Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article is from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag), author: Qimu cake

He still misses the friends he met before, each of whom plays in different ways and has his own style. But now many people have no time, no energy, and no such strong desire to win or lose.

Spring is coming, and in the small county town of Ningjin in Xingtai, Hebei Province, the new year's "Youyou White Book powerful Unification Battle" competition is about to begin again.

An electric tricycle, a small TV, an external stereo, a Sega Mega Drive mainframe with four handles, these are all the items of the rice ball game stall.

In front of the tricycle, people shook their handles, the winners laughed, the losers scolded, and someone shouted, "one more round!" . It looks like time has frozen here.

In fact, the origin of this video game booth can be traced back to 2003. That year, he could only go to the game hall to watch rice balls played by others, but finally bought his own Sega MD, and soon bought a "Magic Unification" cassette. Just looking at the unique black fuselage and black cassette was enough to make him feel relaxed and happy.

Since then, his home has also become a small "game hall", nearby children have to come to his home to line up to beat. The rice balls with slightly better skills are like the devil at the bottom, always defeating them one by one.

Learn from each other during the day and study the technology at night. Later, rice balls found that their level had surpassed that of their peers, and it was difficult to find rivals who were neck and neck.

Although he has tried many other games since then, such as "Contra Iron Blood Corps", "Iron fist of Wrath", "musket Hero" and so on, he still likes "Magic United War" best. In his opinion, the clearance game is like a movie, watching it once is enough. The fighting game is a good song that can be listened to over and over again, or even a single cycle for it.

So in the mood of "seeking defeat alone", the rice ball took the game console to the street and set up a stall to find an opponent: the loser is one yuan and the winner is free.

Since then, this rule has never changed. At the beginning of spring, the temperature in the north rises, and rice balls ride tricycles to Folk Music Park every evening to set up the stall for 20 years.

1 "Youyou Bai Shu demon strong Unification War" was born in 1994.

Like many post-80s and 90s, rice balls first came into contact with "Youyou Bai Shu" because of the "Devil's strong Unification War", and later made up cartoons and animations.

In the year when the "Devil strong Unification War" was launched, the "Youyou White Book" had just finished, and the author Fujian Yibo ran out of the magazine and entered a window period, and there was no new news about this cartoon. At the same time, the Sega MD mainframe has also entered the end of its life cycle and has received little attention from players.

At the end of the same year, Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation both released the United War of Magic, which was born at such a time that it was far from being a hot game when it was released. Later, under the word of mouth of the players, its reputation gradually rose.

Three months later, the United Battle of Magic began to dominate the MD game sales list.

Game magazine "Beep!" Mega Drive December 1994 and January 1995 benefit from Sega's active efforts to open up the Chinese market in the last century, and there are many assembly machines and pirated machines in circulation in the domestic market. Chinese players have a lot of Sega MD. In this context, "Devil strong Unification War" entered the Chinese market along with the comics of "Youyou White Book", forming the initial memories of many post-80s and 90s fighting games.

Maybe it's because "Youyou White Book" happens to have a four-person main character group, or it may be that the production company Treasure (domestic players generally call it Caibao Society) is simply spreading their ideas. In the era when 1V1 fighting games were popular, "Monster United War" had a very creative setting-four people fighting.

Through the official quad plug, a Sega MD host can be connected to four handles for four people to fight at the same time. Players can fight in two teams, or they can be battalions; they can fight each other up and down, or they can fight into a regiment of four.

Whether it is the bang Ling Wan, or 120% of the Houyu Ludi colliding, or the user Yu Lu brother's reversal needle to take the life of the bloody opponent, after Feiying ate the black dragon wave to complete the final kill, everything is exciting.

From the point of view of the rice ball, this is the greatest pleasure of the "Devil's strong Unification War", and it is also the reason why he insists on using the "Magic Power Unification War" to set up a stall.

Of course, he also has some realistic considerations: if four people play together, a game can earn up to three yuan, which is much more efficient than "Street Fighter" and "King of Boxing".

3V3 efficiency is even lower gorgeous and smooth movements, hot and noisy scenes, coupled with the original animation class sound excellent extremely infectious voice, "Magic United War" with overwhelming courage to raise the fighting game atmosphere to an unprecedented height.

Four people fighting increases the uncertainty and interest of the game, and many imaginative continuous skills give players endless research motivation. The game still has countless enthusiastic fans and there are many discussions and videos circulating on the Internet. In the eyes of some old players, it is still an irreplaceable classic.

Rice balls, and the players who appear on rice balls stalls, are the best portrayal.

The video shot by rice balls is full of all kinds of people. There are shirtless middle-aged men, 80-year-old men with white hair, mothers with children, and good female players.

Holding the handle in front of the small TV, it is like going back to the summer 20 years ago.

Speaking of which, it was accidental that rice balls first recorded videos for their stalls.

In order to improve the technology, the rice balls after setting up the stalls often go to the "home of white lovers" to dive and watch videos of other seniors. But at the same time, he also found that the dissemination of information between players is quite closed, and some things are only spread by word of mouth in small regional groups.

In order to let everyone in the forum see a Bug that is very famous in their local area, rice balls learned to cut videos.

Unfortunately, at that time, he only had a Nokia 3310 mobile phone and no other video recording equipment, and the business status of the early stalls could not be recorded. But according to him, he asked a famous local calligrapher to put up a sign for himself, and there was a steady stream of challengers coming every day.

Later, after the popularity of video-recording smartphones, rice balls began to shoot wonderful stories that happened on the stalls and posted them online, so that people who could not come offline could experience this atmosphere.

In 2019, rice balls began to upload videos of "the Unification of the Devil Power" on bilibili, but almost no one was interested, at least far behind the number of broadcasts of "Street Fighter" and "Boxing King" next door.

Until last June, a video uploaded by rice balls seemed to trigger some kind of push mechanism, with 1.8 million views at a time.

Some people are surprised at the street stalls in the video, while others recognize the roadside scenery and say, "eat melons to eat at home." more people are recalling the past and nostalgia for their lost youth through this video.

As for why the video was so popular, rice balls could not find a clue on their own, he concluded: "it may be quite different. Tricycles, birdcages, and the form of playing games outdoors make people feel very fresh."

But in the dark, like his past efforts, he got a lot of creative incentive from bilibili. Rice ball said he was considering trading the money for a larger monitor, but viewers in the comment area told him not to change it, and many people insisted that the small TV was the authentic taste of childhood.

"I have to change it. That TV has a vertical line, and this year I'm going to change to a 20-inch monitor." Unfortunately, the small TV that resonated with 1.8 million people will probably disappear from his video.

In addition to the video stalls, rice balls will still upload some game teaching videos.

This is also his original intention and motivation to start making videos. The study of Lianji often makes him have a whim and turn a brand-new trick into a video, which is liked by netizens and gives him a great sense of achievement.

Occasionally, viewers in the comment area will ask him technical questions, and rice balls will almost always answer them patiently. He said that he was very impressed after watching the serial video of the veteran "Crystal Dragon" in the white circle, and now he also wants to be such a person: "promote 'Youbai', enlighten new people, let more people understand 'Youbai' and join 'Youbai'."

Although the number of his teaching videos has not been high, or even inferior to the video stalls, he is willing to record more videos as long as he has time, and he feels that he is improving himself while instructing others.

Once upon a time, the rice ball was a well-known local player of the "Magic Power Unification War". When setting up a stall, someone would come thousands of miles to "kick the hall." the players who came to challenge him called him the ringer, and over time, the stall became a competition.

At that time, rice balls were always happy to beat all kinds of opponents, including street thugs, hot-tempered eldest brothers and finger-disabled challengers. He all respected them and wrote these stories into his memoirs.

But with the types of fighting games declining year by year and a limited audience, few people are willing to spend time and effort on practicing unpopular projects, let alone antique games from 30 years ago. Players who appear in rice ball videos may have occupied most of their entertainment life 30 years ago, but now it no longer has such a high status. Most people show mediocre strength, and rice balls seldom try their best to fight them.

Later, the rice ball learned about the network game through the forum, and can be connected to challenge the national master. He said that he thought he was invincible before he opened it, but he met the great god for the first time, and he was abused to death by the great god, but he was still excited about opening the door to a new world for a long time.

But after the novelty, he still felt that the online war was "not like that." He is more concerned about not finding the atmosphere of fighting games than the pain caused by high delay.

"the sense of boxing to the flesh, the cheers of the onlookers, and the eyes around them are all stimuli that are not available on the Internet." This is what the rice ball said. As mentioned in the arcade game documentary 100 games: "there is no tension in playing games at home, and you don't care if you lose." in the game hall, there will be people watching, players are a lot more serious about the game. "

"the atmosphere is too peaceful now," said the rice ball, "though it's good." But he still misses the friends he met before, each of whom plays in different ways and has his own style. Can play with players with uneven skills every day, and practice hard for a week before taking revenge if you lose. But now many people have no time, no energy, and no such strong desire to win or lose.

"just play with your feelings, everyone is for fun." This is the attitude of many people towards an antique game, and there is no lack of such voices in the comment area of rice balls.

But in the face of new friends, he still maintains the habit of being a fighting game player, whether in the comments area to respond to enthusiastic viewers, or in the first interview with me. He is always used to using this sentence as an opening line-"have a chance to play a few games."

In the video of the rice ball fire, an audience commented: "it can all make money, so I'll make a lot of money if I take my PS5."

But in fact, the players gathered here may not be short of a PS5, what they lack is a place to miss the past, not only for the games they have been studying all night, but also for their youth when they have been soaked in games.

And now all they are doing is finding who they used to be-watching and shouting. From them, we can see the barren but vibrant era of 20 years ago.

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