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Uppercut throws required two hits per enemy but only granted one hundred points per hit. Use them too much and your score stayed low. Lower score meant lower maximum health, making the endgame harder. Planning when to use throws was important.
Flying kicks required four hits per enemy at 250 points each. Running dash attacks needed three hits at 350 points each.
First round, using Wind element dual-sword Leonardo, Cassius only reached level two—got on the ship but never even saw the boss.
Second round, Lightning element dual-sai Raphael. Cassius died to the level two boss.
Third round, Earth element nunchaku Michelangelo. Due to the nunchaku's recovery mechanic, even with some familiarity with enemy patterns, Cassius couldn't even get on the ship at level two.
"This nunchaku is way too hard to use. Feels really awkward." Cassius frowned. "You need to buff him. Otherwise nobody's going to pick him."
Without a word, Caelan had Cassius get up and took the seat himself. He channeled mana to forcefully impose an expert tester's consciousness onto himself. Selected nunchaku Michelangelo. Accompanied by the ridiculous battle cries—"Ada! Ada!"—while wielding the nunchaku, Caelan cut through enemies at a speed that left Cassius wide-eyed. He finished by flipping the level two end boss, Red Bull Grand Chuck, to the ground.
Restarting the game, Caelan got up and offered the seat back. He looked at the stunned Cassius. "This character is for experts."
Cassius, who considered himself an expert, silently resolved to practice this character properly in the future. Then he picked Water element staff Donatello and continued playing.
Standing beside him, Caelan monitored the mana feedback from Cassius and nodded silently. Cassius, whose main attribute was Fire, generated significantly stronger mana feedback when using the Fire element character compared to the previous three.
Additionally, Caelan could sense that in his shop, players using their favorite characters provided more mana feedback. Players using the long-legged female character Lux generated almost twice the feedback as those using the muscular male Garen.
Looks like I need to pay more attention to... uh, sexy female characters in future games. The more, the merrier. Yes. The more, the merrier.
Leaving the underground warehouse, Caelan handed the Chronicle of the Fierce Tortoise Warriors runestone to Cassius, thanking him for renting such a huge warehouse at a discount. Cassius waved it off, saying it was no big deal, but mentally noted the gesture.
Back at the shop, the place was absolutely packed. Lines behind every station. People who couldn't squeeze in were waiting at nearby restaurants. Fortunately, the guard station wasn't far. The Moonwatch Empire's public order was among the best in the world. Crimson Port, as a major first-tier city, took security seriously. Arguments broke out in the shop constantly, sure, but there'd never been an actual fight. That was excellent.
Caelan installed the runestone engraved with the Fierce Tortoise Warriors promotional animation onto a mana crystal and placed it outside the shop entrance to play on loop. The Elemental Contra promotional CG could finally retire. Then he added a line to the wooden menu board inside: "Chronicle of the Fierce Tortoise Warriors, releasing tomorrow, July 18th. Price: 10 silver marks."
Fifteen bucks for an arcade game you can own and play unlimited times—that's not expensive at all, right?
The new game's promotional animation quickly attracted people waiting at nearby eateries. Everyone's attention locked onto the projected screen.
First came voiceover and text: "In the Chaos Zone of the central continent, a city-state named New York. Its people live under the tyrannical rule of an evil monarch—Shredder." Shredder's upper body appeared in shadow.
"Shredder possesses the ability to transform others into beasts." Shredder's subordinates flashed onto the screen one by one, lining up behind him in an inverted triangle formation.
"They cruelly and relentlessly exploit the people of this city." The left side showed Shredder's faction living in luxury. The right side showed the impoverished lives of common people.
"All rebels will be permanently transformed into weak animals." The rebels on screen were transformed one by one into various creatures—rabbits, ducks, chicks, piglets, mice. The green-shelled tortoises were among them.
Then came the animation of castle maid April accidentally lifting the curse on five tortoises, helping the still-weak tortoise-men escape through the sewers. She was discovered and captured by Shredder.
The final scene: a riverbank. The five tortoise warriors looked toward the castle. Text appeared below: "We must defeat Shredder and rescue April."
The relatively polished slideshow animation ended, followed by in-game footage with significantly lower graphics quality. Five green tortoise-men fought various enemies in pairs. Ordinary but diverse grunts using different weapons. Tricky elite monsters. Numerous fast-moving disgusting rats. Powerful bosses with unique abilities.
The player characters' ridiculous battle cries—"Whirlwind Slash!" "Electric Poison Dragon Drill!" "Collapsing Mountain Dance!" "Surging Flood Dragon Staff!" "Bursting Flame!"—filled everyone with hype. They gathered around the shop entrance, calling out to Caelan at the counter.
"Boss, isn't the game out yet? I want to buy it now!"
"Didn't you see the board says it releases tomorrow?"
"But after watching that trailer, I can't wait to play!"
"Me too!"
"Me too!"
The scene got noisy. Caelan had to make excuses, explaining that the illusion game construction wasn't quite perfect yet and needed one more day. He barely managed to placate the customers.
In truth, Caelan had already engraved quite a few Fierce Tortoise Warriors runestones. The delay had two reasons. First, the quantity wasn't large enough yet—he wanted to accumulate more stock before launch. Second, he wanted to see if the promotion would build momentum. If more people became aware, more would anticipate it. More anticipation meant more discussion. More discussion should make expanding its popularity easier.
By closing time at six, Ella and her brother were exhausted. Seeing this, Caelan took them out for a proper dinner and ordered extra for them to take home.
Back at his residence, Caelan organized the day's findings.
From Cassius's gameplay testing, it was clear: adapting games to this plane's rules made them more acceptable to players and more likely to generate mana feedback, thus enhancing his own mana. The three games with almost no modifications—Super Mario, Tank Battle, and Salamander—were far less popular than the heavily modified Elemental Contra. They also generated less mana feedback.
So in the future, games couldn't be released so casually. Not only did it waste time engraving runestones, but it provided relatively weak boosts to his mana. More importantly, after production, they failed to gain expected popularity. That made Caelan feel he'd let these games down. Especially Super Mario.
The popularity of that game in his previous life went without saying. But in this world, it felt like he'd failed it.
In his previous life, the first NES game he'd ever played was Contra, followed by Super Mario. So Caelan had strong emotional attachment to this game. Although he'd never managed to complete the original versions of either—he'd only beaten them after age thirteen or fourteen by playing pirated versions. Contra with thirty lives. Mario with unlimited lives.
Plz give me Powerstones
Bonus chapter on every 300 Powerstones.