Takuya Nakayama watched as engineers on another workstation used wireframes to outline a character's hitboxes. Only now did he fully grasp how maddeningly tedious this work truly was.
"You've worked hard."
He patted Yu Suzuki on the shoulder. "I remember a few months ago, someone couldn't even find the right path forward."
The teasing remark made Yu Suzuki's stern face crack in the slightest, barely noticeable way.
He didn't look back—just gave a terse grunt in reply.
The more lost he had been back then, the stronger the satisfaction he felt now.
That feeling of walking blindly through darkness, only to finally light a lamp with one's own hands… only they could understand it.
"September. October at the latest."
Yu Suzuki gave a firm, decisive answer. "We'll have the first fully playable prototype by then."
"Good."
Takuya nodded, highly satisfied.
Starting a 3D game from scratch—outsiders would never imagine how difficult it truly was.
There were no mature engines, no standard tools. Even the most basic theories had to be carved out by hand.
If he hadn't "opened his heavenly eye" to point them toward Fujitsu, and hadn't dragged motion-capture technology over from Hollywood, this nearly impossible mission wouldn't even have a timeline.
Otherwise, getting artists to hand-key polygon animations one frame at a time… they might still be working when the monkeys ascended the throne.
Leaving Yu Suzuki's development room, Takuya turned into the nearby Captain Hook team.
Even before stepping inside, the crisp clash of blades and exaggerated explosion effects spilled through the doorway—along with several rather excited shouts.
He pushed the door open.
The scene inside could not have been more different from Suzuki's quiet warzone—this room felt like a festival.
Ono, the team lead, spotted him at once. Like a hunting dog eager for praise, he dashed over with uncontained excitement written across his face.
"Executive Director! Come look at this!"
Before Takuya could say a word, Ono dragged him to a brand-new System32 arcade cabinet. On screen, Peter Pan and Captain Hook fought atop the mast.
When Peter Pan slashed a pirate into the sea, the splash that blossomed across the water was no longer the handful of pixels from System16—now it was a layered, semi-transparent effect, startlingly realistic.
"See that?! The splash! And the lighting!"
Ono jabbed his finger at the screen, practically shaking in excitement. "System32's specs are an absolute monster! And we've added unique intro animations for every boss—flashier than the movie!"
The surrounding team members crowded in, each eager to show off their work.
"Not bad," Takuya said, genuinely satisfied at the visuals that far surpassed his memories from his previous life. "Looks like everyone is very eager for that trip to America."
He swept his gaze around and spoke half-jokingly:
"During work breaks, remember to practice your English a bit. Touch up the accents. Otherwise, when you meet Mr. Spielberg and he can't understand you, it'll be embarrassing."
"Hahahaha!"
The room erupted in good-natured laughter, the earlier tension melting away.
Their "roughness problem"? Completely solved.
Leaving the Captain Hook team, Takuya continued down the hall toward Arcade Division 5.
The Metal Slug room, by contrast, was almost eerily quiet.
No excited chatter, no triumphant music—only the crisp tapping of keyboards and mice.
Everyone's eyes were glued to their screens, faces taut with focus.
Takuya immediately spotted Minoru Uchida.
He and a pixel artist were squeezed in front of a monitor, arguing so intensely their faces were flushed.
Takuya walked over quietly.
Uchida jabbed at the screen, voice firm and absolute.
"No. This roll is wrong."
"Leader Uchida, this is already the twelfth revision——"
The artist sounded like he wanted to cry.
"Wrong is wrong!"
Uchida's voice wasn't loud, but it was ironclad.
"The enemy is supposed to be blown back by a shell shockwave! There should be a moment of stiff impact first, then the loss of balance and tumble! What you have now is too light—like he slipped on a banana peel! And the expression—his eyes! Push them outward by two more pixels! I want him looking like his soul just flew out of his skull!"
The artist looked ready to collapse, but obediently began adjusting the tiny pixel soldier.
Takuya watched silently.
On the screen, the palm-sized chibi enemy soldier grew increasingly comical and macabre as the adjustments continued—pure black humor, pure Metal Slug.
Eventually, Uchida noticed him. The man pushed up his glasses, eyes still razor-sharp behind the lenses.
"Executive Director."
"I'm just passing through."
Takuya looked from the monitor to Uchida's exhausted yet wildly energized face.
"You're doing…?"
"Death animations."
Uchida answered briskly and matter-of-factly.
"We're implementing the 'details' you mentioned. From bullet kills to shell explosions to fire damage, each type of death will have three to five distinct animations—different reactions depending on how the enemy dies. We want players to see something new every time."
He paused.
"It's time-consuming, but the effect will be worth it."
Takuya felt the last stone in his heart finally settle.
Yes.
This was exactly what he wanted.
This extreme obsession with "useless" details—that was the soul of Metal Slug!
He slapped Uchida's shoulder hard.
All the things he wanted to say condensed into a single sentence:
"I'm looking forward to your work."
Leaving the development department, Takuya exhaled deeply, spirits soaring.
Virtua Fighter, Captain Hook, Metal Slug.
Three blades sharp enough to carve open the market—plus the King of Fighters project on the horizon—
Sega's return to arcade dominance in the 90s was now within reach.
—
Kyoto – Nintendo Headquarters
Masayuki Uemura stared at the weekly sales report. The SFC hardware sales curve climbed steadily, calmly… and far too slowly.
A knock sounded.
A marketing staffer entered, wearing a strained smile.
"Director, Capcom's Street Fighter SFC version released last week. First-week sales were eighty thousand units. Reception is decent."
"Decent?"
Uemura's eyes narrowed at the report.
"The MD version launched months earlier. Players have already had their fill. What about the others?"
"K–Konami's Sunset Riders launched as well. Reviews are very positive—"
"MD version launched simultaneously?" Uemura cut him off coldly.
"…Yes."
That single yes struck Uemura like a slap—hot, humiliating.
His gaze drifted to a game cartridge on the desk. Taito's latest "gift."
"Darius Gaiden…"
He picked up the box, rubbing a thumb across the cover.
"If I'm not mistaken, this game has been selling on MD for nearly a year. And now they're porting it to the SFC?"
"Yes… President Nishida said it is a 'faithful commemorative version' prepared specially for SFC players—"
"'Gift.'"
Uemura repeated the word in a voice twisted with bitterness.
A gift?
What a joke.
They were treating the SFC like a garbage bin for Sega's leftovers.
Those companies that once bowed and scraped before Yamauchi now dared to feed them cheap scraps.
These lazy ports barely nudged SFC hardware sales, yet each one jabbed like a needle into the pride of Nintendo's leadership.
Uemura waved his subordinate away.
Alone, he leaned heavily into his chair.
His eyes hardened into cold steel.
Expecting loyalty from fair-weather third parties?
Better to rely on himself.
He snatched the phone, dialing quickly.
The moment the call connected, he didn't even wait for a greeting.
"Miyamoto-kun? Uemura speaking."
"When will Triforce of the Gods be finished?"
—
Inside Sony – SFC-CD Development
Progress was advancing at lightning speed.
The engineers who had "returned victorious" from Sega brought back more than just reports—they carried hard-won experience and fully proven optimization methods.
All of it was transplanted directly into SFC-CD development… in Sony's internal pipeline, that was.
What Nintendo received, however, was an entirely different story.
Ken Kutaragi personally vetted every progress report—each one detailed, professional… and full of supposedly "unresolved problems" requiring "further research."
He even instructed engineers to submit inquiries about issues that had long been solved internally—packaged as "major technical challenges"—to the two young liaisons Nintendo had assigned.
Those poor kids were drowning in jargon they believed to be cutting-edge, convinced they were participating in a grand technical breakthrough. Each time they replied gratefully, praising Sony's "transparency" and "thoroughness."
"One of them asked last week about basic optical seek-time algorithms," an engineer reported with a grin. "We sent them the design we scrapped three months ago. They studied it like it was holy scripture."
A strange, gleeful atmosphere hung over Sony's PlayStation division.
All real resources were now centralized and thrown—full force—into PlayStation proper.
The machine still resembled the SFC-CD on paper…
But inside, it had metamorphosed completely.
It was no longer an add-on.
It was a next-generation console.
Sony engineers stuffed components into it almost violently, tearing the original spec sheet to shreds.
"Double the system memory. Add a geometry co-processor beside the GPU. Audio—strip down the studio-grade chipset and cram it in!"
Kutaragi stood before the prototype, eyes burning with the zeal of a creator.
This wasn't the SFC-CD's enhanced form—it was a monster wearing its skin.
When Norio Ohga walked into the lab, he took one look at the fluid 3D polygon demo onscreen, then at the "stability issues with single-speed drives" report on the desk…and burst out laughing.
"Kutaragi, your Trojan Horse plan is going brilliantly."
Ohga clapped him on the shoulder.
"Feeding them milk while sharpening a knife beside them."
"They handed us the knife themselves."
Kutaragi bared his teeth in a wide grin.
"And they're not even watching what we're doing with it."
"Well said."
Ohga was in great spirits.
"The board is pleased with the hardware progress. This beast now has form. Which means—"
His expression hardened.
"—it's time to prepare its rations."
"Sega has Takuya Nakayama and Square. Nintendo has Miyamoto and Enix."
His voice deepened.
"Our PlayStation cannot be an empty steel box that relies only on third parties."
Kutaragi understood instantly. His heartbeat quickened.
"You mean—"
"Exactly."
Ohga swept his gaze across the room.
"Hardware remains confidential. But the software division must begin moving."
He continued gravely:
"We cannot rely solely on third parties. Look at Nintendo this year—third-party titles were almost all ports, nowhere near strong enough to push hardware sales. Even if PlayStation is compatible with SFC cartridges and CDs, to win mainstream players, we need exclusive PlayStation titles. Mario for the SFC. Sonic for the MD."
Kutaragi nodded but voiced his concern.
"Then we need our own first-party team… but we don't have any experienced producers."
Ohga chuckled.
"Then we steal them. Sony is the kingdom of technology—poaching a few stranded talents shouldn't be difficult. Start with assistant directors stuck under big-name producers."
"Understood. But first, we should make contact with major third-party publishers."
Kutaragi offered his next plan.
"No matter what, adding another platform for them to release on—they'll be interested. Let's start with Konami. Their president Kimura is… extremely flexible."
"Excellent. Leave that to me."
Ohga nodded.
"You continue overseeing PlayStation's development—and keep it airtight."
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