January 28th, early morning.
The sky over Tokyo was a hazy, not yet fully awakened blue.
Nintendo's Marketing Department staff, with a hint of a hangover's satisfaction, were preparing for another "big win" workday.
In their view, Tokyo, the capital of the empire, had been completely engulfed by Mario's propaganda offensive.
However, when the first citizens opened their doors, they discovered that overnight, the entire city had become incredibly unfamiliar.
A primary school student, carrying a backpack, habitually took a shortcut through Yoyogi Park on his way to school.
He suddenly stopped, looking up.
On a tall zelkova tree in the park, a colorful Butterfree model was suspended, its wings trembling slightly in the morning breeze, as if it would fly away the next second.
A salaryman in a suit and tie impatiently checked his watch at a bus stop in Shibuya.
He paused inadvertently, his heart skipping a beat.
Perched on the roof of the bus stop sign was a majestic Pidgeotto model, looking down with sharp eyes at the crowd waiting for the bus below.
At a newly constructed single-family home site in Meguro Ward, workers were preparing to enter the site to begin a day of heavy labor.
They were surprised to find several life-sized models standing prominently at the construction site entrance.
They were Machamp and Machoke.
They were carrying rebar models on their shoulders, striking bodybuilder poses, as if cheering on the workers, or perhaps "helping" to transport the heavy building materials.
At the street corner, next to a fire hydrant, a row of Squirtle models wearing sunglasses stood neatly, forming a cool "Squirtle Fire Brigade."
The entire city of Tokyo, from parks to bus stations, from construction sites to street corners, seemed to have been enchanted, transformed into a living "pokémon land."
Each model was exquisitely crafted, accompanied by a small acrylic advertisement card.
"February 13th, Sega Mega Drive & pokémon adventures on sale!"
"Pikachu limited edition console, limited quantity!"
This unprecedented urban landscape art, like a virus, quickly spread through telephone lines and word-of-mouth, igniting the entire society.
Television news vans moved swiftly, reporters carrying cameras furiously crisscrossed the city, scrambling for first-hand footage. The next day's newspaper headlines were no longer about political or economic news.
"pokémon Occupies Tokyo."
The large lead type headlines occupied the most prominent positions in all newspapers.
Social commentators engaged in fierce debates over this.
Some raged on television programs, denouncing it as "lawless commercial graffiti," a barbaric invasion of public space by capital.
Others praised it in columns as "cultural interaction of a new era," a brilliant artistic act that bridged the gap between virtual and reality.
Regardless of the controversy, a nationwide "Find pokémon" activity had spontaneously formed among Tokyo citizens, especially children.
Children, armed with homemade Pokedexes, excitedly ran through the city's streets and alleys, searching for and recording the location of every pokémon.
The media even fueled the fire, launching a "Collect all 151 pokémon" challenge.
But in the end, after countless people's efforts and statistics, people were surprised to find that Sega had released exactly 149 types of pokémon in Tokyo, no more, no less.
Only the last two, whose names were unknown, were missing.
This discovery left the final, most captivating suspense for the entire IP's mystery.
The massive advertisement boards and Mario posters that Nintendo had spent a fortune on were completely reduced to unnoticed, expensive backdrops in this wave of nationwide frenzy.
Immediately following, on January 30th, during the morning animation slot.
pokémon anime episode 65, "Tokiwa Gym! The Last Badge!" aired on time.
When Giovanni, the leader of Team Rocket, and his Mewtwo, clad in silver armor and exuding immense pressure, officially appeared,
All viewers in front of their televisions were deeply captivated by this mysterious pokémon.
The anime quickly ended after Satoshi obtained eight gym badges. But the familiar ending theme did not play.
Instead, a brand new, never-before-seen animated advertisement, directly connected to the main episode, appeared.
The opening of the advertisement instantly pulled all old viewers' memories back to episode 17, "Island of the Giant pokémon."
The narrator, with a magnetic voice, clarified that the story of the upcoming game, pokémon adventures, took place in that mysterious park filled with giant robot pokémon. And episode 17 had already revealed that the owner of the park was Giovanni, the leader of Team Rocket.
Immediately after, the image of the armored Mewtwo beside Giovanni flashed across the screen.
Its eyes were cold and hollow, filled with a sense of power. "The secrets on its body will be revealed in the game."
This narration, like a perfect hook, completely stitched together the anime plot and the game content.
"Playing the game," at this moment, was elevated to a necessary step to "participate in the story and solve the mystery."
Kyoto, Nintendo Headquarters.
The atmosphere in the meeting room was extremely oppressive.
On the huge television screen, news reports from various Tokyo television stations about the "pokémon Invasion of Tokyo" were being broadcast. Hiroshi Yamauchi's face was ashen.
The report on the "Tokyo Propaganda Vacuum Zone," which had been returned a few days ago, was dug out from the pile of waste paper and now lay quietly in the center of the conference table.
Junior analyst Maeda kept his head down, silent.
His superior's red-inked note, "The enemy is afraid to fight, lacking funds, this is a sign of great victory, no need to worry," appeared incredibly ironic under the pale lights of the meeting room.
"Playtesting!"
Hiroshi Yamauchi's roar broke the silence.
"Let everyone play super mario bros. 3!"
"Let them personally experience what a real, best game is!"
He ordered the Hoshikai system to immediately organize the largest super mario bros. 3 live playtest event in history at core stores nationwide.
This was Nintendo's last and most confident trump card.
To crush all flashy marketing with unparalleled game quality.
Nintendo's war machine went into full swing, and the playtest event was grand.
Mario's unparalleled charm indeed attracted countless players to line up, and exclamations of amazement rose and fell at the scene.
However, Sega's response was even better.
They not only simultaneously launched playtests through their own channels, but the content they exhibited far exceeded everyone at Nintendo's imagination.
At Sega's stores, players could not only play the highly anticipated pokémon adventures.
They could also experience the dazzling and refreshing combat of fatal fury.
They could also experience the lightning-fast shooting of space harrier.
A dizzying wall of software was formed by five distinct, highly polished launch titles.
What made the "spies" sent by Nintendo to gather intelligence even more terrified was that in Sega's directly managed store in Akihabara, there were two specially protected playtest machines.
They were running highly complete, though still in development, trial versions of phantasy star and first super robot wars.
Detailed reports on Sega's playtest lineup were urgently sent to Shigeru Miyamoto.
He looked at the descriptions of those games in the reports.
A deep, vast RPG world that could be freely explored.
A highly strategic wargame filled with passionate battle performances.
For the first time, Shigeru Miyamoto felt that he and his Mario were no longer facing another imitator or a single challenger.
It was a "game army" with a complete worldview, covering all types of players.
His initial reluctance about Mario 3 being pushed into the spotlight was now rapidly transforming into a deeper, almost overwhelming anxiety.
Could this pinnacle of 8-bit games truly, by itself, contend with a full-scale assault from a new generation?
This showdown, it seemed, was not a fair contest from the very beginning.