Chapter 30
Chapter 30 : Strange Game (4)
“Custom chip? What’s that?”
“It’s an apparatus that can read and write data… It can also freely manipulate up to 24 kb of storage at will . Yes, with this method, it’s possible to delete data as a result of the game play . However, I can’t comprehend what the intent was for implementing this setting to a perfected game…”
Mr . Gunpei was making a depressed expression while staring at the internal chip .
Mmm… Actually, I didn’t have any particular intentions? If he had to ask about the intent, then I guess it would be that I wanted to convey the realism of losing a character to the gamers . (This was confirmed by the reaction of Mr . Shigeru losing Katrina . ) And also to provide a competitive spirit for gamers attempting to clear a game with an extremely high difficulty?
With the current ROM technology, it was currently impossible to make this kind of game; a game that would delete characters or game data depending on the gameplay . After contemplating for a while, I suddenly thought of the ROM pack that I had seen once at Yongsan district . [1]
This oftenly dubbed ‘UFO’ was a device that could make copies of game cartridges .
By plugging a custom game disk inside the UFO device, and the game you would like to copy in the back, the data inside the game would be copied onto the custom game disk . This could be seen as the beginning of illegal ROM pack copies .
The interesting thing was, I wanted to know if it was currently possible to move multiple games onto the disk, so I met one man through the Game & Watch system . An indian man called Chand…
In one alleyway on the crowded streets of Akihabara, he was selling PC accessories in a computer store, but this was just a cover . In reality, inside the store, he was selling illegal copies of Family games .
I hovered around his surroundings for a few days while waiting for the perfect opport“Now~ everyone calm down . Like the person that spoke a moment ago, there are a few who don’t have any in-depth knowledge of the game, so I’ll give an overview . Everyone here must at least know a character that dies in-game will be deleted from the data forever, so I’ll skip this part and explain the relationships between the class systems .
Spearmen are effective against the swordsmen, and the swordsmen are effective against the knights . In turn, the knights are effective against the spearmen, so it’s referencing the rock paper scissor game . Archers are able to attack at a range of 2 units away and are effective against Dragon Warriors . However, be careful because their defenses are low .
Dragon Warriors are able to make super effective attacks on all classes, but they are extremely vulnerable to arrows . I’ll stop explaining now, just remember this and everyone try their best! We can definitely see the end of this game together~!!”
“Woooaaahhh!!!!!!”
“And to the player that manages to clear the game, we’ve prepared a 100,000 Yen reward to trade in the cartridge for the prize money from our FamiTong . We sincerely hope that the first clear of this game would happen right here . Then~!! Let the game begin!!”
“Woaahh!!!”
A shout that greatly resembled the spartans in the movie ‘300’ rung out and the prologue to the start of the game flowed out from the various locations of the event .
“Kurgh~ I will finally see an end to this game, today . ”
I swallowed a smile after seeing Mr . Shige’s burning passion, that ignited from earlier, and clicked on the start button along with everyone else . Now… should I start clearing the game?
hour had passed since the start of the event, and 20 people were eliminated by around stage 5 . The point of stage 5 was to not lose a single character to the behemoth boss and to safely move to stage 6 . Thus, I also focused my concentration and maneuvered the main character to the front of the party . This was so that he would get focused while I inflicted damage with my archer from the back . This allowed me to safely pass the first gate .
However, the players that lost even one of their characters slowly gave in to the momentum of the enemy troops and, at around stage 10, 30 more players were eliminated .
“Ah~ everyone . Please give a little more effort . This game is similar to chess . If you don’t carefully consider the moves of each and every character, your flow will be restricted and the moment that you start to lose your characters one by one, clearing the game will be made impossible . If there is anyone that made it through stage 10 without losing a single character, please raise your hand . ”
In response, Mr . Shige and I, as well as 20 other player, quietly raised our hands .
“Great!! There’s still a possibility . We can do it!! Everyone, please give a motivational round of applause to these players!!”
“Go Go Go~!!! Wooahhh!!”
Amongst the cheering players, there were students who I saw from the book store . So those rascals had also purchased a game .
From stage 10 and onwards, Dragon Emblem’s plot developed into the Demon King waking up from his slumber and the difficulty spiked exponentially, like an exploding cannonball . If points were not correctly distributed, then facing the enemy hordes will get increasingly more difficult .
Mr . Shige, who was beside me, had nothing to say as he was intently focused on the game . Against the massive wave of the enemy, he was executing a blood bath by grouping them together as best as he could and launching an offensive with the backline mage .
And then we arrived at stage 15 . On this stage that started a quest to look for the sword that would defeat the demon king, Mr . Shige made a huge mistake . He forgot to buy reserves of the recovery staff from the start before beginning the stage . Dragon Emblem utilizes a feature that overwrites the current data with an auto-save method, so returning to a checkpoint was impossible .
“AAHHHH!!! I’ve made a mistake!!”
Mr . Shige’s scream reverberated in the auditorium . He had tried to minimize the damage to his characters as best he could, but…
“Katrina… My Katrina!!!!!! Ahhhh~!!”
He ended up losing the female lead character once again .