just given full marks to "Dawn" before, but "Fire Emblem" is even better than "Dawn" in every aspect, and his definition of RPG games is deeply loved. For Europeans and Americans of this type of game, the appeal of this game to them is unparalleled.

However, this time "Game" also learned the lessons of the last "Famitsu". They did not really use "The Legend of Zelda" for comparison, nor did they make any too big changes to "The Legend of Zelda". It's a disparaging review, because this game is a truly excellent game, and they just gave it a high score of thirty-nine points. If you talk about it too badly, you're just beating yourself up. Face?

The final rating of "Fire Emblem" sparked a heated debate within the "Game" magazine. r1152