Chapter 154: Release of Land of Adventure 3
Chapter 154: Release of Land of Adventure 3
“Yes. I think it will be enough if you continue like this. Please just take care of the bugs I saw earlier and polish the ending properly.”
“Yes! Thank you!”
Once the okay sign was given, Azex’s face completely brightened. After all, Ras’s position in the industry was practically mythical. If someone like him gave this much praise, half of its success was as good as guaranteed.
And the Land of Adventure IP that Azex had taken charge of held a truly special position in the game industry. In other words, as long as there were no major problems, his career was now as good as guaranteed.
The test was not done by Ras alone. The QA Team and, following tradition, many people from Meta Soft also played it.
Oh! It’s definitely more fun than 2!
That was Garazt’s impression as someone who had personally made Land of Adventure 2. Since he was focused on the subject of virtual reality, the strengthened realism was extremely to his liking.
And while that did not mean he disliked stories, in his view, virtual reality meant that even if a game did not present a specific direction, players should still be able to create their own goals and enjoy themselves. In that sense, he judged that 3 had come a little closer to that ideal.
Of course, there were also people who did not analyze it like this and simply found it fun.
Ah. Then do I need to learn magic for killing Ogres too?
Nebrania was diligently gathering materials to learn species-transformation magic. In truth, she had a slight romantic longing for magic. She did use magic tied to her racial traits, but because she used it almost instinctively, to her, it felt more like some kind of power than like she was truly casting magic.
She wanted to become a Dragon through species transformation. It was a race that could not be selected during character creation, but if transformed through magic, one could become any race that appeared in the game. Even monsters.
However, one of the required materials was an Ogre skull, and the problem was that Ogres were extremely powerful monsters. At Nebrania’s current level, fighting one head-on made no sense, so she needed to learn a spell such as Ogre Killer.
Nebrania felt as though there was no end to it, but since learning magic itself was fun, she headed to the city’s magic school to learn Ogre Killer.
“The story is pretty good too.”
Aspa examined that side of the game, as befitted the person in charge of story. Perhaps because Ras had told them to strengthen that aspect, it was quite enjoyable even as an ordinary RPG. It was not an extremely original story.
The fact that the protagonist was the successor of a faction that worshiped beings of the Demonic Realm was slightly unusual, but the setup that he was not actually a villain and instead gained power to take revenge after being betrayed by those Demonic Realm beings was already somewhat within the realm of cliché in this world.
However, its overall quality was good. In particular, the characters were made very well and looked impressive. Land of Adventure 2, the previous work, was called a masterpiece, but due to the limitations of computers at the time, its graphics were extremely simple. This work, however, pushed the Hammer Computer’s graphical performance to its limits, so even the in-game characters felt cute and cool.
Moreover, it also had separate character portraits, making it easy to fall for the characters’ charm and become immersed.
After receiving so much praise, Azex was able to proceed with the finishing work full of motivation. Perhaps thanks to that, it did not take very long before he brought back a cleanly completed version.
These days, Spirit Space was noisy with talk about the release of one game.
<Is 3 finally coming out? I really waited a long time.>
It was, of course, about Land of Adventure 3. Meta Soft naturally promoted it in as many ways as possible before release. No matter how famous the company and IP were, advertising was still necessary. At the very least, people had to know it had come out before they could buy it.
And most reactions to the news were welcoming.
<Same. After the Hammer Computer came out, I thought they forgot all their old IPs.>
<But isn’t this originally a company that doesn’t release sequels much? Aside from Tetris and Land of Adventure, there aren’t even any games with a second installment.>
<Isn’t there Beat Heater?>
<That one even has a completely different name.>
However, there were also lukewarm reactions. After all, too much time had passed since the second game came out.
<Why is everyone making such a fuss? It’s just an old washed-up game anyway.>
<Washed-up? It’s the game that opened the beginning of role-playing games.>
<Even so, it’s still an old game. I tried Land of Adventure 2 too, but the graphics were so awful I couldn’t play it. I’d rather play Myth of Salvation 3 one more time than that.>
It was not only that time had passed. During that time, countless RPGs had been released, and many among them could be called masterpieces. Because of that, some people not only abandoned their expectations for Land of Adventure, but even felt resistance toward it.
Naturally, this sounded like provocation to Land of Adventure fans.
<That’s because you don’t know games. Is a game automatically a god-tier game just because the graphics are good?>
<Right. And even among RPGs, the gameplay is completely different. There still isn’t a game with as much freedom as Land of Adventure 2.>
<There you go again with the freedom talk.>
The fortunate thing was that Land of Adventure still retained a differentiating feature other games did not have.
That was this freedom.
RPGs released these days tended to focus on story and character quality, and since that helped players become immersed quickly and enjoy the game, it was not the wrong direction.
However, those who had met a new world through Land of Adventure 2 in the past still missed that feeling.
<But if you want freedom, can’t you just play a MUD Game?>
<Oh. That’s true.>
<But that has no graphics. Since I can’t see anything, I don’t know what’s fun about it.>
In any case, discussion continued endlessly like this. And before long, the release date approached.
After seeing the reaction on Spirit Space, Barbal Soft thought it over and printed more packages than before.
There was a lot of talk one way or another, but it was true that expectations were high. And with this much promotion, they judged that initial sales would be high.
However, Paul Roxy’s prediction missed the mark.
“They’re raising hell and telling us to send the goods quickly!”
“Didn’t we send five thousand copies there?”
“Yes. Apparently, all five thousand are already gone.”
The distribution team was losing their minds over phone calls pouring in from all over the country. Demand was beyond their expectations.
The fact that they had judged Spirit Space would influence promotion and sales meant they had read the changes of the era fairly well. It could be called foresight. However, even Paul Roxy had not expected its influence to be so great that an initial print run of one hundred thousand copies would sell out in two weeks.
This was not demand only from fans who had been waiting for a Land of Adventure sequel all this time. Because Spirit Space was making such a commotion, many people became interested.
Well, if it’s causing this much fuss, it probably isn’t at least a complete failure.
People sought out the game with that mindset, and when they actually went to stores, they saw lines of people looking for Land of Adventure 3, so they got swept up in it again.
Thanks to that, it was already as good as a success in terms of sales. The figure of one hundred thousand copies was one thing, but the most important factor in commercial success was not the product’s quality so much as how much buzz it generated. Since it had already become this noisy, it would continue selling unless the game itself was extremely unfun.
But even the reaction to the game was good.
Spirit Space was already the place where the fastest and most concrete feedback appeared. Not only games, but whenever something new came out, people discussed it there.
And most reactions to Land of Adventure 3 were positive like this.
<Maybe because it’s a new release, but the graphics are insane.>
<No, that’s because it’s Meta Soft. That Dragon King Chronicle that came out recently said it supported the Hammer Computer too, but it was total garbage.>
First, many reactions were about the graphics. Ras, Azex, and the development team considered it a basic point, but since people judged every first impression with their eyes, it was only natural that this point became important.
Moreover, this was the first Land of Adventure series entry released for the specifications of the new computer. Because of that, there had been plenty of anxiety and anticipation. And as the post above already showed, there were many subpar works among existing games, making it stand out even more.
After all, there were few places that could make games in a stable environment with sufficient support like Meta Soft. Ras treated it as obvious that basic elements such as graphics and sound should be made with the best performance possible, but companies short on funds would not even have the room to raise quality that far.
<The graphics are one thing, but has anyone tried using magic? It’s completely crazy.>
And the next subject everyone talked about was, as expected, the magic system.
The Beastman man excitedly typing in front of his computer was named Franz. He was a university student attending a magic university.
In truth, he had many complaints about the way magic was expressed in games. That was only natural, because it was too unrealistic. Magic blasted out endlessly as long as one used something called mana, and to someone like him who knew what role mana actually played, it was simply absurd.
No, at this point it’s like shooting a gun.
Because of that, while he quite liked RPGs, he always felt uncomfortable whenever magic appeared. But Land of Adventure 3, which he played this time, was completely different.
Of course, this too differed from real magic. However, perhaps because it observed the very basic principle of obtaining and processing magical materials, it strongly gave the feeling that it truly was magic.
No, to be honest, as a modern mage, he occasionally performed magical formulation as an assignment during major classes, but when he used actual magic, he simply bought cartridges and cast everything that way.
Because of that, obtaining magical materials and processing them felt realistic and fresh at the same time.
Furthermore, the spells that appeared were not the kinds taught at school, with clear purposes and limitations, but truly grand magic like the kind he had imagined when he was young.
In one way, it could be called unrealistic. However, with real magic, it was simply difficult to meet the conditions, so one could not categorically say such things were impossible.
Honestly, if materials like Dragon Bone, Orichalcum, and God’s Blood existed, I could probably use this kind of magic in reality too. Honestly, even Ogre Bone is something I wonder if I’ll ever get to use in my entire life.
He went on all sorts of adventures to gather materials in order to use magic that transformed him into a giant, then used that to defeat a mid-boss in the story. It felt truly thrilling.
Other gamers would probably only think they used some powerful magic, but he was different because he was a mage.
Gathering magical materials whose very existence was doubtful in reality and using magic he had only heard existed in ancient times gave him a joy ordinary gamers could not feel.
<It really feels like becoming a mage.>
It was quite an ambiguous statement. He was still a student who could not yet be called a mage, and because the powerful magic in the game was difficult for real mages to use, it also meant the kind of “real mage” he had imagined as a child.
The reason many modern mages still held romantic longing for Ancient Magic while criticizing it as unrealistic and inefficient was because many of them had first entered the field while dreaming of becoming those storybook mages.
After pouring out his thoughts on Spirit Space for a long while, he launched Land of Adventure 3 again to try using another spell. No, he could not understand why this was so fun. Even if it was grand magic, it was ultimately magic inside a game and only expressed through graphics and text, yet he still wanted to try using it somehow.
Because the magic system attracted so much attention like this, Land of Adventure 3 gained the nickname Land of Mages on Spirit Space.
Footnotes:
Translator’s Notes:
MUD Game (머드게임) — A text-based online multiplayer game genre.