Kenzo Tsujimoto did not express his position immediately.
Capcom had quite a few cards in its hand. Resident Evil was still under intensive development, and their current focus remained on fighting games.
"Capcom will stick to its original plan," Kenzo Tsujimoto finally said, his tone revealing a stubborn competitive spirit. "The target audience for fighting games doesn't completely overlap with action-adventure games. If Sega wants to sell consoles, they need different genres of games to anchor their lineup. We just need to do our part. Mega Man X and Armored Warriors will definitely be ready by the end of the year."
Kazumasa Kozuki looked at Kenzo Tsujimoto and did not try to persuade him further.
Every company had its own way of surviving, and Capcom's solid foundation in the action game genre indeed gave Kenzo Tsujimoto the confidence to go head-to-head.
"Then let's wish that we can all survive this winter and live comfortably," Kazumasa Kozuki said, raising his glass.
The three glasses clinked together, making a crisp sound.
Inside the office area of Sega's headquarters, a fax machine spat out several sheets of paper, covered in the characteristic static noise of international long-distance transmission.
Takuya Nakayama picked up this report from Fuzhou, China.
Fu Zhan of Mercury Electronics Technology explained in the report that the development of "Investiture of the Gods: The Legend of Yang Jian" was nearing its end, with the core code finalized and currently undergoing final bug testing.
At the end of the report, Fu Zhan specifically mentioned Sega's announcement of a vacant first-party slot in December, proposing the idea of releasing this game during the year-end shopping season.
These programmers from Fuzhou were certainly bold.
"Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers"—it was the perfect way to describe their current state.
The Japanese year-end video game market had always been a fierce battlefield where major publishers fought tooth and nail.
As an overseas newcomer that had never released an independent title in the Japanese market, Mercury Electronics Technology lacked any intuitive understanding of just how treacherous this release window was.
Takuya Nakayama placed the fax paper on his desk.
The empty slot in the December schedule was, to a certain extent, Sega's way of leaving room for "Toy Story" to build long-term momentum.
This cross-over work, technically supported by Pixar and endorsed by Hollywood industry standards, will land in North America at the end of November.
Its sales momentum will undoubtedly sweep through the entire Christmas holiday season.
With the cross-sector appeal brought by the synchronized movie tie-in, combined with high playability and fun, and level design that closely aligns with the original film, "Toy Story" has the solid strength to become a flagship title.
Takuya Nakayama could also guess a thing or two about the calculations of third-party manufacturers.
These established major manufacturers have their own survival logic and capital for trial and error.
But Mercury Electronics Technology does not have such capital.
If their first game is thrown into the meat grinder at the end of the year, it will face the relentless slaughter of major brands.
Hisao Oguchi pushed the door open and walked into the office, holding a progress summary of the overseas cooperation project.
"You've seen the fax from Mercury, right?" Takuya Nakayama pointed to the paper on the desk.
Hisao Oguchi pulled out a chair and sat down. "They want to get into the December slot. Fu Zhan is very confident in the game's quality."
"Faith is one thing, market laws are another," Takuya Nakayama said, flipping open the summary report. "How have they been executing Plan A?"
Hisao Oguchi turned to the evaluation page for Investiture of the Gods: The Legend of Yang Jian.
"They've executed it very thoroughly. They abandoned the rash idea of chasing a full 3D free-roaming camera and adopted a 2D ARPG route with a fixed 45-degree isometric view. The backgrounds use 2D pre-rendering, and the characters use 2D sprite sequences. Jupiter handles this kind of 2D graphics with no trouble at all, maintaining a solid 30 frames per second with excellent stability."
Takuya Nakayama nodded in approval.
Given the technical limitations of 1995, chasing flashy but impractical 3D often came at the cost of fluidity.
The core mechanic of The Legend of Yang Jian was the 'Seventy-Two Transformations,' where the fluidity of action switching was paramount.
The SFC era's Terranigma and the MD platform's Light Crusader had already proven the maturity of this technical approach.
"How are they handling the visual impact? In today's 32-bit console market, 2D graphics are easily labeled as outdated by players," Nakayama asked.
"Magic weapon special effects," Oguchi Hisao answered. "Fu Zhan's team invested a huge amount of resources into the visual presentation of magic weapon skills. They referenced the vertex compression algorithm from Phantasy Star. For Yang Jian's three forms, the base human form is 800 polygons, the god form adds special effects to reach 1000 polygons, and the dog form uses low-poly optimization, kept to 600 polygons. The total budget is under 2500 polygons. By pre-loading the entire animation set into video memory and using vertex compression, they achieved seamless switching between forms. Under the 2MB memory constraint, this is an incredible engineering achievement. The saved polygon budget was entirely used for rendering lighting and particle effects. For example, when Yang Jian uses the 'Heavenly Eye', the screen creates a high-contrast beam penetration effect; when summoning the Howling Celestial Dog, there is a dedicated multi-layer animation overlay. This design cleverly compensates for the lack of depth perception in a 2D perspective."
Oguchi Hisao continued to add technical details: "The real-time switching for the transformation mechanism allows for instant response. Players can switch between human, god, and dog forms without opening a menu; the model is replaced immediately upon pressing the button, with no loading lag."
The player can switch between Human, God, and Dog forms without opening a menu; the models swap instantly upon key press with no loading stutters.
"The Magic Treasure system has also been developed as a form-bound strategic toolbox, as requested. There is no traditional in-game store; all Magic Treasures are obtained exclusively through main storyline progression and map puzzles. For example, obtaining the Howling Celestial Dog unlocks the Dog form, allowing players to squeeze into narrow spaces and break Jie Sect formations. The Magic Treasure combo system utilizes 2D sprite layering and collision detection technology. When the Human form summons the Howling Celestial Dog for a coordinated attack, the system simultaneously plays two sets of 2D frame sequences, calculating damage through underlying collision detection. The God form's use of the Qiankun Mirror to reflect enemy projectiles, on the other hand, utilizes a mirror-flipping algorithm. These effects are not only visually spectacular but also add no extra 3D rendering burden."
Takuya Nakayama flipped through the evaluation report provided by the testing department.
"What's the feedback on the art and music?"
"It's very distinctive," Hisao Oguchi replied. "For the music, they hired local masters familiar with traditional instruments, sampling chime bells and the guzheng, then re-arranging them via MIDI. It has a very strong Eastern flavor, setting it apart from the Japanese fantasy RPGs currently on the market.
However, there are shortcomings in localization."
"Tell me more."
Hisao Oguchi took out a text comparison table. "For example, for the 'Jie Sect cultivators' in the game, Mercury's translation directly used the kanji reading. Japanese players will be confused when they see this term. The legal staff in charge of supervision suggested replacing it with terms Japanese players are familiar with, like 'Heretical Mage' or 'Evil Taoist,' but I feel those translations are a bit superficial."
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