Sometimes, for a producer with enough fame, just having their name attached is enough!
For example, Hideo Kojima put his name directly on Death Stranding: "A Hideo Kojima Game."
Tetsu Kobayashi didn't do any large-scale marketing this time, just simply pointed out one thing.
Tetsu Kobayashi's return.
As it stands, the effect is quite significant.
In the Atlas experience stores, many players were attracted by this title alone.
Ever since he finished Sonic in collaboration with Yuji Naka and the others, Tetsu Kobayashi had long stopped being responsible for actual development work, mostly just providing creative ideas, or spending his time slacking off or handling business negotiations.
Counting it up, Red Fortress is the first project Tetsu Kobayashi has returned to in two years.
A small-scale game, meant as a warm-up.
But the players' attitude was something even Tetsu Kobayashi himself didn't expect.
At Shimayose Game Store, Yosuke Shimayose was full of pride.
"Tetsu Kobayashi! Don't you guys know who Tetsu Kobayashi is? A majority of the popular games on the Japanese market right now were developed by Atlas, and many of the early games were Tetsu Kobayashi's works. When he was developing Kobayashi Blocks, he even came to my store personally to conduct research, going right to the front lines with the players."
Shimayose Yosuke said while playing Jackal, "The controls are exceptionally smooth; there's no lag at all."
"It's only been a week," Shimayose Yosuke said, "and thousands of copies of Kobayashi Blocks have already been sold!"
After a brief silence, a new player beside Shimayose Yosuke couldn't help but ask, "Only a few thousand? A decent game nowadays can sell a hundred or two hundred thousand copies in a week."
"What do you know!" Shimayose Yosuke retorted with an air of indisputable disdain when the subject was brought up. "There are ten million consoles sold in total now, with Nintendo and Sega splitting the Japanese gaming market. How can you compare that to back then? In 1983, only sixty thousand Famicoms were sold, and less than forty thousand MSX units! A total of just over seventy thousand gaming consoles were sold in all of Japan!"
Getting excited, Shimayose Yosuke casually pressed pause.
"What kind of games were there back then? Your uncle here would have to pull out a notebook to tell you: 'Donkey Kong', 'Donkey Kong Jr.', 'Popeye'..."
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6—each one of these games was a top-tier title with outstanding sales!"
"But even so, with President Kobayashi's very first title, he sold thousands of copies, and pre-orders have already topped ten thousand!"
Shimayose Yosuke spoke with such animation that it was as if he had been there himself.
"Pretty impressive, right, President Kobayashi! Do you guys have a President Kobayashi like that? I'm asking."
After Shimayose Yosuke finished his expressive retelling, the crowd behind him let out genuine sighs of admiration.
It was 1987 now, four years later. Many people had only recently started getting into games, so they naturally weren't very clear about things that happened four years ago.
Now that Shimayose Yosuke had explained it, the crowd suddenly had a sense of realization.
"Oh!"
So that was the true caliber of Kobayashi Tetsu!
No wonder so many people came to buy Jackal.
After finishing his story, Shimayose Yosuke turned back to continue playing the game.
Touring was secondary; he mostly just liked playing the games.
As for the hidden level, Shimayose Yosuke had actually found it. In the southwest corner of the first stage's map, if you ran back a bit from where you landed, you would encounter a special area. The enemies here wouldn't actively attack until they spotted the jeep.
The manual released with the cartridge even mentioned this special area and the hidden content.
However, Shimayose Yosuke had been pondering: what exactly was this hidden content?
If he had to say, saving a hostage outside was worth 1,000 points, while saving one inside was worth 10,000 points—the score was ten times that of the outside.
Shimayose Yosuke drove around the building, but by the time he returned, some time had been wasted, and he couldn't kill the enemy immediately. Fortunately, the enemy was facing away from him and didn't notice, so Shimayose Yosuke casually sent the enemy to their doom with a rocket.
Suddenly, a loud alert sound blared from the TV.
Shimayose Yosuke couldn't help but tap his ear.
"Why are you shouting so loud!"
Behind Shimayose Yosuke, a player reacted.
"Uncle, that wasn't the sound from when we killed monsters earlier."
"You're right, it sounds different!"
Shimayose Yosuke paused slightly, as if he had realized something.
Indeed, the alert sounds for the two monsters were different.
"But, did I do anything differently? If I had to say, it would be—it couldn't be a sneak attack from behind, could it?"
Seemingly enlightened, Shimayose Yosuke quickly went to find the next enemy and snuck up on them.
Sure enough, the default "pop" alert sound changed to "ding-ding," which even sounded a bit playful.
He tried killing a normal monster again, and as expected, regular monsters didn't have this alert sound.
Having discovered a new world, Shimayose Yosuke restarted the game, performed a series of maneuvers, and successfully defeated all the monsters at the first hidden spot.
At this moment, a miracle finally appeared.
Besides the hidden hostages, a special item appeared in the center of the courtyard, looking like an antenna.
Shimayose Yosuke ran over to pick it up, and in an instant, he noticed that the jeep on the screen had become quite different from before.
There was clearly an extra layer of sandbags on the jeep.
Although not very obvious in the pixelated graphics, it was still distinguishable from the previous jeep.
"I leveled up!"
Shimayose Yosuke slapped his thigh.
It was obvious that it had leveled up!
Shimayose Yosuke was driving the jeep when he was hit by an enemy due to a momentary lapse in attention. Normally, it would have been a one-hit kill, but this time, it withstood an extra hit.
Shimayose Yosuke understood.
It seems that after leveling up, the jeep's durability increases!
"As expected of President Kobayashi, there are still plenty of surprises in this game!"
Shimayose Yosuke put down the controller and turned around to call out to the others.
If you like it, buy another Atlas cartridge!
Besides the arcade cabinet at the entrance where you can play Street Fighter, you can also buy Jackal!
If you don't buy it, and I don't buy it, President Kobayashi will lose so much money he'll be riding a shared bike!
On the second day of the game's release, an article appeared in Kadokawa Game Magazine.
The author didn't use a pen name; he used his real name directly.
Yosuke Shimayose.
"Hidden elements in Red Fortress!"
"Red Fortress has a total of six levels, and each level has special hidden parts. For example, in the first level, after spawning and landing from the helicopter, instead of moving forward, if you move backward, you can discover a quiet, uninhabited area in the southwest corner of the map."
"If you kill all the enemies here, you can get a hidden hostage worth 10,000 points. If you kill all the enemies with a surprise attack from behind without being detected, besides the 10,000-point hidden hostage, you can also get a special upgrade item!"
"If you maintain the upgraded state without being hit, after beating the first level, you will see a short extra cutscene informing us that, after analysis, this is a special metal material! But this is not enough; we need to collect more!"
"There are six metal materials in total across the six stages. If you collect them all, the seventh stage will appear! There are no mobs in the seventh stage. Once you enter the scene and drive forward a short distance, you will encounter a hidden special boss: a mecha made by the enemy using those special metal materials!"
"Conventional machine guns and rocket launchers don't damage the mecha. However, the mecha is incomplete; it's missing the six metal materials. So, as long as you hit those six specific areas, you can defeat the hidden mecha boss and see the game's true ending."
"When rescuing hostages, we discover that apart from regular civilians, there's a type of hostage wearing a white lab coat. It turns out these hostages are actually scientists! The enemy kidnapped them to develop this new special metal. If you don't discover the hidden plot, you'd just treat them like ordinary hostages, but seeing the hidden story reveals the true significance of these hostages!"
"I have to say, Atlas's attention to detail in this game is incredible!"
Shimayose Yosuke, with his dark circles and gaunt frame, looked exhausted from an all-nighter of gaming.
His body was weary, but his mind was buzzing with excitement!
He was likely the first player in Japan to unlock the hidden plot!
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