Inside the game store, everyone held their breath, watching intently as the teenager in front of them played.
They didn't take him seriously when he waved his floppy disk and said he was going to play.
But they all fell silent when Miyazaki revealed his lineup.
Damn, that's incredibly well-practiced!
"Did he create this game himself? All the characters survived, wow!"
"Did you see his equipment? It's pretty complete. My Alan hasn't even bought a javelin by Chapter 10 (laughs)."
"Quiet down, let him concentrate on the game, maybe there's still a chance."
Miyazaki ignored the noise around him and kept his eyes on the screen.
The fog of war was truly a stroke of genius.
Its appearance completely transformed this game into something else entirely.
Miyazaki never imagined that simply adding a mechanic could bring about such a dramatic change in the game.
He dragged the Pegasus Knights in his team, traversing half a mountain range to open up part of the field of vision.
"Intelligence is everything. Without knowing the store manager's capabilities, the information gap is the key to success or failure."
The crowd watching the store manager's situation gasped in unison.
His mercenaries captured Miyazaki's Pegasus Knight!
It's important to know that Shanna, controlled by Miyazaki, wields a silver spear, which, while dealing considerable damage, still inflicts significant damage when facing axe-wielders.
However, their exclamations didn't stop there.
If that were all, Shanna, the Pegasus Knight who is still on the mountain, could still survive by relying on her evasion rate.
The real danger was the sniper who was right behind him.
The nemesis of the Pegasus Knights.
If you can land a 100% hit on her, she'll be literally trapped and unable to escape.
But the atmosphere among the audience on Miyazaki's side was unusually strange.
They looked at the two units that appeared in Miyazaki's field of vision, wanting to laugh but not daring to, and silently glanced at the A-level Support trio following behind.
Shanna served her purpose as bait.
Once this round ends, the store manager's main force will suffer heavy losses.
It seems the ownership of that MSX computer has already been decided.
"Fog of war?"
Steve nodded knowingly; this was indeed an unexpected design. "It's a pity that Fire Emblem's scale can't be ported to the NovaPocket handheld; otherwise, it would be great if we could use the communication function to play this mode."
He sighed.
Given Fire Emblem's gameplay style, mobile devices are clearly the more suitable platform for it.
You can take it out anytime, anywhere for a quick game, and even connect online to battle with other enthusiasts—it's incredibly fun!
"However, this mechanism is truly a stroke of genius, Mr. Lin. It adds a whole new way to play Fire Emblem."
In the classic Fire Emblem experience, combat is essentially a game of pure information.
Just like the match he just played with Lin Lixin, both sides had a completely transparent, God-like perspective.
The real strategies all revolve around precise calculations.
However, if specialized equipment is used, it will become an asymmetric war.
The importance of investigation and risk decision-making has been significantly increased.
Both sides need to do their utmost to deduce the other's location and configuration based on limited information in order to decide on their next move.
Even detailed equipment and attributes can only be learned after an actual battle.
This adds another dimension to the variety of tactics.
It was just like a real battlefield.
"We will be adding a Fire Emblem event to the next EVO Evolution Championship. This fog of war mechanic is kind of an experiment we're conducting."
Having already developed the terrain generator, Lin Lixin naturally wouldn't overlook this important project.
When it comes to strategy games, real-time strategy is an genre that can never be ignored.
Although it's impossible to achieve with the current hardware conditions, it's not bad to lay the foundation for the future.
Steve jotted down the last word in his notebook, then silently uttered a concise and succinct phrase. "Outrageous."
"Well, anyway, thank you Mr. Lin for agreeing to today's interview. It seems I still need to do some more research when I get back."
Today's interview gave him a completely new understanding of the game.
A masterpiece with an extremely low minimum standard, yet an equally high maximum standard, making it unfathomably profound.
Not a single element is wasted; within the 1MB capacity, every KB, or even every B, is utilized to the fullest extent.
He even had the idea that "damn storage media is limiting GAMENOVA's talent."
If it had even more capacity, I wonder what new features it could offer.
"Wait a minute."
Lin Lixin stopped Steve, who was about to leave, once again.
He now held a floppy disk with a cover different from the Fire Emblem game itself.
Two weeks after the release of the main Fire Emblem game, a brand new floppy disk appeared on the shelf, right next to the Fire Emblem game itself.
Fire Emblem 1 Booster Pack: Trial of Wisdom
[Content 1]: Expanded save slots to 4 [Content 2]: Added gameplay map editor [Introduction]:
Players can design their own maps and levels to play.
It supports saving to archives and can be shared with other players through exchanges.
You can also export the map as a password for sharing.
On the same day, Electronic Games also published a review of the expansion pack in its game review section.
[I was naturally very pleasantly surprised when I received the opportunity to play the game.]
[After playing the game, I've also prepared a very challenging custom map for you readers.]
[If anyone manages to break through using the initial lineup, they can send a letter to the Electronic Games editorial department; a surprise gift awaits them.]
[Map password is as follows:]
Sam took the latest issue of the magazine and entered the password into the game character by character, referring to the code written inside.
An exceptionally cleverly designed map was thus generated.
"Although it's a bit verbose, it's surprisingly suitable for print media like magazines."
Sam stared at the pictures in the magazine, marveling at the ingenuity of the plan.
While it's possible to create a map by replicating an image one-to-one, it's nowhere near as simple as directly entering a password.
Tell me, how did you do that?
Lin Lixin, who was writing something at his desk, stopped what he was doing.
"It's just simple compression. It shortens consecutive tiles by row; for example, 10 consecutive tiles in a plain can be represented as P0a."
Thanks to the fact that Fire Emblem's maps are not very large, even maps with no apparent pattern will not end up being too outrageous.
Any properly designed map can be shortened to some extent.
"Hexadecimal? I see."
Sam the meaning of P0a for a moment and then understood.
Fire Emblem maps have a maximum length and width of 3232, using one digit to represent a grid and a maximum of two digits to represent the length, which is sufficient to cover most usage needs.
Especially in environments filled with large amounts of ocean and plains, the compression rate will increase further.
Well, that's basically it.
Lin Lixin quickly saved the code he had written and reached for an envelope on the table.
The sender's name is listed as "[National Basketball Association]".
"By the way, do you want to go to a basketball game? The NBA sent me two Lakers tickets."