1988 Retro Game Tycoon - Chapter 126



Only Noblemtl

Episode 126 – AA_

Akira Suzuki, a high school student living in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is an extremely ordinary high school student.

School grades are average.

The special skills section of the school record is empty.

He wasn’t particularly ugly in appearance, and his personality wasn’t particularly bad, but whatever he did, he was always mediocre.

I don’t have any passion for club activities or sports, nor am I popular among my friends.

Religion: no religion.

“Akira! Oh, sorry. Are you Akira too? I called Matsumoto-kun.”

Even school teachers often forgot Akira’s name or existence.

It was also because there was another Akira in the same class.

Whatever he did, ‘that Akira’ always did it better than Akira Suzuki.

Akira didn’t seem too upset about it. He just thought, “That’s how it is.”

Sometimes, Akira felt like he was invisible at school.

At times like that, I thought about what I would do if I became invisible, but I didn’t think it would be a good thing.

Even so, you’ll probably be busy avoiding people on the street. If you take your eyes off them for a second, you might get hit by a car and die.

Akira will also be a third-year high school student next year.

In the classroom, conversations with friends increasingly turned to the future.

Among them, the most pressing issue right before our eyes is the issue of going to college.

“Akira, what about you? Are you going to college?”

“Me? Well, I’m not sure. Should I take over my father’s curry shop?”

“Curry? You don’t like curry, do you?”

“No, there’s a curry shop on the first floor of my house. It’s my father’s shop. It’s not big, but I think business is pretty good.”

“Your house is on that corner, right? Wasn’t it Gyudong House on the first floor? My memory is hazy.”

“Gyudong? Isn’t that a ramen place?”

Even though Akira had just said it was a curry place, his friends quickly changed their minds.

Akira couldn’t say no and just laughed. It wasn’t appropriate for friends to get angry over such trivial things.

Actually, my father’s curry restaurant was just a joke. I never talked about it with my parents.

I go down to the first floor to help serve customers when they’re busy, but I’ve never been into the kitchen.

I’m not that sensitive to taste.

But I vaguely think that if I study hard, I might be able to do it too.

I didn’t really want to go to college.

I didn’t really have anything I wanted to learn, so going to college seemed like a waste in many ways.

Even though he was like this, Akira had his own goals that no one knew about.

It wasn’t some grand goal, like a hopeful future or some kind of future aspiration. But Akira was quite serious.

No, I did.

As the end of the month approaches, he runs to the bookstore every day and looks around the magazine corner to see if has been published.

“Oh~, this time it’s a New Year’s special? Nice!”

As soon as he bought the , which was much thicker than usual, he turned straight to the pink page in the middle.

There was a list of people who had achieved high scores in popular games at arcades around the country. This section was easy to find because the paper color and texture were different.

Akira carefully observes who has made it to the top of each region. Regardless of region, it is rare for a player to stay at the top of the high score rankings for more than three months.

The competition for high scores is fierce in each game center.

To others, it might just be a scoreboard with names (nicknames) and scores, but to people like Akira who aim for high scores, that page is a list of those who have surpassed human limits, a pantheon.

There was always a trace of a fierce, vicious struggle, except for the absence of blood and the smell of gunpowder.

The struggle of high scorers is always tough. They not only have to fight against the game, but also against other gamers who are trying to take their place.

“Oh~, Hatamura finally passed 500,000 points? I thought 450,000 points was the limit.”

The high scorers who frequently appeared were objects of admiration for Akira.

Akira’s goal is right here.

Your name will be listed on the high score page as a representative of Nagoya.

There was a reason why he aimed for a high score.

Although Akira enjoyed playing shooting games at the arcade, his skills weren’t all that great.

Yet shooting games were becoming increasingly difficult.

It was the same that day. He was playing a shooting game in a large arcade in a downtown area.

Akira, whose goal was to last as long as possible on one coin, played the game hard that day, but was unable to see the ending.

“Oh, I died again. Always here… What the hell is wrong with me?”

As I was sitting there blankly, feeling sorry for myself, I heard a girl’s voice behind me.

“Are you going to continue?”

She seemed to be around the same age as Akira, with short hair and a pretty face.

“Can’t you hear me? Are you going to continue?”

The girl with dark eye makeup and a bandage on her cheek spoke again. Akira quickly got up from his seat.

“Ah···, I’m sorry.”

She didn’t even glance at Akira, who was apologizing for nothing even though he had done nothing wrong.

Soon she put in her coin and started playing. She was a fantastical girl. She seemed to have a perfect understanding of the game patterns and was able to delve into every nook and cranny to deal with the bizarre and gigantic boss.

Her dainty shoulders showed no sign of tension.

Akira stared at the game over her shoulder, her name finally engraved on it as she effortlessly played the one-coin play that Akira had wanted to do so badly.

“Fifth place. Not bad.”

Akira looked closely at the name she was engraving.

[ RAYCO ]

The name was engraved not on Akira’s head, but on his chest.

He didn’t know whether he fell in love with Reiko’s face, her somewhat rebellious attitude, or her amazing gaming skills.

From that day on, Akira would visit the arcade whenever he had time.

However, his skills did not improve at all, and while searching for a way, Akira found out about a magazine specializing in arcade games called .

On the high score page of the Nagoya area of ​​ where I first purchased it, there was a name called ‘Reiko’.

From that day on, Akira set his sights on getting on the high score page. It was the first time in his life that he had a specific goal.

He read magazines diligently, memorized game maps, and visited game centers frequently.

And finally, I was able to clear the long-awaited quest with just one coin.

“yes!!!”

Akira clenched his fists and savored the moment of joy.

It was the first time I had achieved something through my own efforts. Even though Reiko wasn’t there, she didn’t even know I existed anyway.

Although he was not able to make it into the TOP 10, Akira was confident that he could do it and worked even harder at the game.

Reiko’s name was always in the TOP10.

Akira was chasing her name.

I could occasionally see Reiko at the arcade, but at some point, there were guys gathered around her.

Among the men, there were some who appeared to be college students, and they were all expert gamers.

Akira proudly put his name in first place, imagined himself driving them out and standing next to Reiko.

But even after several months, Akira still had not made it to the high score list.

I got to the intermediate level, but that was the limit.

Akira’s confidence, which had been brimming with anticipation, was suddenly eroded. To make matters worse, after seeing Reiko holding a man’s hand and going to the arcade today, he no longer wanted to go to the arcade.

I felt so pathetic and ashamed of myself for not being able to reach a high score and not being able to even talk to the girl I liked because of it.

Akira stopped going to the arcade.

Still, he continued to subscribe to . Although it was a name he was not allowed to use, his longing for high scores still remained.

Because the moment he cleared a game that he had always hit a wall with thanks to was an unforgettable memory for him.

Reiko’s name was no longer on the high score page of the New Year’s special edition of .

I thought it was a name that didn’t hurt him anymore, but somehow I felt regretful.

After checking his high score, Akira started reading the magazine again from the beginning.

But, something was strange.

Half of the magazine was always filled with shooters, but this time the shooters were all relegated to the back.

“Belt scrolling action game?”

It was an unfamiliar genre to Akira, who hadn’t been to a game center in a while. When he finally looked at the cover again, he saw characters he had never seen before on the cover.

The special feature of this New Year’s special issue was to choose the best belt-scrolling game among the three games , , and .

“Where is Jongro again?”

Akira continued to flip through the magazine out of curiosity. He learned for the first time that Jongno was a street in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.

Akira was surprised as he flipped through the magazine, wondering why the setting was the streets of Korea.

“Huh? This is a Korean game?”

Akira didn’t know much about Korea. He just knew that it was close to Japan, a divided country, and the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

But, I became curious when I heard that was a Korean game.

There just happened to be a detailed article about Starbeat.

Akira was even more surprised than before when he heard that the president of Starbeat was a young man of only twenty years old who loved games and had taught himself programming to start the company.

“Taught myself how to make a game and start a business at the age of 20? Is that possible?”

He read Starbeat’s story over four pages intently. His heart pounded as he read Starbeat’s story of rapid growth.

I’ve always lived my life somehow, without any particular inconveniences. I’ve never had any special dreams.

Seeing people around me just growing up and working or taking over the family business, whether they liked it or not, I naturally thought that was how it was supposed to be.

Akira didn’t really have much of an impact on biographies or stories of famous historical figures. They were from a completely different era than today.

But Starbeat and Seo Namjoon were different.

“Dreams are actually a wonderful thing···.”

Although making games isn’t Akira’s dream, I wanted to support it with all my might.

– Asking why I make games is a really weird question to me. Because if I don’t make games, I can’t do anything. Asking why I like games is the same. I think that giving a reason for liking something is a lie. You just give a reason that seems cool later. Something that’s good is just good. You can tell right away. A reason is an interpretation that comes later, but it’s never the essence.

Akira read and reread Seo Nam-joon’s interview several times.

It’s amazing how you can love something so strongly. How you can bet everything on something you love.

Akira became curious about his mind, and the game he created.

The review article compared the strengths and weaknesses of , , and by explaining their story, game play, and stage composition.

Famous high scorers from all over the country tried the game and left their ratings and short comments.

Overall, received scores that were either equal to or slightly higher than .

Akira, who couldn’t stand it any longer, immediately left the house and ran to the arcade for the first time in a long time.

To the game center he often went to, and Reiko often came to.

When I went into the game center after a long time, the layout had changed a lot.

He was able to find without difficulty. and were all gathered in one place.

Let’s wait a moment. The seat at was empty, so Akira quickly sat down and put in a coin.

Crunch!

The soul-awakening sound of coins being eaten brought back countless memories from the arcade.

It felt like coming home.

Akira chose the New York character. He always preferred speed over power.

A New Yorker in a leather jacket knocks out a bunch of barroom thugs with some fancy kicks.

Akira, who had already seen the game’s walkthrough, was able to adapt to the game without difficulty.

The stick reacted as if it were part of his hand, and his signature kick was also successful.

gave several tips on how to get high scores in .

Even when killing the same enemy, the score was different depending on whether the final blow was a normal attack or a signature action.

There were also ways to get higher scores than usual, such as picking up and using objects or weapons in the vicinity, or killing enemies that overlapped each other at the same time.

When playing shooting games, I was always on edge because I could die if I got hit with just one shot.

Rather than feeling the thrill of killing enemies and narrowly avoiding attacks, I had to struggle to survive so as not to die.

However, belt scrolling action games were much more comfortable than shooting games. You wouldn’t die from a single hit, and even if your health was low, you could get items to replenish it.

Once I realized that I ‘didn’t die ridiculously quickly’, I felt more relaxed and was able to look at the entire screen and react to the enemy’s movements.

His commands triggered exactly the technique he wanted.

“What? You’re doing really well?”

“This looks fun too.”

Before we knew it, there were people watching the game behind Akira.

Car chases were a bit tricky at first, but once I got used to the rhythm, I was able to dodge the attacks without much trouble. Just like in the magazines, you just have to react quickly to the occasional random brakes that activate.

“Ohhhh~!”

Onlookers cheered as Akira deftly avoided the collision.

For a moment, Akira felt goosebumps on his back. His back seemed to turn red, as if it were his face.

For a moment, I felt as if I was connected to a group of people I didn’t even know.

If a singer on stage feels like he or she has become one with the audience, this is probably the feeling.

Akira, who was in a state of trance, defeated his enemies without mercy. He no longer cared about the score. He did not even try to raise the score on purpose.

Yet his play was already geared toward the top score.

After defeating the final boss, the ending scene appeared.

As he was playing the game absentmindedly, the game ended before he knew it. Akira felt a little dizzy. His heart was pounding.

It was the first time in my life that I had this much fun playing a game, having this much fun playing a game, and feeling connected to someone through a game.

Seo Nam-joon was right.

Good things are just good.

I could tell right away.

If you have to find a reason and come up with fancy words, then it wasn’t really good. You just wanted to look good.

Akira got up from his seat, feeling an inexplicable sense of relief.

Just then, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

Akira heard a voice he would never forget.

“Aren’t you going to carve your name?”

“uh?”

There was Reiko.

Reiko said, pointing to the screen.

“The name. In the high score.”

Akira finally came to his senses and looked at the screen to see the cursor blinking.

It was the first place.

“I’m number one?”

“This game is new, but you’re really good at it?”

Reiko’s eye makeup was a little lighter, but her eyelashes had grown much longer.

Akira was very embarrassed when he suddenly encountered the situation he had always dreamed of.

I never got my name on the high score list when I really wanted to, but got first place right away.

Looking at the scores, the difference between him and second place was only a few hundred points. He had won first place by a hair’s breadth.

Akira tried to type A and write AKIRA.

AA_

But I accidentally wrote A twice.

[ AAKIRA ]

“Your name is Aa~Kira?”

Reiko giggled.

He thought he had forgotten everything, but the moment he saw that smile, Akira realized that he had never actually forgotten her.

“I’m Reiko.”

“I, I am Akira.”

“Calm down, ahhh~ Kira. I’ll break your score in no time.”

“Yes, of course.”

Akira was able to smile in front of Reiko.

Now I didn’t feel pathetic anymore.

He was just playing a game that wasn’t for him, like a baseball player who had been playing soccer all his life.

He just realized very clearly what he likes.

It was all thanks to Starbeat and Korean games.