Chapter 367: Mega Man II
Oh, how naive Sega was?!
Whilst Creed was making waves in Europe, it was actually causing quite a ripple in Japan as well.
And what a ripple it was.
This August of 1986... the Creed Chaos System also landed in the Land of the Rising Sun!
If Sega was depressed, then Nintendo was freaking rattled!
Of course, Creed wasn't that secretive about their decision to test out the Japanese market.
However, the Creed Chaos System's presence in select local retailers had rattled Nintendo nonetheless.
The NES and Nintendo of America were on a desperate push at their front already.
If Creed's viability was proven here, wouldn't that mean that their Famicom was in trouble as well?
The Nintendo collective felt pressure and drastic measures may have to be employed.
They only had a few choices.
Creed's consoles and video game roster were too strong. Too strong for their liking.
Fortunately, Nintendo had a homecourt advantage they could turn to.
They just had to move a few pieces to defend and hopefully force the invader out.
Suffice to say, with how this Japanese gaming giant was hastily reacting, Creed Games' homecourt attack may truly be out of the blue.
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Consequently, Creed's main theme for their Nippon entry was actually blue!
Of course, there were still the likes of Tetris, Cat vsv Dog, Dino Jump, Flappy Birds, and Top Gun: Flight and Fight... with most of them having blue... somewhat.
Setting aside these other games that are special in their own right, the blue Sonic the Hedgehog was a particularly tricky one.
For reasons aplenty.
The most obvious one is the fact that it measures up to Super Mario Bros. and is an outright threat to it.
At this point, Nintendo knew the position that these plumbers of theirs had.
It's their most famous game and broke quite a lot of records and perceptions since its release.
Something that can rival that is all but good news.
In this case, it's America's Sonic the Hedgehog. A blue video game hero battling robots created by a mustached evil scientist.
Of course, against that, the brothers still had something to show for... but not much.
With this, Nintendo's position is quite precarious already.
Even more so when another blue fellow was introduced into the mix.
This new fellow happens to be called Mega Man!
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Its story, according to the manual and the in-game narration, goes as follows...
In the year 20XX, robots developed to assist mankind are commonplace... thanks to the efforts of renowned robot designer, Dr. Thomas Light.
However, one day, these robots go out of control and start attacking humans, among them are six advanced humanoid robots created by Dr. Light for industrial purposes.
Known as the "Robot Masters".
They consist of Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man, and Elec Man.
Dr. Light realized that the culprit responsible for these attacks is his old friend and rival, Dr. Albert W. Wily.
Unsure of what to do, his helper robot, Rock, having a strong sense of justice, offers to be converted into a fighting robot to stop Dr. Wily's plans.
Rock became Mega Man.
Thus begins the struggle of a humanoid robot and player-character, against the mad scientist Dr. Wily and the six "Robot Masters" under his control.
Another blue video game hero battling robots "created" by a mustached evil scientist.
With two of those in a row, the lack of creativity should be laughable.
Ha-Ha-Ha. Just how many blue-colored characters and mustachioed evil scientists are Creed Games going to come up with?
Then again, Nintendo wasn't exactly laughing, were they?
Consisting of six side-scrolling platformer levels freely chosen by the player, a new non-linear gameplay is introduced.
That is worrying enough already.
In each level, Mega Man fights through various enemies and obstacles before facing a "Robot Master" boss at the level's end.
Upon defeating any of these bosses, one can then assimilate the Robot Master's signature attack, or "Special Weapon", into the Mega Man arsenal for the rest of the game.
Of course, to make it more interesting, the Robot Master powers have limited ammunition replenished by collecting ammunition cells dropped by defeated enemies at random.
It isn't just ammunition. As a health gauge game, enemies drop energy cells which serve as Mega Man's "health".
While one is free to proceed through the game in any order, each Robot Master is especially vulnerable to a specific weapon, which encourages the player to complete certain stages before others.
Making for a very varied and even more dynamic gameplay already.
In time, Mega Man should be able to defeat the six Robot Masters and recovers their central cores.
Of course, with these completed, it makes sense for their to be a last and true boss.
A seventh stage should be set up... which is all about confronting the nefarious Dr. Wily, of course.
All in all, despite its supposed likeness to Sonic, it is already praised as a near-perfect blend of action, challenge, and audio-visual excellence.
How can one expect anything less? It is a Creed Game, after all.
With just its weapon-based platform gameplay... certain mushroom-eating and jumping plumber brothers are in trouble.
Coupled with another speed-based hedgehog that's introduced alongside it...
Mario, alongside that forgettable brother of his, is in a pinch!
Clearly, Creed has set its eyes on a specific target and their two-pronged attack couldn't be any more critical and bluer than the next.
Hiroshi Yamauchi, who had already developed an aversion to red and green, was starting to consider loathing blue as well.
He had read about red-green color blindness. Maybe monochromacy was the answer.
Then again, Creed Games would probably introduce some popular shade-themed video games.
What then? Consider total blindness?
In any case, Yamauchi really did not like this new competitor of theirs. Not one bit.
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On the other hand, Alexander was just thoughtfully musing about the whole thing.
After he got the DynaTAC call from Miss Marker about the whole development, he's quite quick on the mental mumbo jumbo of stuff.
It's usually what he does when it comes to stuff like this.
Of course, his thoughts were mostly more on the prospects of doing business overseas.
Overseas stuff was actually quite tricky when one comes across it.
For this development, Alexander was expecting a lot of rebranding. Just as how Japanese companies like Nintendo shift around stuff to be Americanized.
Shifting Rock Man to Mega Man for example. Yet the vice verse of that didn't happen.
He just needed to pre-install a language setting that fit the needs of the place that the Chaos units are introduced to. Updating a multi-language option unbeknownst to every Creed console owner out there.
It was mystical in a sense but it wasn't anything complex like Google Translate.
He just transcripted all in-game word elements and hired specific translators like Mr. Translator from Seasoned Hayao's visit.
And that was it. With no crazy transitions... no Bad Box Art Mega Man either.
Still, there were matters of pricing, setting up partners, overseeing management, regional considerations, specified limitations, and whatnot.
Fortunately, his grandfather was quite handy when it came to these sorts of stuff and had settled it for him.
From Top Gun's global film distribution to all else.
Then again, Alexander wanted to learn the ropes of all of it.
This would mostly be delegated to key personnel but it didn't hurt to have masterful gist of the whole thing.
A decision that's probably conducive for the long term.
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With all that was said, Alexander was still on his beachside vacation...
Gazing at the blue sea, wondering about blue matters that are happening overseas...
Offering a symbolic tropical juice toast...
To Bad Box Art Mega Man.
May he rest in peace.