Bab 71: What rubbish is this?
Several dozen game developers in Surui Electronics have now begun the painstaking process of game development.
Meanwhile, the latest game from Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, "Super Mario Bros. 3," was released as scheduled.
In this installment, the main antagonist, Bowser, is no longer confined to simply capturing the princess and waiting for the hero, Mario, to rescue her. This time, Bowser chooses to lead his minions in attacking seven kingdoms of the Mushroom World, each ruled by a different king, and steals the treasures of each king, plunging the seven kingdoms into chaos.
Mario must help these seven kingdoms solve their problems before he can rescue the princess. He must defeat the bosses guarding each of the seven kingdoms and ultimately head to the lair of the final boss to rescue the princess.
The story is quite traditional, but kids love it, and there's something more important: richer gameplay.
In the previous installment, "Super Mario Bros.," Mario had only three power-up forms: Super Mario, Fire Mario, and Invincible Mario. This installment adds six more power-up forms, each with unique functionality, helping players explore the entire world.
In addition to changes in character power-ups, the game's content itself has expanded significantly.
With eight large maps, there is already a degree of flexibility in adventure choices, allowing players to choose between difficult or easy levels to complete.
"Super Mario Bros. 3" is also considered the most challenging game in the series.
Since people in this world have just started experiencing video games, Gamestar Electronics felt it was necessary to reduce the difficulty a bit. So they added a few relatively easy levels to allow players to progress faster.
But to experience all the fun of "Super Mario Bros. 3," players need to take on the challenging levels to be truly satisfied.
In the first installment, the game only had one big castle and one big boss to deal with. Now, there are eight of each.
The game is packed with content, reaching the maximum capacity of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). They even found a clever way to cram a 300+ KB game program into a 256 KB cartridge.
When the programmers at Surui Electronics reverse-engineered the code for "Super Mario Bros.," they were stunned for a long time.
The game was only 40 KB in size, yet Gamestar managed to fit far more content than they could imagine.
If they were to make a similar game, it would need at least double the capacity, if not more.
Just replicating "Super Mario Bros." took dozens of people several days.
In the end, they could only produce a semi-finished product, with many areas left unchecked and uncorrected. Fortunately, players in this era seem quite easy to please. As long as there's a game to play, they can even accept such imperfect games.
As for the birth of "Super Mario Bros. 3"...
This game can be considered the pinnacle of the NES. It would be difficult to surpass it.
Realizing this, Gamestar decided that after completing "Super Mario Bros. 3," they would focus on researching other types of games. When a new game console emerged, they would consider new Mario titles. Now that the NES's capabilities have been maxed out, no amount of effort in making games will make a difference.
On release day, which happened to coincide with the school holidays, many people in the city were out and about.
Some of them had purchased the PN game console a few days ago and were proudly showing it off, including Tachikoshi, the editor of the local newspaper, and his son, Kotachikoshi.
Their family could afford such toys, and Tachikoshi himself enjoyed playing video games.
Kotachikoshi was overjoyed after buying the PN game console and spent time showing it off among his friends. Then he invited them over to play at his house.
Children are easily satisfied. Even though the games on the PN console seemed inferior to those on the NES, having three different games to play was still a lot of fun for them.
But after playing the PN game console for a few hours, Tachikoshi had only one thought:
"Why am I wasting my time on this thing? Wouldn't it be better to have a drink and watch TV?"
"What junk is this?"
He wasn't a game developer, so he couldn't describe the feeling, but he could at least understand what was fun and what wasn't.
The three games on the PN game console were just garbage! He felt it was necessary to write an article for the newspaper tomorrow to criticize them!
And now it was the day of the release of "Super Mario Bros. 3."
The day before the release, Tachikoshi simply grabbed a tent and went to the nearest game store, queuing up overnight.
Kotachikoshi originally wanted to come along, but he was firmly rejected by his father.
When the store's doors opened and the staff brought out the sign announcing the official release of "Super Mario Bros. 3," the queue immediately became animated. People in the tent were excitedly crawling out, and those waiting in line were glowing with anticipation.
The store manager was ecstatic to see this scene, much larger than the previous crowds for the PN game console. It seemed the NES was still more popular.
He realized he needed to be more cautious and not blindly trust the sales pitches of Surui Electronics' salespeople. Only true sales channels would know who was really popular.
The so-called sales figures of tens of thousands were just that, figures. They couldn't truly represent whether the game console was popular. Many people actually bought it blindly, essentially wasting their money.
"Hello, 5,000 yen, here's your 'Super Mario Bros. 3.' Welcome back anytime."
"Hello..."
Today, the store staff at many shops didn't rest for a moment. It seemed like the whole city was mobilized.
Of course, it wasn't really that exaggerated, but the scene was indeed impressive.
Even the journalists were on the move, reporting on the game's release. This was essentially free advertising for Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, especially during prime time news.
Almost all the copies of "Super Mario Bros. 3" were sold out on the first day in almost every store.
Their store manager tirelessly contacted the salespeople of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment to quickly replenish their stock. How could they miss such a good opportunity to make money?
Among the crowd were a group of employees from Surui Electronics.
They wanted to buy the game as soon as it was released so they could study its details.
Tachikoshi, queuing overnight, finally got his reward. He successfully bought a copy of "Super Mario Bros. 3" that day. When he brought it home, it was like returning as a hero from a victorious battle in his son Kotachikoshi's eyes.
"Dad, you're the best!"
Kotachikoshi exclaimed excitedly, then eagerly followed his father to the location of the game console.
Then Tachikoshi saw Kotachikoshi unhesitatingly toss the PN game console aside and plug in the connection cable for the NES.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone