If "Dragon Quest" is considered a national-level game in Japan, then "Final Fantasy" is a world-class game.
The specific reasons are difficult for Takayuki to pinpoint, but it's true that "Final Fantasy" is more widely accepted overseas.
Perhaps it's because "Final Fantasy" incorporates more elements of modern aesthetics, such as a steampunk style or a futuristic technological background mixed with magic.
In an era of significant cultural and technological advancement, this science fiction style of game may be more appealing.
However, the style of the first "Final Fantasy" game wasn't like this; it only changed later on.
If "Dragon Quest" is a grand story about heroism, then "Final Fantasy" tends to be darker, which also makes it more mature, indirectly expanding its audience slightly.
In the previous world, "Final Fantasy" was Square's last gamble; if it failed, the company would likely have been dissolved.
So, at that time, they had a somewhat desperate determination, wanting to break the mold. In the first game, they tried a narrative style that resembled a movie.
Achieving a cinematic narrative on the Famicom seemed unthinkable, of course. It definitely didn't have movie-quality visuals, not even close to early animations.
But it did set a precedent and established one of the benchmarks for "Final Fantasy."
Another innovation was that the protagonists in "Final Fantasy" were no longer flawless; they were fleshed-out characters with their own struggles, such as enduring torment between darkness and light or having personal flaws.
This was completely different from the god-like and mute protagonists in many role-playing games today.
In today's role-playing games, the protagonists are often depicted as fearless, possessing immense strength, facing any enemy head-on, almost like true deities.
But starting from "Final Fantasy," the protagonists had more depth and could speak.
In fact, these fleshed-out characters are easier to remember, perhaps one of the reasons why "Final Fantasy" became so popular worldwide.
Then, there's the classic game art style and the iconic "Prelude" music.
No matter how much it's varied in later versions, the music always retains its unique charm.
There's a saying in Japanese TV dramas: "The opening theme of a seven-point drama is crucial."
If the theme song is catchy enough, it can also attract viewers subconsciously to watch the drama. Thus, a drama that barely passes with a seven-point rating can get an extra boost, increasing its profits.
Electronic games also have a significant demand for music. Unfortunately, the Famicom's performance was limited, making it difficult to produce good music. Ultimately, they had to resort to 8-bit music composition to help the game console play the music.
But with the Super Famicom, a much-improved gaming console, they could do much more.
As soon as Takayuki finished assembling the Fifth Game Development Team, he immediately tasked them with finding a sufficiently talented musician and a well-known artist.
As for the game development work, that could be put aside for now. First, they needed to find the artist and musician.
Takayuki didn't know enough about this world. He could think of ways to find an artist, but finding a suitable musician was another matter.
However, he had already transcribed the "Prelude" and the "Chocobo Theme," the two most iconic pieces of music from Final Fantasy. These two pieces of music were absolutely essential.
Armed with Takayuki's instructions, the members of the game development team embarked on their mission eagerly, like protagonists accepting quests in a game.
Then, Takayuki plunged back into the development of Midgard.
After more than a month of development, the game was nearly complete. All that remained was debugging and making the game as perfect as possible.
For example, they needed to see if they could increase the game's action attributes and how to make the protagonist's actions in battle more visually impactful and forceful.
This sense of impact was sometimes hard to describe, and it was challenging to determine what was best. They could only test and try continuously.
In Takayuki's previous life, he was a coder and knew a lot about games, but in Huaxia, he felt somewhat disadvantaged in terms of game impact. However, he remembered that Japanese people spent years trying to test game impact.
Each slight adjustment took a long time to test to see if it matched the imagined sense of impact.
If it didn't, they would modify the data again and test again until they achieved the perfect sense of impact they envisioned.
It was through years of continuous testing like this that Japan eventually excelled in fighting games, action games, and other genres.
In Takayuki's previous life, the company known as the "Action Master" was Capcom, and they even classified the code as company confidential, something that couldn't be easily shared and was coveted by many companies.
Takayuki intended to follow suit. Sometimes, certain things could only be achieved through long-term testing, with no shortcuts.
Even though he knew a lot about programming in this area now, it would only solve temporary problems. In the end, the people of this world would have to walk the path of continuous testing and modification.
"Takayuki, here are today's test data," Ayano Tsukino said as she entered Takayuki's office, placing over two hundred pages of densely written code sheets on his desk.
Tsukino also looked somewhat tired.
This kind of work was indeed tedious, but it was a necessary step.
Takayuki completely ignored the hundreds of pages of code; if he tried to read them, it would probably take ages.
These were the results of the efforts of all the programmers in his dedicated game development team.
After placing the papers on Takayuki's desk, Tsukino sat down somewhat lazily.
"You must be tired. If you need to rest, go ahead. This stuff can't be rushed. Testing slowly is fine. Actually, the game is already very good now. All that's left is testing and minor adjustments."
Tsukino shook her head. "You said that continuous testing can make the game perfect, and I won't give up."
Takayuki smiled. "But there's no need to rush. Pursuing perfection is a good thing, but as the saying goes, no matter how perfect, you still have to eat. Sometimes, you have to release the game when necessary."