freeallnovels Chapter 60 Big Brother, you bought the wrong cards; these are for kids.
Chapter 60 Big Brother, you bought the wrong cards; these are for kids.
New Mexico.
"Da da da da..."
John sat in front of the television, frantically pressing buttons on the NovaBox controller.
The protagonist's rotary machine gun spewed terrifying flames, riddling the mountain-like final boss in front of him with bullets.
"call--"
Seeing the enemy finally fall to the ground and the scoreboard pop up, John finally let out a long breath and stared intently at the screen.
"Wolfenstein: The Final Chapter is such a great game..."
NovaBox is definitely the best investment John has ever made in his life.
Before playing it, John never imagined that video games would be like this.
Although you can play big titles like Contra in arcades, players like John, who often need to work odd jobs in their spare time, don't have much time to spend in arcades.
The emergence of GAMENOVA's official home console completely solved this pain point.
John now spends almost all his spare time on this game console.
The only problem is that he often has to compete with Mike for it.
Mike only gets to play single-player games like Wolfenstein when he goes out.
It would be even better if there were a handheld portable device in the world someday.
"Bang!"
The door to the rented room was pushed open.
John scoffed. Speak of the devil and he appears.
Well, playing a few rounds of Street Fighter is not bad either, and I've almost mastered Guile.
"Hey John, guess what day it is today?"
John stretched, not even lifting his eyelids: "The days when I, Guile, shut out you?"
"You guessed right... Uh, you idiot, it's your birthday today!"
Mike's lips twitched slightly, but he quickly regained his composure.
He reached out and shook the tote bag in his hand, making a clinking sound from the plastic parts.
John then looked up in surprise.
Birthday?
Yes, even he himself has forgotten.
This year has been incredibly busy.
John's gaze fell on the handbag, his pupils contracted, and his heart skipped a beat.
The GAMENOVA logo is printed on it.
"Hey, what are you daydreaming about? This is your birthday present."
Mike waved his hand in front of the dazed John.
He made a special detour to the game store after get off work today just for this game cartridge.
"Is this the one I've been thinking of?! The Legend of Zelda!! God! Thank you so much, Mike!"
John knew that Mike's financial situation wasn't much better than his own, and Zelda cartridges were incredibly expensive; he still hadn't been able to bring himself to buy one.
I never expected Mike to buy it for himself as a birthday present!
Upon hearing John's words, Mike was taken aback and scratched his head.
"Wait, you want The Legend of Zelda? Oh..."
Under John's questioning gaze, Mike took a neatly packaged floppy disk out of the bag.
But the drawing wasn't of Link, whom John longed for, but rather of a child with a more childlike style.
The title clearly reads "Harvest Moon".
John's expression froze for a moment, but he quickly recovered.
"Thanks, bro."
John remembered the game; it received very low scores from gaming media.
It seems that criticizing this game has become politically correct in the gaming community, as if anyone who says the game isn't that bad is being paid by Gamenova.
John still remembers the large print he saw on the cover of the gaming magazine.
Is GAMENOVA running out of ideas? The fantasy of an idealistic madman?
Okay, such a title is somewhat eye-catching. Harvest Moon isn't necessarily that bad in the general perception; it's just "not fun."
There are no levels, no challenges, and no clear goals.
This alone has led to several game review media outlets deducting points from its rating.
They believe this will cause players to feel confused and bored.
Next, we come to the more disastrous aspects of the game mechanics.
The cycle of planting and harvesting sounds somewhat interesting, but Story of Seasons has designed it into a mode that truly requires following the days.
For example, planting a single carrot can take several days in the game.
These past few days have been absolutely pointless!
John hadn't played this game before; after all, it cost several tens of dollars, so he still needed to hesitate a bit.
But the magazine's description was so detailed and convincing that, to be honest, he started to believe it.
Although John concealed his momentary disappointment well, Mike, with his keen eye, still caught it, causing a moment of awkwardness.
"Uh... there's still time. How about I switch to The Legend of Zelda? I'll just pay the difference."
Mike glanced at the receipt in the bag and hesitated before speaking.
After all, it was John's birthday, and if possible, he would certainly want to give him the best he could.
"No need, no need! Shall we try it out now?"
John stopped Mike from doing so.
Since it's a birthday gift given to me out of kindness, I naturally have no reason to be picky.
He removed the floppy disk containing "Wolfenstein" and replaced it with "Story of Seasons".
As the noise of the machine started to emanate, the opening sequence from GAMENOVA appeared.
This is followed by a cheerful background music track with a unique electronic synthesized feel characteristic of this era, yet you can still feel the emotions it wants to express.
"Okay... looks like they made this for little kids?"
Looking at the opening scene where a bunch of NPCs and animals were chatting and laughing together, Mike finally understood why John didn't like this work.
This looks like textbooks stolen from some kindergarten.
John is a die-hard fan of tough guys, and his love for American macho men goes without saying.
His fascination with Gamenova stemmed from their collaboration with Schwarzenegger in the movie Contra.
However, this thing...
Mike almost laughed out of anger.
I spent tens of dollars on a game like this??
"Don't say that, it might be fun!"
Now it's John who has to comfort Mike.
Pressing the A key did not start the game as expected; instead, a screen filled with a large number of letters and characters popped up.
At the very top, it clearly reads: Your name: ______
"Huh? You can even name the characters? That's interesting."
"I know that. There's a design like that in The Legend of Zelda."
John frequently reads gaming magazines and has long been bombarded with spoilers from those strategy guides.
Although he doesn't have the Zelda cartridge yet, he already knows that by naming his character "ZELDA", he can skip levels and directly access the Otherworld.
It seems that GAMENOVA has reused that naming system in this game.
This is quite normal, and John understood it after a little thought.
This is for the sake of immersion and engagement.
That would be so cool if all the NPCs called out their own names instead of the default game character names.