Sega-CD, Start!

"Metal Slug is a great name!"

"Just hearing the name makes it sound hard and metallic, like it's full of gunpowder!"

The bewilderment and unease I felt from being forced to attend the meeting vanished, replaced by an almost manic creative urge.

His talent, suppressed for too long, and his spirit, worn down by failure, were completely ignited at this moment by the spark called "Metal Slug".

"Specialist! Besides tanks, we can build airplanes! Helicopters! Even submarines!" said a young programmer wearing glasses.

Just moments ago he looked pale, but now his face was flushed with excitement. He adjusted his glasses and eagerly spoke, "System32's scroll performance..."

Creating a level that goes both sky-high and underground is no problem at all!

"Right, right, right!" an art director immediately chimed in, "There are so many ways to kill enemy soldiers! Burned to a crisp, blown away by artillery shells, falling into the water and struggling—we can even design an animation of them jumping around clutching their butts after being hit in the butt!"

"And prisoners! We can design some captured friendly troops; rescuing them will give them items, or they can fight alongside us!"

They can salute, blow kisses, and even ascend to heaven as souls after death!

"Boss battle! The boss must be enormous! It must fill the entire screen! Its entrance must be earth-shattering, and when it gets destroyed, it must shatter into tens of thousands of parts!"

Ideas poured out like a flood, instantly igniting the atmosphere in the entire laboratory.

Director Takahashi listened with a broad smile, slapping his thigh repeatedly and muttering, "This is great! This is great! Do it all!"

"Etc!"

Uchida Shizuka suddenly shouted, interrupting everyone's wild thoughts.

His stubbornness kicked in again; his brows were furrowed, and his expression was frighteningly serious.

"Too many ideas will dilute the core experience. For our first game, we must perfect the 'tank' and 'destruction' elements! We must polish every detail to perfection! Instead of adding a bunch of flashy but impractical features!"

The moment he opened his mouth, the previously enthusiastic atmosphere immediately cooled down.

Several young team members opened their mouths, wanting to refute, but were silenced by the unquestionable glare from their team leader.

Director Takahashi was also a little embarrassed and was about to smooth things over when Takuya clapped his hands with a smile.

"Team Leader Uchida is right." He first affirmed Uchida Minoru's professional attitude, then changed the subject, looking at the somewhat dejected team members, "But none of your ideas can be wasted."

He walked to the whiteboard and picked up another pen of a different color.

"It's like feeding pigeons. You can't throw out a year's worth of food all at once; that's not being generous, that's wasteful. You have to feed them little by little, so they always remember that you have something good to eat here."

Takuya's words were witty, and everyone was taken aback for a moment before bursting into laughter.

"Team Leader Uchida," Takuya, looking at him, "You'll be the pigeon feeder. Write down all the ideas everyone just mentioned. Then we'll have a meeting and categorize them."

He wrote several titles on the whiteboard with a pen: <Metal Slug 1>, <Metal Slug 2>, <Metal Slug X>.

"What are the core gameplay elements that must be implemented in the first generation? What can be placed in the second generation to bring players new surprises? And what can be made into an enhanced version or a spin-off? What we are doing now is not just a game, but a series plan that can sustain us for half a lifetime."

Uchida Minoru stared at the title on the whiteboard, his breathing suddenly quickening.

He finally understood that the promise of "living off someone for half their life" made by the Special Advisor Nakayama was not an empty promise, but a treasure map with a well-planned route.

Without another word, he snatched the paper and pen from the team member next to him and said in a deep voice to the still excited group, "Stop standing there! One by one, repeat everything I just said! If anyone forgets their idea, they're not leaving get off work today!"

Instead of complaining, the members of Arcade Group Five erupted in even louder cheers and immediately surrounded them, chattering away.

Seeing that the Arcade Group Five had completely fallen into creative frenzy, huddled around the whiteboard, arguing passionately about all sorts of inspirations, Takuya smiled with satisfaction and turned to leave.

The first step of the plan has been successfully completed.

"Special Secretary Nakayama, please wait."

A steady voice called out to him.

Takuya turned around and saw Nakamura, the head of the Hardware Development Department, standing there with a thick report in his hand.

This tech enthusiast wasn't as boisterous as Director Takahashi, but the way he adjusted his glasses and the unusual gleam in his eyes behind the lenses revealed an barely suppressed excitement.

"Minister Nakamura, is there something you need?"

"Executive Director, regarding the CD-ROM 'tracking optimization' you mentioned before," Nakamura didn't directly report the results, instead keeping everyone in suspense. He handed over the report, his voice low but clear, "We... may have found the solution."

Takuya's heart skipped a beat, and he took the report.

"The team at Sony is truly remarkable. With their assistance, we took a different approach, not focusing solely on the CD-ROM drive's rotation speed, but completely rewriting the underlying logic for data reading," explained Director Nakamura. "We developed a completely new game file system specification."

Furthermore, through tiered resource loading technology, the program can load the most needed data into memory in advance, according to the developer's plan.

He paused, then summarized in a more vivid way. "Simply put, we've given a 1x speed CD-ROM drive the effective loading efficiency of a 2x speed CD-ROM drive. Although the absolute reading speed hasn't changed, players almost don't experience that long wait anymore."

Takuya's fingertips tapped lightly on the report cover, his gaze sharp.

"What about the cost? Minister Nakamura, I need to know if this plan will turn our CD drives into expensive toys that are unaffordable for an average family?"

That's the key. No matter how good the technology is, if the cost gets out of control and it can't be popularized, it's just a dragon-slaying technique in the laboratory.

"That's precisely the value of this report!"

Nakamura excitedly pushed up his glasses, "The cost of a 2x CD-ROM drive is outrageous, but our optimization solution allows a cheap 1x CD-ROM drive to achieve completely acceptable commercial performance! The cost has been strictly controlled below the red line you set!"

Takuya opened the report and quickly scanned the dense data and charts.

Countless classic, high-capacity game scenes were already flashing through his mind.

These things, which were unimaginable in the cassette era, now finally have the potential to be realized!

Snap!

Takuya closed the report with a crisp sound.

The entire noisy Hardware Development Department seemed to be silenced by this sudden sound, and everyone's eyes were focused on it.

They watched the young executive officer, awaiting the final verdict.

Takuya's face showed no ecstasy, only a calm composure born of strategic planning, but his voice carried an undeniable power.

"Minister Nakamura, pass the message down."

"MD's external CD-ROM drive project is officially launched."

He looked around at the engineers, whose faces were flushed with excitement, and spoke slowly and deliberately.

Its name is Mega-CD!