Tokyo.
Ginza.
Pokeni Co., Ltd.
Inside the President's office.
President Aoki sat in his chair, his eyes fixed on the computer, but without any real focus.
He clasped his hands, deep in thought about many new issues.
Since the witcher 2 and princess mononoke games were completed, the manpower was now freed up.
President Aoki was now considering what games to assign Miyazaki Hidetaka and Shinji Mikami to next.
He closed his eyes and carefully sorted through his thoughts.
The games currently under development at the company included the Pokémon series:
Pokémon Racing.
This game was almost in its final stages and should be released in the second half of the year.
Pokémon Racing carried a lot of President Aoki's expectations; he hoped it could compete with Nintendo's Mario Kart.
President Aoki was now confident.
Since Nintendo could make super mario 3d adventure, and many of its elements were inspired by our pokémon 3d world.
Then why can't we make a Pokémon Racing to take down Mario Kart?
Although it was a bit cheeky, we did add many of our original gameplay elements to Pokémon 3D Adventure.
Thinking of this, President Aoki couldn't help but smile.
Oh my, as a transmigrator, is he a bit too arrogant?
He hadn't expected that the once invincible Nintendo would start to decline now; to be precise, President Aoki had thought they would decline.
He just hadn't expected it to be so fast.
It was like driving downhill, with someone also stepping on the accelerator.
A few years ago, a small game company like Pokeni would have no right to challenge Nintendo.
But now, President Aoki no longer thought so; Pokeni had grown and was now fully fledged, it was time to unseat Nintendo.
It was a pity that the current hardware level was not enough, otherwise he would especially want to directly make another the legend of zelda: Breath of the Wild and successfully snipe Nintendo's the legend of zelda: Ocarina of Time.
The gameplay elements in Breath of the Wild were simply too rich; if it could be released earlier, the whole world would be shocked by it.
Besides Pokémon Racing, a single-player 3D action game was also under development.
However, it was a bit different from the action games people usually imagined. After being influenced by Pokeni, when 3D action games were mentioned now, most people would probably immediately think of games like princess mononoke or the witcher 2, which had deep stories, super strong combat impact, exhilaration, and operability.
But the game Pokeni was making was very different.
This game was called pokémon: mysterious adventure, and wow, it had a tiny bit of similarity to Nintendo's super mario 3d adventure.
But this was a single-player game.
Players could control Pikachu for the entire battle, jumping, running, and using skills.
At the same time, they could also switch to other Pokémon by continuously collecting them.
However, only one Pokémon could be operated as the main body at a time.
How to choose different Pokémon and operations for different situations during the adventure to make the game smoother was a problem players needed to consider.
Pokémon was originally an all-ages game, and this 'all-ages' actually meant catering to younger children.
It was equivalent to a standalone game with adventure gameplay.
To some extent, pokémon: mysterious adventure was President Aoki's current version of zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Thinking about it carefully, with various adventure elements, puzzle-solving elements, and using Pokémon with different attributes and skills to deal with different situations, it really did have the feel of Breath of the Wild.
Thinking of this, President Aoki couldn't help but smile wryly.
Of course, it was still some distance from the Breath of the Wild in his mind, which was a great game that combined sandbox elements with various chemical reaction elements, creating a new game mode.
Current hardware simply couldn't run such a game. Just imagine, a single gust of wind blowing fire could burn down a large patch of grass, and that alone could crash Sony PS.
So, he still had to wait for the power of time.
However, in President Aoki's opinion, pokémon: mysterious adventure, having reached its current level with sufficiently rich gameplay, was actually enough.
It was another textbook-like game that could be learned from by the whole world.
Moreover, speaking of puzzle-solving modes.
Perhaps in the future, games like Detective Pikachu would appear.
He wondered what Mr. Hiroshi Yamauchi would feel when these Pokémon games were incubated and released into the market, seeing a large wave of Pokémon appear?
Just imagining Hiroshi Yamauchi and Miyamoto Shigeru fuming with anger made President Aoki inexplicably happy.
Sorry, Scorpios are just that narrow-minded.
...
Besides the Pokémon series, the only other game still under development at the company was the strategy game 86 - Eighty-Six, led by Ishino Mika and with Maeda Jun as the script Author.
President Aoki still had high hopes for this.
The game was already in the final bug-fixing stage and was expected to be released very soon.
After that, Ishino Mika and Maeda Jun's manpower would also be freed up, and new games would be waiting for them.
...
These games were all expected to be released this year and were almost finished development.
There were still a few completely new productions, just started, which might take one or two years or even longer to complete.
One was Mushishi. This game was personally overseen by President Aoki, using the name Furuhara Tsubaki.
Furuhara Tsubaki seemed to have disappeared from players' sight for over a year; since LL, that name hadn't been used again.
It was time to let Furuhara have more presence, otherwise, if players forgot him, the company would lose a signature figure.
However, this also meant that President Aoki's work status would become busier and more intense in the coming period.
Besides serving as Pokeni's President, overseeing the overall situation, he also had various social engagements and networking. Furthermore, Moon River Company had just started, and it was precisely when the company needed him and Tsuda to invest their energy into it.
Under such circumstances, also acting as a game Producer was actually a very difficult task.
He only hoped that Tsuda and Ichihashi Fumie at Moon River could take on more responsibility and successfully operate Moon River. According to President Aoki's idea, he would mostly participate in character and film/TV project approvals in the future, and would not have much time and energy to manage the specific production process.
Moreover, Tsuda also had her own things she wanted to do and was not entirely dependent on President Aoki.
She also had her own movies and TV series she wanted to make, but more so, she considered the linkage with games.
As for the game Mushishi, it adopted a beautiful Japanese anime art style and followed the princess mononoke route. However, in terms of game mode, besides the relatively hard requirement of a large map, there were no other development difficulties.
It mostly required the development team to put their heart into it.
Besides Mushishi just starting, the company had another product whose production time and cycle were expected to be longer—
Monster Hunter.
This game was currently being handled by Kamiya Hideki, and he didn't know how it was progressing.
Fortunately, Shinji Mikami was the Director; as long as Shinji Mikami's energy wasn't dispersed, he could still maintain control over quality and progress.
Monster Hunter was the company's first large-scale game to develop a grand world, multi-ecological food chain, multi-dimensional, high richness, more playability and exploration, while also incorporating collection and crafting elements...
It was truly not easy to complete its development.
President Aoki was more looking forward to Kamiya Hideki growing sufficiently in this game, growing into the next Miyazaki Hidetaka.
...
Ah! Thinking about it, most of the company's existing games were major productions, and there were quite a few.
The task was arduous, but also full of an infinitely bright future.
With President Aoki's overall control and acceptance, generally speaking, games would not have too many major problems, unless there was a problem with his own judgment.
In short, the company's situation was excellent, not just good, not moderately good, but excellent!
President Aoki was increasingly looking forward to the company's games.
And at the moment, President Aoki was considering what Shinji Mikami and his team should do.
...
Just as President Aoki was lost in thought, there was a knock at the door.
"Come in."
"President, do you have time now? We've prepared a new proposal and would like you to take a look."
Shinji Mikami, Gen Urobuchi, and Miyazaki Hidetaka entered one after another. Finally, Shinji Mikami handed their newly prepared [proposal] to President Aoki.
President Aoki looked up, saw the visitors, and couldn't help but smile wryly.
What was this called?
Someone handing you a pillow when you want to sleep.
These guys' initiative had kicked in.
Shinji Mikami, who had now been promoted to Director, began to play President Aoki's role; he didn't even need to be urged, Shinji Mikami himself eagerly started preparing the proposal.
Shinji Mikami was eager to start more projects; no matter what, the feeling of always being pushed by the President with a whip from behind was simply too unbearable.
This time, they took the initiative.
...
President Aoki looked down at the proposal on the table; the cover had a few large words written on it—
Dragon Seeking Journey.
The game itself was set in a fictional world, somewhat similar to princess mononoke.
In this world, the female protagonist's home was a place of long-term water scarcity and suffering.
Half of it was desert, the other half grassland, but the wild grass on the grassland was decreasing year by year, making people's lives increasingly difficult.
Overall, it highlighted the two words: water scarcity.
However, this place, many, many years ago, was not a barren desert, but a rich land with lush water plants and dense forests.
According to legend, it was because the 'Dragon God' in the village, who was responsible for bringing rain, died, coupled with people's over-exploitation and destruction, that led to the subsequent series of desertification and disasters.
After hearing this legend, the female protagonist resolutely embarked on a journey to find the dragon, determined to bring back the 'Dragon God' who could bring rain and hope to the village, so that people could live a good life.
What followed was a series of fantastical stories the female protagonist experienced during her search for the dragon.
Of course, there were still many parts that revealed dark human nature and evoked despair.
Especially when he saw the end of the story, President Aoki felt a chill in his heart.
It felt like Hayao Miyazaki at the beginning and Gen Urobuchi at the end.
It's truly you, Urobuchi Gen.
After reading it once,
President Aoki couldn't help but exclaim.
Dragon Seeking Journey was written so well, almost unlike Urobuchi Gen's style.
He wondered if it was because this guy had gotten married, and his heart truly gained a lot of originally non-existent, ethereal love, making it more fairytale-like. In this game proposal, a strong sense of fantasy and romance was evident everywhere.
If he had to say something, President Aoki could only assume that Urobuchi Gen had found true love, which led to a subtle change in his inner self.
It was hard to say whose style it specifically resembled.
Perhaps more like Ninjin Makoto's.
Or rather, more like Hayao Miyazaki's style.
If this game were to be a sequel to princess mononoke, it would truly be a very qualified animated film.
It's just a pity that Studio Ghibli probably couldn't handle this animated film.
They all make their own original animations.
However...
A thought flashed through President Aoki's mind.
"Excellent, it's wonderfully written, it could even be made into an independent animated film."
"Thank you, President." Gen Urobuchi smiled slightly, and the others breathed a sigh of relief.
"So, how do you plan to make this game?"
Shinji Mikami and Miyazaki Hidetaka exchanged glances, "President, we are thinking that Dragon Seeking Journey might lean more towards an animated film style, so given that.
We plan to adopt the gameplay mode from princess mononoke.
The specific details are all written in the proposal."
President Aoki flipped through it, and indeed it was.
It just goes to show they all thought alike.
"If that's the case, then I have no problems here; you can start preparing." President Aoki nodded.
After the others left, President Aoki's face showed a relieved smile:
Ah, it's truly not easy, there's a sense of accomplishment from nurturing.
Now these guys can take initiative, and they align even more with President Aoki's ideas than he imagined.
These rapidly growing geniuses might not need me one day.
President Aoki thought so.
...
After everything was arranged, President Aoki finally breathed a sigh of relief. At least he had to ensure that Pokeni continued to produce several excellent games every year.
And given the company's current expansion scale, it's not impossible that in the future, they might be simultaneously developing dozens of games a year.
Current development costs are still controllable, but if they enter the terrifying era of AAA blockbusters in the future, the resources, money, and number of developers required for each game will increase exponentially.
As soon as President Aoki thought of this, he couldn't help but feel a little scared.
Oh no, oh no, I'm going to make the game industry fiercely competitive.
President Aoki sat in his chair, laughing sinisterly.
Ayase Akane glanced from outside the door, feeling a chill down her spine.
Oh no, oh no, the President is laughing like a villain again.
Akanishi-senpai and Sakata-senpai probably have new things to do again.
I also have new work to be busy with.
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