New Mexico
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
John sat in front of the television, furiously mashing buttons on his NovaBox controller. The rotary machine gun in the protagonist's hands spewed a terrifying stream of bullets, shredding the mountain-sized final boss into Swiss cheese.
"Haah..."
Only after the enemy finally collapsed and the score screen appeared did John let out a long breath. His eyes remained glued to the screen.
"Wolfenstein really is an incredible game..."
Buying a NovaBox was probably the best investment he'd ever made in his life.
Before playing it, John had never imagined video games could be like this.
Sure, arcades had blockbusters like Contra, but for someone like him, who often spent his free time working odd jobs, he simply didn't have enough spare hours to hang around arcade halls.
The arrival of GAMENOVA's home console had completely solved that problem. These days, John spent almost every spare minute he had playing on the machine.
The only issue was that he frequently had to fight Mike for it. Only when Mike went out did John get the chance to enjoy single-player games like Wolfenstein 3D.
If only someone could invent a portable handheld gaming device, that would be perfect.
Bang!
The door to the apartment swung open, John curled his lips.
Speak of the devil. Oh well, a few rounds of Street Fighter wouldn't be bad either. His Guile was getting pretty good.
"Hey, John! Guess what day it is today?"
John stretched lazily without even looking up.
"The day I beat you with Guile?"
"Correct, wait, no, you idiot! It's your birthday!"
Mike's eye twitched, but he quickly recovered. He lifted the shopping bag in his hand and gave it a shake. Plastic clattered inside.
Only then did John look up in surprise.
His birthday? Right, even he'd forgotten. This year had been ridiculously busy. His eyes landed on the bag, then his pupils shrank.
A GAMENOVA logo was printed on the side.
"Hey, why are you staring like that? It's your birthday present."
Mike waved a hand in front of John's frozen face. To buy that cartridge, he'd taken a detour to the game store after work today.
"Is it what I think it is?! The Legend of Zelda?! Oh my God, Mike, thank you so much!"
John knew Mike wasn't exactly swimming in money himself. Zelda cartridges were expensive. Even now, John hadn't been able to bring himself to buy one. So, he never expected Mike to buy it as a birthday gift. But after hearing that, Mike looked confused.
"Wait. You wanted The Legend of Zelda?"
He scratched his head.
"Oh..."
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Under John's puzzled gaze, Mike pulled out a neatly packaged floppy disk. But the cover didn't feature the Link John had been dreaming about. Instead, it showed a kid. Across the top, the title was clearly printed.
Harvest Moon
John's expression stiffened for a moment, then he quickly forced a smile.
"Thanks, man."
He knew about this game. Gaming magazines had absolutely trashed it.
Criticizing Harvest Moon had practically become the politically correct thing to do in gaming circles. It felt like anyone who dared say the game wasn't that bad would immediately be accused of taking money from GAMENOVA.
John still remembered the giant headline he'd seen on a magazine cover:
"Has GAMENOVA Run Out of Ideas? The Fantasy of an Idealistic Madman"
Okay, maybe that title was a little clickbait. In reality, Harvest Moon wasn't generally considered terrible. People just thought it wasn't fun.
There were no stages, no challenges, no clear objective. That alone had earned it deductions from numerous gaming publications.
According to them, players would simply feel lost and bored. Then came the even more disastrous gameplay mechanics.
The farming and harvesting loop sounded somewhat interesting at first. But Harvest Moon had been designed around an actual day by day progression system.
Planting a carrot, for example, could take several in-game days before it was ready and during those days? Nothing but dead time.
John hadn't played the game himself, after all, it still cost dozens of dollars, but the magazines had made their arguments sound convincing enough.
Honestly, he'd started believing them. Although he hid his momentary disappointment well, Mike still noticed. An awkward silence followed.
"Uh..."
Mike glanced at the receipt in the bag.
"We still have time. Want me to exchange it for Zelda? I only need to pay a little extra."
After all, it was John's birthday. If possible, Mike wanted to give him the best gift he could.
"No, no. Let's just try it out right now."
John quickly stopped him. Mike had spent his own money to buy him a gift. The least he could do was appreciate it. He ejected the Wolfenstein disk and inserted Harvest Moon instead. The drive whirred to life.
The GAMENOVA logo appeared on screen. A cheerful melody followed, carrying that distinctive electronic-synth feel of the era while still somehow conveying warmth and happiness.
"Well..."
Mike stared at the opening scene, where a crowd of NPCs and farm animals chatted and laughed together.
"I can kind of see why you weren't excited. This looks like something made for little kids."
Now he finally understood. The whole thing looked like educational material stolen from a kindergarten.
John was a die hard action fan. His love for tough action heroes was well known.
Wasn't the reason he'd fallen in love with GAMENOVA in the first place because of Contra and its collaboration with Schwarzenegger?
But this thing, Mike almost laughed from sheer disbelief. He'd spent over fifty dollars.
On this?
"Hey, don't say that. Maybe it'll be fun."
Now it was John's turn to comfort Mike. He pressed the A button. Instead of immediately starting the game, a screen filled with letters and symbols appeared. At the very top was a line that read:
Your Name: ______
"Oh?"
John's eyes lit up.
"You can name your character? That's actually pretty cool."
"I know this one."
Mike pointed at the screen.
"Zelda has that too."
John read gaming magazines constantly. He'd already been spoiled to death by strategy guides long before getting his hands on the game.
Even though he still didn't own a Zelda cartridge, he already knew that naming your character ZELDA let you skip ahead and immediately unlock the Second Quest.
Looks like GAMENOVA had simply reused that naming system here, which made sense.
After thinking about it for a moment, John understood exactly why they did it, immersion.
When every NPC in the game called out your name instead of some preset protagonist's name… that was pretty awesome.
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If you want some extra chapters, be sure to check out my 𝒫a-trοn page, it's 30 chapters ahead and the chapters are also long so you can check it out.
𝒫 α t r e on => NovaScribe
Just replace 𝒫 and α with p and a. Also remove all spaces and search the name NovaScribe on that platform