Saturday, 28 December 2001.
New York, United States.
One of the largest multipurpose event buildings in New York had been transformed into the centre of the gaming industry for the night. This year, the joint Game of the Year ceremony hosted by ZEMITSU and Compute X was being held in the United States, continuing the tradition of rotating locations after the previous year's event in Japan.
This year was also historic for another reason.
For the first time, the entire FAMICOM Game of the Year ceremony was being broadcast live through YouTube.
YouTube itself had only launched earlier in 2001 under ZAGE, so livestreaming an event of this scale was still incredibly new. Until recently, most people had only experienced award ceremonies through television broadcasts, magazine coverage, radio, or recorded highlights released afterward. Now viewers across the world could watch the ceremony almost immediately through the internet.
The hype surrounding the broadcast was enormous.
Gaming fans in Japan, America, Korea, China, Europe, and numerous other countries were following the ceremony simultaneously. YouTube's servers had undergone extensive preparation for the event, with engineers monitoring traffic constantly as viewer numbers climbed far beyond ordinary broadcasts on the platform.
And unlike the old ZAGE Game of the Year events from nearly a decade earlier, this ceremony truly represented the wider gaming industry.
ZAGE was obviously present in force. Sonaya had several major titles represented. Numerous independent and third-party studios had nominations of their own, while Microsoft had entered the competition properly for the first time thanks to the Xbox. Even Apple's struggling iPlay had managed to secure representation in several categories.
The industry had become much larger than it had been ten years earlier.
That was exactly why Zaboru had supported independent awards in the first place.
The FAMICOM ceremony followed a structure originally inspired by ZAGE's old internal Game of the Year format, though ZEMITSU had expanded and refined it heavily over the years. Each major category generally featured around five nominees, followed by short presentations highlighting why each title had been selected before the winner was announced.
New categories were also introduced whenever the industry evolved enough to justify them.
This year included awards such as Best Music, Best Co-Op, Best Story, Best Racing Game, Best Online Game, Best Action Game, and Best RPG, alongside several technical, artistic, and genre-specific awards.
And although the industry had become significantly more competitive, one thing remained painfully obvious.
ZAGE was still everywhere.
Across nearly every category, at least one ZAGE title appeared, and in several categories the company occupied multiple nomination slots. Zaboru himself had already joked privately that it looked less like ZAGE had entered the ceremony and more like the company had accidentally invaded it.
The first major category of the evening was Best Music.
Five games had been selected: Elf Adventure from Microsoft for Xbox, Guitar Hero 2 from ZAGE for ZEPS 3, Mega Man X3 from ZAGE for ZEPS 3, Sherif Juan 5 from Sonaya for Game Station 32, and the strange independent title Hugging Pillow, developed by the small English studio Loroke and released across Game Station 32, ZEPS 3, and PC.
At first glance, most viewers expected the battle to come down to Guitar Hero 2, Sherif Juan 5, or possibly Elf Adventure.
Elf Adventure had actually received plenty of praise for its soundtrack. Microsoft had gone unusually hard on heavy-metal-inspired compositions for the fantasy RPG, giving the game an aggressive musical identity that helped distinguish it from more traditional fantasy titles.
Sherif Juan 5 had a completely different sound, combining Western-inspired music with dramatic cinematic themes that fit Juan's increasingly complicated relationship with government authority.
Mega Man X3 naturally delivered the fast, energetic rock-heavy music expected from the series.
But Guitar Hero 2 existed almost entirely around music.
Its soundtrack was not merely background accompaniment. Music was the game.
ZAGE had invested heavily in both licensed tracks and original compositions, while the Zaraki-related development teams and several other musicians had contributed unique songs created specifically for the title. The game covered a wide range of rock and metal styles, with enough variety that players could immediately identify songs by only a few opening notes.
When the envelope was finally opened, the result surprised practically nobody.
Guitar Hero 2 — ZAGE — ZEPS 3.
ZAGE had won its first award of the night.
Zaboru applauded alongside the developers rather than attempting to act as though the result was inevitable. Guitar Hero 2's music team had spent an absurd amount of time ensuring the game sounded right, and for once there was little controversy over the decision.
What did attract far more curiosity was the presence of Hugging Pillow among the nominees.
The game had been created by Loroke, a tiny English studio almost completely unknown internationally before the ceremony. Its protagonist was literally a pillow-like creature named Hugging, living in a bizarre world where practically every living creature was some variation of a pillow.
Friends were pillows.
Enemies were pillows.
Shopkeepers were pillows.
Bosses were significantly angrier pillows.
The concept sounded ridiculous when explained aloud, yet the game itself had turned out surprisingly charming. Its visual style was colourful and expressive, its humour consistently strange, and its gameplay much more polished than people expected from such a small studio.
But the soundtrack had become its most celebrated feature.
Loroke had somehow combined classical-style compositions with chiptune and 8-bit-inspired melodies, creating music that sounded simultaneously elegant and completely ridiculous. Calm exploration areas might use piano and strings before suddenly transitioning into energetic electronic melodies during combat.
The nomination alone was enough to push Hugging Pillow into the attention of players who had previously never heard of it.
Zaboru particularly liked that.
Award ceremonies were useful when they rewarded huge games, but he thought they became genuinely valuable when they caused someone to discover something strange they otherwise would have ignored.
The ceremony continued.
Next came the newly expanded Best Action Game category.
This year's nominees included Thunder Dragon Fist — Bruce Lee from ZAGE for ZEPS 3, Doom 3 from ZAGE for PC, Microsoft's HORI for Xbox, Karate Bunny 3 from Akaishidan for ZEPS 3, Blockage from Kikinoki for Game Station 32, and Scurge: Hive from ZAGE for ZGBA.
Technically, the category had ended up with six nominees instead of the usual five after the judging panel reportedly struggled to remove one of the final contenders.
Zaboru found that amusing.
The industry was growing fast enough that rigid rules were already starting to break.
Thunder Dragon Fist — Bruce Lee immediately stood out as the favourite.
The game had been developed around Bruce Lee himself, with his approval and direct consultation shaping much of the combat philosophy well that whats Zaboru said to interview because Bruce Lee actually don't really care as Zaboru are his disciple anyway.
The result was one of the fastest and most fluid action games on ZEPS 3.
Doom 3 presented the exact opposite kind of action.
Heavy.
Dark.
Claustrophobic.
Violent.
Instead of encouraging players to move like Bruce Lee, Doom 3 deliberately made them feel trapped inside dangerous environments where every sound could indicate something waiting beyond the next doorway.
Then there was HORI, one of Microsoft's strongest Xbox action releases. The game had performed respectably and helped show that Xbox could support more than Western shooters and PC-style titles, although it was still competing against several extremely established ZAGE franchises.
Karate Bunny 3 remained exactly as strange as its title suggested, continuing Akaishidan's surprisingly successful martial-arts Karate Bunny series.
And Blockage had become one of the more unexpected nominations.
Developed by Kikinoki, a studio owned by Sonaya, Blockage followed an enormous muscular ninja whose approach to stealth was questionable at best. Rather than sneaking through enemy compounds like a traditional ninja, the protagonist frequently solved problems by carrying a gigantic hammer and smashing through whatever stood between him and the objective.
Walls.
Doors.
Enemies.
Occasionally entire sections of buildings.
The title itself came from the protagonist's ridiculous physique. He was so broad and heavily muscled that other characters joked he physically blocked entire corridors simply by standing inside them.
The game never took itself completely seriously, but beneath the comedy was a genuinely strong action system built around heavy impacts, environmental destruction, and deliberately exaggerated momentum.
Scurge: Hive, meanwhile, represented something entirely different again, combining isometric combat, changing expeditions, ranged and melee weapons, enemy weaknesses, temporary upgrades, permanent progression, and its unusual repeated-death structure.
When the winner was announced, however, the result went to the favourite.
Thunder Dragon Fist — Bruce Lee.
Another ZAGE victory.
The developers accepted the award while footage of Bruce Lee's in-game combat played across the enormous screen behind the stage.
The ceremony continued through several additional awards before eventually reaching Best RPG.
This category made the extent of ZAGE's dominance particularly obvious.
Five nominees appeared on the screen: Vagrant Story for ZEPS 3, Trails in the Sky Second Chapter for ZEPS 3, Paper Mario for ZEPS 3, Elf Adventure for Xbox, and Baldur's Gate II for PC.
Four of the five were ZAGE releases.
Each title represented a very different interpretation of the RPG genre.
Trails in the Sky Second Chapter focused heavily on character relationships, worldbuilding, and long-form storytelling.
Paper Mario used a much lighter and more comedic tone while combining RPG mechanics with unusual presentation and timing-based combat.
Baldur's Gate II remained one of the deepest PC RPG experiences available, filled with party management, extensive dialogue, exploration, quests, and tactical combat.
Microsoft's Elf Adventure had also gained a respectable following thanks to its large fantasy world, heavier soundtrack, and emphasis on exploration.
But Vagrant Story had captured players in a particularly unusual way.
Its atmosphere was unlike almost anything else released that year.
The game combined dark fantasy, political intrigue, complex characters, weapon systems, tactical positioning, and a visual presentation that pushed ZEPS 3 far beyond what many players expected from the hardware.
More importantly, it possessed an identity that was difficult to confuse with anything else.
When the winner was announced, Vagrant Story took Best RPG.
The applause was immediate.
Eventually, however, the atmosphere inside the building began to change.
The smaller categories had finished.
The genre awards were nearly complete.
Presenters started speaking more carefully.
Camera crews repositioned.
The giant screens behind the stage transitioned away from the colourful category graphics used throughout the evening and replaced them with a darker, simpler presentation.
Everyone understood what was approaching.
The final award.
The award that would dominate magazine covers, newspaper entertainment sections, YouTube discussions, gaming stores, and arguments between fans for weeks afterward.
FAMICOM GAME OF THE YEAR 2001.
Zaboru leaned slightly forward in his seat.
Even he did not know the final result.
ZEMITSU guarded the final selection aggressively, precisely because the award meant far more when even ZAGE could not influence or predict it.
The presenter stepped onto the centre of the stage holding a sealed envelope.
Behind him, the giant screen slowly displayed:
GAME OF THE YEAR 2001
The audience became almost completely silent.
Then the presenter smiled.
"Before we announce the winner…"
A pause.
"…we must first reveal the games selected as this year's final nominees."
Zaboru crossed his arms and looked toward the screen with obvious curiosity.
Around him, developers from ZAGE, Sonaya, Microsoft, independent studios, and numerous other companies did exactly the same.
The screen faded to black.
The first reveal was about to begin.
To be continued.
Please give me your power stone and if you want to support me and get minimum 50+ advance chapter and additional 1 chapter a week for 4$ considering subscribe to my patreon patreon.com/Zaborn_1997
Or buymecoffee https://buymeacoffee.com/Zaborn_1997 which same with patreon
current Patreon/buymecoffe chap 1379