By early December 2001, the gaming community had become unexpectedly obsessed with one question.
Was Team Buddies actually an RTS?
At first, many players laughed at the idea. Real-time strategy games were still heavily associated with PC gaming. When people thought about RTS titles, they imagined keyboards, mice, large interfaces, base management, resource gathering, dozens of units, and complicated commands that simply did not seem compatible with a console controller.
Yet once again, ZAGE had somehow taken something people assumed belonged almost exclusively to PC and forced it to work comfortably on ZEPS 3.
The argument became especially popular on ZAGE Forum.
One user wrote, "Team Buddies isn't an RTS. It's an action game with strategy." Another immediately replied, "You literally gather resources, build units, control territory, create weapons, use a map, and plan attacks. What the hell else do you want?"
Someone else argued that because players directly controlled one Buddy instead of selecting armies with a cursor, the game could not be considered a true RTS.
That debate continued until Zaboru himself eventually commented.
Using his official account, Zaboru casually wrote, "It is an RTS game. Just a weird one."
The reply immediately became one of the most shared comments that week.
Zaboru later explained that Team Buddies still required many of the fundamental skills associated with strategy games. Players needed to understand the map, control important locations, gather boxes efficiently, construct equipment, create additional Buddies, manage vehicles, defend their own base, identify enemy positions, and decide when to attack or retreat.
The main difference was simply presentation.
Instead of staring downward at an army from above, the player personally entered the battlefield.
That made Team Buddies feel much faster and more chaotic than traditional RTS games.
For Zaboru, that was exactly what made it special.
In his previous world, Team Buddies had always been one of those games he believed deserved far more attention than it received. The original concept was incredibly creative, but its potential had never been fully explored.
Now ZAGE had the money, hardware, development talent, and technical infrastructure to expand that concept properly.
Naturally, Zaboru went overboard.
The biggest improvement was the expanded box system.
Normal boxes still served as the foundation of the entire game. Players collected them from around the map, carried them back toward construction pads, and stacked them according to specific patterns.
Different stacks produced different things.
Weapons.
Buddies.
Vehicles.
Support equipment.
Defensive tools.
However, ZAGE introduced an entirely new category called Unique Boxes.
Each Unique Box possessed its own theme and properties.
The Frost Box had already become one of the most popular examples. When added to a weapon stack, it could create the Frozen Gun, which fired freezing projectiles capable of temporarily immobilising enemy Buddies. When used inside a Buddy creation stack, the same Frost Box could produce a Frozen Buddy with increased resistance to cold attacks and its own ice-based abilities.
Other Unique Boxes worked in completely different ways.
An Electric Box could produce stun weapons or Electric Buddies capable of disabling vehicles.
An Explosive Box could create weapons with larger blast radiuses or specialised demolition Buddies.
Some Unique Boxes could even change vehicles depending on the construction pattern used.
That meant finding a Unique Box immediately created a new decision.
Should the player use it for a weapon?
A Buddy?
A vehicle?
Or preserve it until they found enough normal boxes to create something stronger?
Because Unique Boxes were limited within each map, wasting one could completely change the outcome of a match.
Zaboru also introduced another category called Effect Boxes.
Effect Boxes functioned differently.
Instead of completely changing what was created, they modified the properties of an existing creation.
An Effect Box could improve speed, armour, attack power, ammunition capacity, health regeneration, or other characteristics depending on its type.
However, Zaboru deliberately restricted the system.
For now, Effect Boxes could not be combined directly with Unique Boxes.
Some developers originally questioned the restriction, especially because the possibility of combining elemental Unique Boxes with Effect Boxes could create hundreds of additional combinations.
Zaboru simply smiled and said, "Not yet."
He already knew exactly where he wanted the system to go.
The deeper combination mechanics were being saved for a sequel.
If every possible feature appeared inside the first game, there would be nowhere interesting left to expand.
That philosophy applied throughout Team Buddies.
ZAGE improved almost every part of the original concept without making the game unnecessarily complicated.
The maps became significantly larger and more varied.
Some took place across forests filled with rivers, bridges, cliffs, and destructible obstacles. Others used industrial environments filled with conveyor belts, moving machinery, elevators, and dangerous environmental hazards.
Certain maps contained hidden tunnels or alternative paths.
Others contained elevated positions perfect for long-range weapons.
Some maps forced players to fight over central resource locations because boxes spawned there more frequently.
A few even contained environmental traps that clever players could activate against opponents.
That made map knowledge extremely important.
A strong player did not simply need good shooting skills.
They needed to remember where boxes appeared, where vehicles could travel, which areas offered defensive advantages, and which routes allowed enemies to sneak behind their base.
This was where the RTS influence became much more obvious.
Someone who ignored the map could easily lose against a less mechanically skilled player who understood positioning.
The weapon selection had also expanded considerably.
The original concept was no longer limited to generic pistols, machine guns, and bazookas.
ZAGE added shotguns, sniper-style weapons, grenade launchers, strange experimental guns, elemental weapons created through Unique Boxes, and several melee options.
Some Buddies could carry swords, clubs, large hammers, or other close-range equipment.
Melee weapons were risky because players needed to approach their opponents directly, but several of them caused enormous damage once they connected.
Vehicles became equally ridiculous.
Players could still construct conventional combat vehicles, but Unique Boxes dramatically expanded what could be created.
A standard stack might produce a jeep or armoured vehicle.
Adding a specific Unique Box could create specialised variants.
An Electric-themed vehicle might discharge energy around itself.
A Frost vehicle could slow nearby enemies.
Explosive-focused combinations could produce heavier assault vehicles designed to destroy structures.
Players did not need to memorise every combination immediately because the game provided construction instructions whenever they discovered a new box type.
The interface showed how many boxes were required and the general stacking pattern needed to create the item.
However, ZAGE deliberately left several rare combinations hidden.
Players needed to experiment.
Naturally, this caused complete insanity online.
Within days of release, entire forum sections appeared dedicated to discovering box recipes.
Players uploaded photographs of strange constructions and asked others to reproduce them.
Some posted diagrams.
Others made enormous spreadsheets showing known combinations.
One user claimed to have discovered a secret flying vehicle before eventually admitting that he had accidentally encountered a glitch.
Another player spent nearly eight hours trying to reproduce it anyway.
Zaboru found that hilarious.
The multiplayer mode was where Team Buddies truly became ridiculous.
Up to four players could play together through split-screen on ZEPS 3, and the result was rarely peaceful.
Free-for-all mode became the favourite for groups who wanted pure chaos.
Four teams entered the battlefield simultaneously, gathered their own resources, built armies, created vehicles, and attempted to destroy everyone else.
Temporary alliances formed constantly.
They also collapsed constantly.
One player might help another defend against a powerful opponent, only to steal their Unique Box thirty seconds later.
Two players could agree to attack the strongest team together, then immediately betray each other after the target was eliminated.
ZAGE Forum users quickly created an unofficial rule.
Never trust anybody in Team Buddies.
Two-versus-two mode became slightly more organised, but only slightly.
Proper teamwork mattered considerably more there. One player could focus on collecting resources and constructing Buddies while the other attacked enemy territory.
Some teams specialised further, with one player controlling vehicles while the other focused on infantry and weapons.
Good teams quickly developed strategies around specific maps.
Bad teams usually screamed at each other.
The Bakudan Boys had already demonstrated that perfectly.
Their multiplayer session became a running joke around ZAGE after Sawada casually mentioned at work that Rikki had destroyed his own ally three times during one match.
Rikki insisted they were accidents.
Nobody believed him.
Team Buddies also included a complete single-player and cooperative campaign.
The story was intentionally simple.
The peaceful Buddies suddenly found their world threatened by a mysterious army known as the Bad Buddies.
Bad Buddies looked immediately different from normal teams.
Their armour and equipment used dark colours mixed with gold, creating a more intimidating military appearance. Their bases were larger, their weapons became increasingly dangerous, and their forces gradually began controlling more territory across the world.
Their objective was equally straightforward.
World domination.
The Team Buddies naturally decided they were not going to allow that.
Campaign missions slowly introduced players to the game's deeper systems. Early stages taught basic box stacking and weapon construction, while later missions required vehicle use, defensive planning, multiple Buddy squads, environmental puzzles, and increasingly complicated Unique Box combinations.
Some missions focused on destroying enemy bases.
Others involved protecting locations.
There were rescue missions, escort missions, survival battles, and stages where players needed to capture specific parts of the map before Bad Buddy reinforcements arrived.
The story never became overly serious.
Team Buddies remained colourful, strange, and comedic.
Even the Bad Buddies occasionally behaved like idiots.
Yet their darker colour scheme and increasingly powerful units gave them enough presence to feel threatening.
And as usual Zabo-man is appear in this game.
Very rarely, a strange Unique Box could appear during certain matches.
It was simply called the Z Box.
The box was black and silver with a large stylised letter Z across its surface.
The first players who discovered it immediately knew something stupid was about to happen.
When placed inside a Buddy creation stack, the machine produced a completely unique unit.
Zabo-man.
The Buddy appeared wearing a ridiculous Z-shaped helmet and a black-and-silver colour palette based ZAGE iconic character.
Zabo-man was not intentionally overpowered.
Zaboru refused to make his own joke character the strongest Buddy in the game.
Instead, Zabo-man acted as an unusual all-rounder with balanced statistics and several strange support abilities.
Sometimes the Z Box could also be used for weapons or vehicles, though those combinations were considerably rarer.
That immediately created another mystery for the community.
Players began searching every map for additional Z Box recipes.
ZAGE refused to reveal them.
By the end of Team Buddies' first major week, the game had become another example of why so many players loved ZAGE.
It was not the most graphically impressive game ZAGE had released that year.
Resident Evil 3 looked better.
Dead or Alive 2 looked significantly more advanced.
Even The Incredibles pushed ZEPS 3 harder visually.
Team Buddies did not need to compete through graphics.
Its appeal came from experimentation.
Every match created different stories because players approached the same systems differently.
A player could focus on weapons.
Another could build an army of Buddies.
Someone else might become obsessed with vehicles.
Another could simply steal everyone's boxes and become the most hated person in the room.
ZAGE had once again shown that technological power was useful, but game design mattered more.
Players appreciated that.
Some ZAGE releases were enormous cinematic experiences.
Others were competitive fighting games.
Some were RPGs requiring dozens of hours.
Others were strange experimental games that looked almost childish until someone actually played them.
That variety became one of ZAGE's greatest strengths.
The company did not rely on one genre.
It simply kept experimenting.
And for Zaboru, that experimentation was exactly what made game development interesting.
Yet while Team Buddies continued exploding in popularity, his attention had already begun drifting toward another project.
Inside ZAGE Tower, Zaboru sat quietly in front of a blank development document while several old memories surfaced through Deep Memory Dive.
Dark Japanese streets.
Neon signs.
Convenience stores.
Arcades.
Yakuza families.
Fist fights in narrow alleys.
Absurd side stories existing beside serious crime drama.
Zaboru slowly smiled.
One of his favourite games from his previous life had finally returned to his thoughts.
Yakuza Series.
To be continued.
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