Article from WeChat public account:Touch (ID: chuappgame), author: Wait, drawing from the title: game “Jesus”
“If a game can sell 50,000 copies, then you are very rich.”
This evening, at the “Span class=”text-remarks” label=”(Note)”>(Game Preservation Society) located in Tokyo, the narrow 3rd floor room, I was the first I saw “Jesus”. When European and American players talk about the video game developer and publisher Enix, it is likely to mention “Dragon Quest”, but Joseph Redon is more willing to talk about another PC game “Jesus” made by Enix – it is almost the same “Dragon Quest” is on sale at the same time, but it is almost unknown.
As the president of the association, Redon has collected thousands of games, most of which I have never heard of. Redon told me that the mission of the association is to collect, archive and protect Japanese PC games that came out in the 1980s and 1990s. No matter which game I want to know, he can tell me about the history of the developer and what is special about it.
When he started talking about Enix, like a natural storyteller, he told all the stories he had heard. European and American players are likely to know nothing about Japanese PC games, and through the Game Preservation Association, Redon wants to ensure that these works are not forgotten by people.
Japanese game company Enix was founded in 1975, merged with Square in 2003, and “Jesus” is their graphical adventure game launched in 1987
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Enix: Release Pioneer
“Enix is a great publisher, but that history is not everyone’s knowledge.” When looking at the cover of the 1980s RPG and adventure games, Redon said. Those covers look very beautiful, and in the 1980s, publishers didn’t have to sell too many copies to achieve great success.
“If a game can sell 50,000 copies, then you are very rich.”
In the mid-1980s, before the Nintendo Red and White machine dominated the market, many small teams and even individual developers would play games for users eager to use new computers. Today, there are not many PC players in Japan, but in the 1980s Japan’s economy was booming and the level of technology was high. Personal computers (especially NEC PC-8801 released in 1981) ) sales are very good.
“Most Japanese families were very wealthy during that time. People buy new things every year, such as new computers, new cars, new TV sets.” There are also many magazines for PC enthusiasts, they will be all kinds of software and The game is evaluated and promoted.
Jesus Game Screen
Enix was originally a publisher, and the way they recruited talent was to offer $5,000 in prize money to amateur programmers who submitted high quality games. In those days, Risei Yuji and NakamuraLight has teamed up to make an RPG game for the red and white mechanism – “Dragon Quest”. The game was a huge success, with sequels selling to millions of copies—compared to the tens of thousands of successful PC games sold in the Japanese market at the time.
“Do you think other vendors will invest time and money to make PC games that can only sell 10,000 copies?” Redon asked. “The cost of making these games is similar to that of Dragon Quest, and maybe even higher. Because there is no memory limit on the PC, you only need to increase the number of floppy disks. You must also make beautiful game packs, a 100-page manual, and advertise in many magazines. Why do you want to do this?”
Many PC game developers have turned to games for more profitable red and white machines, but Enix is different.
“Enix is a distribution company, but brings together a group of game creators. They don’t have dreams about red and white machines. Their dream is to make games, create high-quality images, digital music, and make bigger games. , telling an epic story. These developers make entertainment products, not just to make money.”
“So they told Enix that we wanted to play games for the PC. This is the most suitable platform. Some developers or publishers are likely to reject this request because it takes too much time, but Enix says: ‘Good Let’s just let it go, even if you can’t make much money, it doesn’t matter. ‘Enix always respects the game creators and hopes to help them realize their dreams.”
This description of history may be a bit too romantic, but Enix did not give up PC games.
Until 1993, Enix has been launching PC games, including Misty Blue, Jesus 2 and more. Like many PC games of the era, “Jesus” is an adventure with a huge amount of text and a lot of still images and dialogues.
Jesus 2 was released in 1991 and is still a PC game
“You have to know that many of the features of the PC-88 are not designed for gaming,” Redon said. “For example, this computer does not have the hardware to support the wizard or screen scrolling, but the developers still make full use of the advantages of the PC when making the game, high-resolution display, storage space and Yamaha sound chip capable of synthesizing FM music – – It is the predecessor of the chips used by Sega Genesis, allowing musicians to create beautiful sounds.”
Misty Blue is a perfect example. In this suspense game, a young musician tries to clear his suspicions in a murder case. You need to talk to other characters during most of your play time, and different dialog options will cause a gauge to be filled or empty.
“At the time, it was the best game you could find, far better than the games on the Red and White or Sega Mark III.”
Misty Blue, 1990
In a sense, Misty Blue is like a digital comic. The static image is more than the animation, but its pixel art level is almost close to TV animation, and the music is also very good. A year before the advent of “Street of Rage” on the “Span class=”text-remarks” label=”Remarks”> (Street of Rage), the composer Ancient Yuzo integrated the European pop music elements of the 1980s. In the game “Misty Blue”.
In the 1980s, Enix launched a number of PC games, but most of them were not known to Western or modern players. Enix released the first video game based on the comic “Beidou Shenquan”, the simple but cute-looking action RPG “Gandhara”, and “4.6 billion Years of Story”