Yokohama is an extremely important port city in Japan, serving as a hub for logistics and transportation.
Koei Corporation's headquarters is located in Yokohama.
Kobayashi Tetsu was now in Yokohama.
Koyakawa followed closely beside Kobayashi Tetsu, never leaving his side.
She wanted to interview Koei Corporation, but she never expected Tetsu-kun to actually put aside his work to accompany her. It was truly heartwarming!
Keiko Koei looked over and couldn't help but shake her head.
Poor girl, being toyed with in the palm of a wicked capitalist!
Kobayashi Tetsu had clearly given her the day off and just happened to come to Yokohama, yet he made it sound as if he had come specifically to accompany Koyakawa.
Speaking of which, Keiko Koei was also a bit puzzled.
"Since you're on vacation, why come to Yokohama?"
"Why can't I come to Yokohama on vacation? Does Yokohama have a regulation banning people from Tokyo?"
Kobayashi Tetsu spread his hands. Seeing this, Keiko Koei stopped questioning him.
Of course, Kobayashi Tetsu hadn't come to Yokohama specifically to accompany the girl. He had two things to do. First, he wanted to find a suitable location in Yokohama to build Atlas's own cartridge production plant, utilizing Yokohama's natural water network for logistics.
On the other hand, Kobayashi Tetsu simply had some free time, so he decided to pay Koei Corporation a visit.
Koei had moved from its small original location to Yokohama, and its business was now well-established. Naturally, Yoichi Koei no longer needed to spend all his time hunched over a desk developing games. Now, his primary role was to provide overall coordination and planning.
Upon their arrival at Koei, Keiko Koei acted as a guide for the two visitors. Koyakawa, on the other hand, found everything she saw to be fascinating.
"So, Koei has a producer named Kou Shibusawa who created the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series?" Koyakawa's eyes lit up. "Could I interview Mr. Shibusawa? Or, perhaps, Ms. Shibusawa?"
Kobayashi Tetsu glanced at her, suppressing a smile.
The idea that Kou Shibusawa was a real person was a huge misunderstanding.
"You're unlikely to find Kou Shibusawa," Kobayashi Tetsu explained without needing Keiko to introduce him. "Because Koei doesn't actually have anyone by that name. Kou Shibusawa is a pseudonym, much like Toei Company's Saburo Yatsude. It's a name used for public releases. Works credited to Saburo Yatsude are actually created by a team of Toei screenwriters. Similarly, Kou Shibusawa is the collective pseudonym for the production team behind the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series. If you want to interview Kou Shibusawa, you're actually interviewing President Yoichi Koei—he is Kou Shibusawa."
Keiko Koei, who was accompanying them, was truly stunned.
She never expected Kobayashi Tetsu to be so well-versed in Koei Corporation's secrets!
Kobayashi Tetsu, of course, wasn't wrong. Koei didn't have a person named Kou Shibusawa; it was a team codename that simply looked like a person's name.
Several works, including Romance of the Three Kingdoms, were unified under the producer name Kou Shibusawa.
Kobayashi Tetsu looked at Keiko Koei and said, "Do you mind if we interview President Yoichi Koei?"
"That's not a problem at all," Keiko Koei said, making a gesture of invitation.
Fortunately, Yoichi Koei no longer needed to write programs himself every day, otherwise he really wouldn't have had time for an interview!
The interview was mainly between Koyakawa and Yoichi Koei, while Kobayashi Tetsu was just a passerby who happened to be there.
He looked at the computer behind Yoichi Koei, scanned it a few times, and had a rough idea of the material.
It should be Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Judging from the time, it was undoubtedly Romance of the Three Kingdoms II.
Unlike the first Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the second one was not a huge success. Therefore, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms mentioned later was actually the one released by Namco, "Haou no Tairiku" (The Overlord's Continent), or Capcom's "Warriors of Fate."
Kobayashi Tetsu listened to the interview, but his mind was already completely elsewhere.
Only after Koyakawa's interview ended did Kobayashi Tetsu go over to greet him.
"Big Brother Koei, is this the sequel to Romance of the Three Kingdoms?"
Yoichi Koei slightly tilted his head up to look at Kobayashi Tetsu, who was standing right in front of him.
"That's right, but there are still a few problems. The production team is currently revising it." Yoichi Koei briefly explained, "I feel it doesn't differ much from the first Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It might need some more modifications, so it probably won't be released until next year."
"Why wait until next year?"
Kobayashi Tetsu said with a smile, "You don't mind if I offer a few suggestions, do you? I'll make sure it's a roaring success and gets rave reviews."
Koyakawa immediately looked up from the side.
Kobayashi Tetsu is going to start bossing people around again!
Yoichi Koei's expression froze for a moment.
No one likes their work being criticized, but Kobayashi Tetsu's status and position were indeed somewhat special.
"Atlus's work is indeed exquisite, but this is a different kind of strategy game—a historical simulation. The style is different."
Yoichi Koei reminded Kobayashi Tetsu as politely as possible: "Of course, you're welcome to take a look."
Kobayashi Tetsu then tried out the unfinished version.
After all, it was a PC game, making it far more convenient to playtest than a home console title.
Kobayashi Tetsu had never played such an early entry in the series as Romance of the Three Kingdoms II, but once he got his hands on it, he immediately saw what was wrong.
The game barely differed from its predecessor. Worse, instead of innovating, it actually felt like a step backward.
In his pursuit of a more authentic historical simulation, Yoichi Koei had made the controls even more cumbersome than they were in the first game.
The character designs were also a bit lackluster.
Kobayashi Tetsu nodded repeatedly, his expression thoughtful, as if he were truly immersed in the gameplay.
Yoichi Koei, meanwhile, frowned.
He wasn't one for idle chatter, but he had already decided: if Kobayashi Tetsu said anything wrong, he would shut him down immediately.
You might not be cut out for action games, but you're certainly not cut out for historical games! I have a lot on my plate, and I need to focus my energy on making Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Uncharted Waters!
After playing for a while, Kobayashi Tetsu finally pushed the keyboard away.
"I think I've found the problem," he said. "First, the character designs need more detail. You could add some female characters—famous figures from the Three Kingdoms era, like Diaochan, for example."
Yoichi Koei frowned. "I want to make a serious, hardcore historical simulation game. What we need is to conquer cities and seize territory, not women!"
Kobayashi Tetsu couldn't help but laugh.
"Why didn't you say that when Koei was making eroge back in the day?"
With a single sentence, Kobayashi Tetsu had completely sunk Yoichi Koei.
Koei had made quite a few eroge back then—it was an absolute dark history!
When Kobayashi Tetsu brought up the eroge, Koei truly had no defense.
Seeing Yoichi Koei speechless, Kobayashi Tetsu continued: "Actually, female characters are necessary. The success of Romance of the Three Kingdoms I was partly due to the lack of competition, but also because it fulfilled players' fantasies of playing as a famous general conquering cities and seizing territory in the Three Kingdoms era. From another perspective, conquest and eroticism are inseparable. People who like conquest also like eroticism. The pleasure of winning over Diaochan is no different from the pleasure of conquering the first great pass of the Central Plains."
Yoichi Koei instinctively wanted to refute this argument.
He felt it was wrong; this wasn't the Romance of the Three Kingdoms game he wanted to create.
"Just conquering territory is already a huge task," Yoichi Koei argued. "Where would anyone have the time to go looking for Diaochan?" He firmly believed, "Focusing on the strategic elements is still the most important thing."
"Strategy is obviously the most important," Kobayashi Tetsu replied. "But if it's just constant fighting, no matter how much you simulate it, you can't fully capture the reality of the battlefield. Take the Battle of Guandu, for example—you know it well, Big Brother Koei. Cao Cao's army burned the enemy's grain supplies to seize the strategic initiative. How is grain represented in the game? If you could build a system that handles all the interconnected aspects of grain and supplies, that would be the biggest breakthrough for Romance of the Three Kingdoms."
Yoichi Koei snapped his head up.
For a fleeting moment, he felt a sudden wave of enlightenment. He finally knew what he had been searching for all along.
This was also the exact innovation he felt Romance of the Three Kingdoms II needed.
The game needed more than just battles; it needed systems that affected warfare from the outside, making the overall gameplay far more strategic!