The lights inside the hall dimmed again as the giant screen behind the presenter turned completely black. By now, nearly everyone in the building understood what was coming. The earlier categories had already produced plenty of strong winners, but this was the award that mattered most.
The host stepped forward with a wide smile and raised the microphone. "Well, everyone… today we have a total of five games selected as the final nominees for FAMICOM Game of the Year 2001. I know a lot of you have been waiting for this, right?"
The audience immediately responded with loud cheers.
The host chuckled. "Then how about we stop wasting time and see the nominees!"
The screen flashed.
The first logo appeared.
THUNDER DRAGON FIST — BRUCE LEE
The audience reacted immediately as rapid gameplay footage began playing. Bruce Lee moved through a burning industrial district while dozens of enemies surrounded him. Instead of simply trading attacks, the footage highlighted how fluidly the player could control him. He slipped beneath a punch, redirected another enemy's arm, landed a lightning-fast kick against a third opponent, then chained directly into a spinning strike that sent two enemies crashing through a wooden wall.
The montage became progressively more ridiculous.
Bruce moved between multiple enemies without stopping, using footwork to reposition himself while attacks narrowly missed him. One sequence showed him knocking a weapon away, catching it before it hit the ground, throwing it into another enemy, then immediately continuing into a hand-to-hand combination without breaking momentum. Another showed his famous Thunder Fist technique exploding across the screen as electrical energy briefly surrounded his arm before he struck an enormous mechanical opponent directly in the chest.
The footage ended with Bruce standing calmly after defeating an entire group of enemies, barely breathing heavily.
Applause followed immediately.
The screen darkened again.
Then came the second nominee.
RESIDENT EVIL 3
The tone changed immediately.
Jill Valentine appeared running through the devastated streets of Raccoon City while buildings burned around her. Zombies stumbled through alleyways, abandoned vehicles blocked roads, and distant explosions filled the night sky. The footage shifted between exploration, puzzle solving, inventory management, and sudden bursts of combat before a familiar heavy footstep echoed through the speakers.
Nemesis appeared.
"STARS."
The audience immediately reacted.
The montage showed Jill escaping him through narrow corridors, dodging one of his attacks by barely rolling aside, then sprinting through a door only for Nemesis to force his way through moments later. Another sequence showed him smashing through a wall unexpectedly, destroying what had seemed like a safe route.
Then the trailer slowed.
Jill stood alone inside a dark room, reading documents while the music became quieter. Short cinematic scenes followed—Carlos helping survivors, frightened civilians attempting to escape the city, Jill discovering more evidence surrounding the outbreak, and Nemesis appearing repeatedly like an unavoidable nightmare following her throughout the story.
The footage ended with Jill raising her weapon as Nemesis roared toward her.
The screen went black.
The audience applauded again.
The third nominee appeared.
VAGRANT STORY
Unlike the violent energy of the previous two games, the Vagrant Story montage opened slowly.
Ashley Riot walked alone through the ruined city of Leá Monde as sunlight passed through enormous broken windows. The environment immediately looked different from nearly everything else shown that evening. Ancient stone architecture surrounded him, filled with narrow streets, underground passages, enormous cathedrals, abandoned halls, and strange locations that felt simultaneously beautiful and deeply unsettling.
The gameplay footage then demonstrated what made Vagrant Story so unusual.
Ashley entered combat against several armored enemies. Rather than simply attacking repeatedly, the player paused briefly to target specific body parts. An enemy's arm was selected, then struck to reduce its ability to use a weapon effectively. Another sequence showed the player targeting a creature's legs, weakening its movement before switching weapons entirely because the current blade was poorly suited against that particular enemy.
The montage moved into weapon customization.
Different weapon components appeared on-screen as the player dismantled equipment, combined pieces, changed blades, adjusted grips, and created specialized weapons intended for different enemy types. One sword became more effective against human opponents, while another weapon was clearly prepared specifically for undead creatures.
Then came one of the game's most visually impressive combat sequences.
Ashley stood alone against a large dragon inside a ruined underground chamber. The creature unleashed fire across the arena, forcing him to reposition before attacking specific parts of the monster's body. A chain ability activated. One successful attack became another, then another, with carefully timed inputs allowing Ashley to continue the sequence while risk increased with every additional strike.
The footage shifted again into exploration. Ashley pushed blocks to create routes, solved environmental puzzles, navigated ruined structures, and discovered hidden passages beneath Leá Monde. Brief cinematic moments showed political conspiracies, religious figures, mysterious cult members, and Sydney Losstarot speaking with his unsettling calmness.
The entire trailer carried a darker and more sophisticated tone than most RPGs of the era.
The fourth nominee appeared.
HORI
The entire visual presentation changed immediately.
The first-person camera moved through the remains of a devastated city while smoke filled the horizon. HORI had become one of Microsoft's strongest demonstrations of what Xbox hardware could actually do, and the GOTY montage clearly wanted everyone to remember that.
Enemy soldiers appeared between ruined buildings. The player fired rapidly while debris scattered from nearby explosions. Lighting reflected across metal surfaces, distant structures remained visible farther into the environment than many current console players were accustomed to, and the overall image quality remained one of the strongest aspects of the game.
The montage then shifted into multiplayer.
Several Xbox players fought across a large industrial map, with the footage highlighting both split-screen and Xbox Online matches. One player rushed through a corridor while another covered him from a raised platform. A grenade forced two opponents from behind cover before another player finished them from across the map.
Short cuts showed online matchmaking, teams forming, and players entering matches with surprisingly little interruption.
For Microsoft, HORI was more than just another game.
It had become one of the clearest examples that Xbox could compete seriously.
The screen darkened again.
Only one nominee remained.
The audience immediately became louder.
Then the fifth title appeared.
SHERIFF JUAN 5
Zaboru smiled the moment he saw it.
The trailer opened with Juan riding his mechanical horse across the outskirts of MetalField. The huge industrial city appeared ahead of him, filled with factories, steam pipes, mechanical towers, railways, and glowing signs contrasting against the traditional Western imagery surrounding Juan himself.
The footage quickly moved into gameplay.
Juan ran across a collapsing railway platform, slid beneath incoming gunfire, wall-kicked between two industrial structures, and drew his oversized red revolver JUAN almost instantly. Three shots followed. One struck an enemy's weapon from his hand, another broke a steam pipe and filled the area with vapor, while the third hit a suspended chain and dropped a metal container directly onto several enemies below.
Then the perspective changed into one of the game's first-person shooting sections. Juan aimed directly toward several bandits positioned across balconies and industrial structures, shooting environmental objects and turning the arena itself into a weapon.
The montage continued into the mechanic that had become synonymous with the game.
Freedrick Bounce Bullet.
A glowing trajectory line appeared.
Juan fired.
The bullet struck a metal wall, ricocheted from a hanging sign, bounced downward from another surface, then struck an enemy hiding completely behind cover.
Another sequence showed the rematch against Koll the Reptile Skin. Koll raised his enormous shield confidently, only for Juan's bullet to bounce around the arena and hit him directly in the back.
The audience laughed and applauded.
Zaboru laughed too.
He remembered exactly how much he had abused that mechanic during the livestream.
The footage then shifted away from combat and toward the story.
Director Crowe stood surrounded by Hawk soldiers inside a government facility. Elena Graves appeared moments later alongside the Vultures, her red hair moving in the wind as she spoke passionately to rebel fighters.
Scenes rapidly alternated between both sides. Hawks protecting civilians from violent outlaws. Hawks arresting political critics. Vultures freeing prisoners. Vultures destroying government infrastructure. Juan standing between both factions, visibly frustrated by how difficult it had become to decide who deserved his trust.
Finally, the famous choice appeared on-screen.
SIDE WITH THE HAWKS
SIDE WITH THE VULTURES
The trailer ended immediately before revealing either route.
The audience erupted.
Zaboru folded his arms and grinned.
Sonaya had created one hell of a game.
The giant screen then displayed all five titles together.
Thunder Dragon Fist — Bruce Lee. Resident Evil 3. Vagrant Story. HORI. Sheriff Juan 5.
The host returned to the centre of the stage and looked across the audience. "There they are! Five games. Five completely different experiences. And once again, ZAGE dominates the final list with three titles—but this year, Microsoft has entered the fight with HORI, while Sonaya is back again with Sheriff Juan 5."
He smiled mischievously. "And some of you probably remember that Sonaya managed to take Game of the Year away from ZAGE a few years ago. So… could they do it again?"
Several Sonaya developers cheered loudly.
Hikaru Kurata remained calmer, though even from his seat the anticipation on his face was obvious.
The host raised the envelope.
"Well… we're about to find out."
The entire hall became silent.
Even Zaboru stopped smiling for a moment.
He genuinely did not know the winner.
The envelope opened.
The host slowly pulled out the card, looked down, and immediately smiled.
"The FAMICOM Game of the Year 2001 award goes to…"
A pause.
Long enough to irritate practically everyone inside the building.
Then the host suddenly raised his voice.
"VAGRANT STORY! FROM ZAGE!"
The hall exploded with applause.
Several Team NIWA developers immediately stood from their seats. Others hugged one another, and a few simply stared toward the stage as though they needed another second to understand what had happened.
Zaboru immediately smiled and applauded with them.
He did not move toward the stage.
He never did.
That had become one of his traditions whenever a ZAGE game received an award. Zaboru might own the company and contribute heavily to countless projects, but he refused to behave as though every victory belonged personally to him. The developers who actually led the game deserved to stand beneath the lights.
So when the host announced, "Please welcome the leader of ZAGE Team NIWA, Shigeru Miyamoto!" Zaboru simply remained seated and continued applauding.
Shigeru stood with a warm smile, briefly acknowledged the members of Team NIWA around him, and then walked toward the stage.
By now, almost everyone in gaming knew him.
As the longtime leader of Team NIWA, Shigeru had overseen numerous important RPG projects inside ZAGE and had worked directly with Zaboru for years. His personality was considerably calmer than Zaboru's, which occasionally made people wonder how the two managed to work together so effectively.
Shigeru accepted the trophy, bowed toward the presenters, and approached the microphone.
For a moment, he simply looked at the award in his hands and smiled.
"Thank you very much."
The applause quieted.
Shigeru continued, "Vagrant Story was… honestly a very strange project from the beginning."
That immediately caused several Team NIWA developers to laugh.
Shigeru smiled toward them. "I think some of them already know what I'm about to say."
He looked toward the audience.
"When Zaboru-san first brought the concept to us, there were many things we disagreed with."
Zaboru immediately laughed quietly from his seat.
Shigeru continued, "He wanted an RPG that did not feel like one of our normal RPGs. He wanted a game where the player mostly controlled one character instead of a traditional party. He wanted combat where enemy body parts mattered. He wanted weapons to become almost a system of their own, where players would create and rebuild them repeatedly depending on what they expected to fight."
He paused and chuckled.
"And he wanted all of this inside a strange ruined city with politics, religion, cults, monsters, puzzles, and a story he repeatedly described as 'something that should feel like the player entered a dangerous old book.'"
The audience laughed.
Shigeru glanced toward Zaboru.
"Do you remember saying that?"
Zaboru called back from his seat, "IT WAS A GOOD DESCRIPTION!"
More laughter spread throughout the hall.
Shigeru shook his head with amusement. "At the time, I did not completely agree."
He became slightly more serious.
"Team NIWA had already developed many RPGs, so naturally we had ideas about what players expected. Party members. Character progression that was easier to understand. Equipment systems that did not require players to think about different enemy categories constantly. A structure that was more familiar."
He looked down briefly at the trophy.
"Zaboru-san kept saying, 'That's exactly why we should do something different.'"
The hall became quieter.
"And that became the argument throughout much of development. Not a bad argument. A useful one."
Shigeru smiled.
"We would tell him something was strange. He would ask us why strange was automatically bad. We would tell him players might find something difficult. He would ask whether the system was difficult because it was deep or simply because we explained it badly."
Several developers in the audience nodded.
Shigeru continued, "And sometimes… he was wrong."
Zaboru immediately placed one hand dramatically against his chest.
The audience laughed.
Shigeru smiled. "Yes, Zaboru-san. Sometimes."
Zaboru shook his head while grinning.
"But sometimes," Shigeru continued, "we were wrong too."
His voice became warmer.
"There were ideas in Vagrant Story that initially looked like unnecessary complications. Then we implemented them properly, tested them, improved them, and suddenly they became the reason the game had its own identity."
Shigeru looked toward the Team NIWA section.
"The developers deserve enormous credit for that. Zaboru-san can bring one hundred strange ideas into a meeting, but somebody still has to make them work."
Laughter and applause followed.
"And Team NIWA made them work."
Several developers immediately applauded even louder.
Shigeru bowed slightly toward his team before facing the audience again.
"I think Vagrant Story taught us something important. Sometimes the safest idea is not automatically the best one. Sometimes you need somebody to enter a meeting and say something that sounds ridiculous enough that everyone argues for two hours."
The camera immediately cut toward Zaboru.
Zaboru raised both hands innocently.
The hall laughed again.
Shigeru continued, "But the important part is what happens after the argument. Zaboru-san never asked us to simply obey him. We debated. We changed his ideas. He changed ours. Some things disappeared completely. Other ideas became better because the team challenged them."
His smile softened.
"And eventually, Vagrant Story became something none of us could have created alone."
Shigeru raised the trophy slightly.
"So this award belongs to Team NIWA. To every programmer, artist, writer, designer, composer, tester, engineer, and support staff member who worked on this game. And also to every player who was willing to try something a little strange."
He paused.
"Thank you."
The hall filled with applause.
Zaboru smiled while watching Shigeru leave the podium.
That was exactly why he wanted team leaders accepting awards instead of himself.
A ZAGE game was never one man's creation.
Even when Zaboru supplied the original idea, reconstructed systems from his previous-life memories, or personally helped solve development problems, thousands of decisions still came from the people actually building the game.
Vagrant Story belonged to Team NIWA.
And tonight, they had earned the right to celebrate it.
The trophy was carried back toward the ZAGE section as Team NIWA surrounded Shigeru almost immediately.
Then the host returned to the stage holding another card.
"Everyone, please remain seated for a moment! We actually have one additional announcement tonight."
Zaboru looked toward the stage.
Several conversations immediately stopped.
The host continued, "As most of you know, this year marked Microsoft's official entry into the console market with Xbox. Microsoft has requested a short presentation following tonight's awards, and ZEMITSU and Compute X have agreed to provide the stage."
That caught Zaboru's attention immediately.
"Hm?"
The screen behind the host changed.
MICROSOFT XBOX
Then another name appeared.
SEAMUS BLACKLEY
Zaboru slowly leaned forward.
Seamus Blackley, one of the central figures responsible for Xbox, was apparently about to personally announce something.
Zaboru rubbed his chin.
This was interesting. He thought 'I wonder how much money they pay for this and what they want to tell..?'
To be continued.
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