When encountering enemies cast with spells, the boy switched to his god form again, using the Qiankun Mirror to reflect the enemy's fireballs.
The seamless switching between three forms made the battle rhythm incredibly fast and full of strategy.
And what left the deepest impression on the boy was the line that popped up at the bottom of the screen every time he finished transforming.
"What did I forget again?"
Combined with the distant melody played by traditional instruments in the background music, an indescribable sense of fate and melancholy washed over him.
Japanese players had no resistance to this kind of narrative, which carried a sense of flawed beauty and fatalism.
The text, carefully polished by Sega's localization team, precisely hit their emotional pain points.
In just a few days, discussions about "The Legend of Yang Jian" began to increase in major BBS forums and game magazine reader mailboxes.
"The action fluidity is amazing, and the form-switching mechanic is so creative."
"Although it's 2D, the special effects for the magic items are gorgeous, completely maxing out the hardware's capabilities."
"The plot is very restrained, and the characterization of Yang Jian is truly compelling. 5800 yen is absolute value for money."
Positive word of mouth fueled a rise in sales. The first 50,000 units released in the Japanese market were completely sold out within two weeks, and retailers began frantically pressing Sega for more stock.
At the same time, in Fuzhou, China.
The office of Mercury Electronics Technology was filled with smoke.
Fu Zhan had two dark circles under his eyes, his hand gripping the telephone receiver tightly.
The dozen or so people in the office area didn't dare to breathe, staring fixedly at him.
"Okay, okay, I understand. Thank you, Mr. Koguchi."
Fu Zhan set down the receiver and let out a long sigh. He turned around to look at the guys who had pulled countless all-nighters by his side.
"The first 50,000 units in Japan have sold out. I hear sales in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are also going pretty well, though we'll have to wait a few days for the exact figures. The second batch of 50,000 units has already gone into production." Fu Zhan's voice trembled slightly.
The office went quiet for a second, then erupted into deafening cheers.
Some people threw their draft papers into the air, while others hugged each other, jumping and shouting in excitement.
Over the past half year or more, they had gone to Tokyo for an industrial baptism, only to return and tear everything down to start over.
They gave up their obsession with full 3D, hammered away at 2D frame rates and special effects, and even had to deal with that hypercritical legal supervisor.
They had managed to chew through this tough nut.
"Don't celebrate too early," Fu Zhan pressed his hands down, though he himself was grinning from ear to ear. "The Japanese market is just the beginning. The main event is still to come."
He walked over to a world map hanging on the wall and drew a circle around Southeast Asia and North America with his finger.
To promote this game, Sega had utilized a portion of their promotional resources. While this was just a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of dollars spent on marketing first-party blockbusters, the targeted placement had been carefully considered.
Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, and Chinese communities in North America.
These regions have a massive Chinese-speaking audience that possesses a natural affinity for the cultural background of *Investiture of the Gods*.
More importantly, Sega required Mercury to include a Traditional Chinese language pack on the disc.
In front of a video game store in Mong Kok, Hong Kong, a huge poster was plastered in the most prominent position.
In addition to a character portrait of Yang Jian, the poster featured several large characters: "The First Next-Gen Action Blockbuster in Full Traditional Chinese."
In this era, Chinese-language games were extremely scarce.
Console platforms were flooded with Japanese and English titles. Chinese gamers often had to hold a thick strategy guide, sometimes even playing with a dictionary in hand, just to understand an RPG.
Now, a game developed entirely by Chinese people, possessing authentic Chinese text, and offering graphics and gameplay that reached top international standards, was laid out before them.
Nine-Tattooed Dragon's sales network demonstrated astonishing efficiency at this time.
Leveraging the connections they had built up over the years through their "Learning Machine" distribution channels, they got *The Legend of Yang Jian* into retail outlets in every Chinese-populated area.
Underground malls in Taiwan, Sim Lim Square in Singapore, and video game stores in Los Angeles' Chinatown were all stocked with it.
"Boss, give me a copy of that Chinese version of *The Legend of Yang Jian*."
"Sorry, we just got the stock in today and it's already sold out. If you want one, you'll have to leave a deposit and come back for it the day after tomorrow."
There was no need to explain what the "Jie Sect" was, and no need to polish the sense of fatalism in the dialogue.
The moment Chinese players saw "Howling Celestial Dog" and "Three-Point Double-Edged Glaive," the cultural DNA carved into their bones automatically filled in all the background settings.
To Chinese players, the game's background music, sampled from chimes and guzheng, sounded far more intimate than any symphony.
The mere "pittance" of advertising fees that Sega had invested yielded an unimaginably high return in these regions.
The stock for the Traditional Chinese region had sold out in less than a month.
Time marched on to the end of March. The air in Fuzhou already carried a hint of early summer humidity.
In the finance office of Mercury Electronics Technology, Kobayashi laid a remittance slip, stamped with the Bank of China's red seal, flat on the desk.
The edges of the paper were slightly curled.
Inside the finance office of Mercury Electronic Technology, Kobayashi laid a remittance slip, stamped with the Bank of China's red seal, flat on the desk.
The edges of the paper were slightly curled.
Fu Zhan stood before the desk, calculator in hand.
The clicking of the keys sounded exceptionally crisp in the quiet room.
"86.2 million Japanese Yen," Kobayashi said, pointing to the number on the remittance slip. "It matches the fax sent over by Sega's finance department. After deducting channel and marketing expenses, this is the royalty for the first batch of 50,000 units, plus the remaining development fees from the previous stage. The people at the Bank of China said this money is going through a corporate account and will be converted directly at the listed exchange rate."
Fu Zhan didn't speak, his fingers continuing to tap on the calculator. It was 1996, and although the dual-track foreign exchange system had only recently been abolished, foreign currency was still a scarce commodity.
According to the official exchange rate that day, 10,000 Yen was worth about 750 RMB.
A string of numbers popped up on the screen: 6,465,000.
"If we exchanged this on the black market, we'd get at least ten percent more," a programmer chimed in from the side.
"Cut the crap," Fu Zhan glared at him. "This is a corporate account; every transaction has to be able to withstand an audit. We're legitimate now. Don't go thinking with the mindset we used to have when dealing in bootleg cartridges."
In Fuzhou in the mid-nineties, the price of commercial housing hovered around one or two thousand yuan per square meter. Six million-plus RMB was enough to buy several buildings in the city center.
Not to mention, this was hard currency.
In an era with strict foreign exchange controls and when the nation's foreign exchange reserves were not exactly abundant, the value of hard currency far exceeded that of an equivalent amount in RMB.
For local governments at year-end evaluations, foreign exchange earnings were a hard performance target.
The sound of typing in the office area ceased.
Several core members gathered at the doorway of the finance room.
"How much?" Old Zhang, who was in charge of art, poked his head in.
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