Chapter 32: Japanese Release — 幻想の世界 (Fantasy World)
Chapter 32: Japanese Release — Fantasy World
Did it finally start declining a little?
The six-month sales figure was 2,943 copies. While it was still similar overall, the leading digit had dropped by one, so it could be said the game had entered a downward trend.
It was a little disappointing, but no festival lasted forever.
Besides, it already achieved results that could be called a massive success.
In early 1990s Korea, a high-spec 386 PC game had sold over 20,000 copies in six months.
Unless it experienced a reverse surge in popularity later, Hyundai Soft predicted it would probably sell about fifty percent more over the next half year and end at around 30,000 copies total.
[This is a record-breaking achievement!]
The people at Hyundai Soft informed them in an extremely excited tone.
In truth, because The Land Of Fantasy was an RPG, its audience was inevitably somewhat limited. On top of that, they already knew the disadvantage of it being a high-spec game.
Even so, it recorded one of the highest sales figures in Korean PC game history.
“Son, congratulations! Seriously!”
After hearing the news, both his father and mother congratulated Insu with bright smiles.
Regardless of the money involved, the fact that he achieved such unmatched results in that industry made them proud.
“Thank you!”
Of course, Insu also smiled brightly on the outside, but inwardly, his feelings were slightly complicated.
Because he knew the scale of the future gaming market, the number 30,000 still felt strangely small, even though he long expected it after understanding the limitations of the Korean market.
Moreover, he knew there were already a few PC games overseas that sold close to a million copies.
Didn’t SimCity 1 sell five million copies?
Of course, it hadn’t sold that many immediately after release. The total sales accumulated over a long period while computer ownership continued spreading.
And Insu believed his own game could become like that too.
That was precisely why he planned it as a high-spec game from the beginning.
Besides, from now on, it’s going to be the age of RPGs.
For now, Insu decided to watch the Japanese release that would begin that month.
On June 11, 1990, TechnoShoku released the game as Gensou no Sekai.
Takahashi Ryuichi was a twenty-three-year-old young man living in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and an avid RPG enthusiast.
“Welcome!”
Today as well, he visited Bic Camera.
Officially, he claimed it was for research materials related to game development as a computer engineering student, but in reality, he was simply there to check out newly released games.
Because he visited so often, he quickly spotted a game he had never seen before.
Gensou no Sekai? That’s a classic yet grandiose title.
First, he checked the specifications.
Unless it was a legendary classic, he had no desire to play games with outdated graphics in an era where even 486 systems already existed.
Fortunately, this game supported 386 systems and used 256 colors.
Parallel Soft? Never heard of them...
Most people probably wouldn’t pay attention to developer names, but Takahashi was such a hardcore gamer that he memorized the names of most major developers.
He hesitated slightly at the unfamiliar developer name, but since the distributor was fairly famous, he didn’t deliberate long.
If the package listed the developer’s nationality, he probably would have hesitated once more.
Takahashi himself might have become curious precisely because it was a Korean game, but to most Japanese people at the time, Korea was considered an underdeveloped country.
Still... this feels like a game I’ve seen somewhere before.
In truth, Takahashi diligently read gaming magazines and saw this game introduced in All Clear. But enough time passed, and he read so many similar articles that his memory became vague.
Perhaps the title change through localization also contributed to that.
“That’ll be 6,300 yen.”
“Yes. One moment.”
Not that expensive.
Converted roughly into Korean won, it was around 40,000 won. Compared to the Korean package price of 32,000 won, it was slightly more expensive, but many Japanese PC games at the time cost even more.
Part of it was probably due to differences in purchasing power, but the distribution structure also made game packages themselves slightly more expensive than in other countries.
Click!
After returning home, Takahashi skillfully swapped the floppy disks one by one while installing the game.
It was certainly more cumbersome than console cartridges, but the larger capacity gave it a unique sense of anticipation.
“Oh! This is good.”
After quickly passing the title screen and entering the game, Takahashi felt satisfied with the graphics and sound.
Unlike the graphics, this leans more toward the CRPG side?
After the success of Legend of the Hero, countless JRPGs imitating it flooded the market, so gamers like Takahashi were already familiar with this style of graphics.
Looking at the visuals, he expected a game overflowing with setting explanations and story exposition, but contrary to expectations, it unfolded freely with a distinctly Western feel, making it feel unexpectedly fresh.
Still, it’s kind of strange that there’s no custom character system.
Normally, CRPGs allowed players to create their own characters from appearance to stats, class, and personality.
But unlike its freedom in other aspects, this game only let players decide the name while everything else was predetermined, which felt slightly disappointing.
Though it is convenient.
After playing for some time, however, he felt no awkwardness whatsoever.
There were unusual systems and terminology, but those were common features in games trying to create differentiation, so nothing felt particularly strange.
That meant TechnoShoku handled the translation and localization properly.
The combat system is really unique and fun.
The 3X4 position-based turn combat system was revolutionary even in Japan.
All Clear strongly emphasized it before, but not many people would actually obtain and play a Korean game. And even if a developer became impressed by it, creating a game inspired by it would still require time.
At least the recently released RPG Sword of National Salvation introduced a position-based turn system involving left and right positioning concepts, so it didn’t feel completely alien.
Did they improve upon that?
In this world, Insu actually created the system first, but considering that the 3X3 position-based turn system in his previous life evolved from classic turn-based combat systems, Takahashi’s assumption wasn’t entirely unreasonable.
Being experienced with games, Takahashi progressed quickly, and in only two days, his first character died of old age.
“Huh? Descendants?”
He quickly realized this game fundamentally revolved around repeated playthroughs.
And he roughly understood why it didn’t include a custom character system.
Instead of artificially creating characters yourself, the idea is to enjoy multiple characters this way.
Normally, he would see the ending of a game within a few days at most.
But he became completely absorbed in the endless continuation of new lives that passed down through generations like immortality despite humanity’s finite lifespan.
This really never ends, does it?
There was an endless amount of content to enjoy: living as different races, forming parties with countless companions and various combinations, exploring every corner of the vast continent, uncovering hidden events and quests, and collecting all kinds of unusual items.
In this way, The Land Of Fantasy approached Japanese players with a familiar JRPG-like appearance while captivating hardcore gamers through its deep gameplay systems.
“Looks like you found a pretty good game lately?”
Takahashi had been locked inside his house for several days trying to clear a dungeon called Tomb of the Fallen Angel, and because his attendance was getting dangerously close to failing, he forced himself to come to class.
That was when Sato Kouji, another gaming enthusiast he was close with, spoke to him.
“Huh? How’d you know?”
“Look in a mirror. Those dark circles make it obvious. What game is it?”
“Uh... I found a masterpiece. It’s called Gensou no Sekai.”
“Oh? A masterpiece?”
This Takahashi guy had unbelievably picky tastes, so the fact that the word “masterpiece” came out of his mouth alone was enough to make Sato memorize the title with the intention of trying it himself.
And as he listened to Takahashi enthusiastically explain the game, that determination only became stronger.
Insu completely forgot about the Japanese release date.
Every day, he suffered mental damage from attending Gukminhakgyo while simultaneously pouring himself into development of the next project.
Come to think of it, it was June, wasn’t it?
But one day, after glancing at a calendar and realizing the game had probably already been released, he began constantly thinking about it.
The problem was that even when the game released in Korea, it was difficult to gauge reactions, and feeling the response from Japan across the sea was even harder.
In his previous life, someone would have gone onto Japanese communities like 2channel, gathered information, or Japanese users who spoke Korean would have rushed to upload posts, which would then quickly turn into YouTube videos delivered directly to his smartphone.
But now, all he could do was feel curious and frustrated.
Of course, there were probably ways to find out if he really tried.
But Insu didn’t have enough time or energy to investigate everywhere just to learn the reactions.
All of that time went into attending school and developing games afterward.
Thankfully, Noona Eunha was relatively knowledgeable about Japan.
“Noona. Do you still read Japanese gaming magazines these days?”
Eunha was still only a middle school student, so unlike the other development team members, she couldn’t sit working for long periods.
On top of that, she had a strong appetite, so she secretly slipped out for snack breaks the way adults took smoke breaks.
After spotting this, Insu quietly followed her out and spoke.
“Huh? Yeah, I guess?”
Even though everyone on the team already knew about her snack breaks, she still stiffened in surprise while aggressively munching on a Pepero-like snack in secrecy, then nodded with a confused expression.
Insu approached her, but asking how popular his own game was felt embarrassingly awkward.
He lowered his head slightly and fidgeted with his fingers before finally managing to speak again.
“Well... have there been any articles about our game?”
“Ahh.”
Eunha’s expression instantly turned playful.
“Well, of course you’d be curious. But no magazine issues have come out since our game was released. The closest thing was the April issue of Game Frontier, but that came out only three days apart from the release date, so...”
Magazines needed time for editing, printing, and distribution, so no matter how hot the game was, there was no way articles could appear that quickly.
Even though he knew that perfectly well, enduring the silence from magazines, which were practically his only source of information, felt frustrating.
It’s not like I can call the distributor and ask if the game’s selling well.
Forcing himself to ignore it, Insu tried to focus on development again.
Then, several days later, while Insu was deeply considering ending conditions...
When people thought of strategy games, perhaps because of influences from Romance of the Three Kingdoms or because of harsh real-world zero-sum thinking, the objective was often to kill every enemy and unify everything.
The same was true for classics predating PC games, such as chess and Go, so it wasn’t particularly strange.
But in reality, that was also a fixed mindset.
As games became more advanced and their systems and structures more complex, overly simple goals could eventually become boring and unrealistic.
Furthermore, introducing diverse objectives was also an effective way to satisfy the desires of various gamers.
And within Insu’s memories already existed games that implemented those kinds of diverse ending conditions.
Civilization is probably the representative example.
Besides warfare, it provided freedom in gameplay direction through diplomatic, cultural, and scientific victories.
If victory had only been possible through war, a large portion of Civilization’s enormous systems would have gone unused and buried.