Game Developer in the World of Anime

After the meeting, Ichin left the company and drove to Toyogasaki.

A few minutes later, Yukino and Eriri came out together.

During his trip back home for the New Year, Ichin had asked Yukino to take care of Peppa. That way, Peppa could have some company with Yukino's cat, Sesame.

As for Yukino's other cat, Mochi, it had just undergone neutering surgery and was still recovering.

As soon as they stepped outside, Eriri spotted Ichin's car nearby and immediately dragged Yukino over, opening the back door and hopping in.

"When did you and Utaha get back? She didn't come with you?"

"We came back this morning. Took a nap at home after lunch, then stopped by the office. Utaha's still there."

Once they got in, Ichin started the car and said, "Let's head to the office first. How about dinner out tonight? As thanks to Yukino for taking care of Peppa. After dinner, we'll drop Yukino off and pick up Peppa. Eriri, you coming?"

Eriri nodded happily. "Of course I'll come if there's free food. What's on the menu? It's been cold lately—hotpot or BBQ?"

"What are you getting all excited for? You're just freeloading."

Ichin gave her a look in the rearview mirror and turned to Yukino. "You decide, Yukino. What do you feel like eating?"

"Me?"

Yukino thought for a moment and said, "Then let's go with hotpot. I'm not a big fan of barbecue."

Yukino didn't like eating a lot of meat, so BBQ wasn't her thing. In contrast, hotpot offered more variety—besides meat, there's fish, shrimp paste, vegetables, and many other options.

Eriri rolled her eyes at Ichin but didn't object to Yukino's choice. She liked hotpot too. Besides, as Ichin said, she was just freeloading—no room to be picky.

Soon, the three arrived at the company. Since it wasn't dinnertime yet, they had time to relax.

During the New Year break, Ichin had already finished the main storyline of Pokémon Legends: Arceus and had started his second playthrough.

He hadn't reached the point of catching Arceus yet, but he was already writing down his thoughts on the game, listing areas for improvement. He had written nearly a thousand words.

To be fair, the mainline Pokémon games had been getting increasingly poor reviews in recent years—sloppy releases and declining quality.

But Arceus was at least innovative. After unlocking all the ride Pokémon in the first playthrough, the game truly became enjoyable.

That said, it wasn't without flaws. First and foremost—the graphics. Ichin couldn't ignore it. Many textures and models in the game had room for improvement. It was possible to improve visual fidelity without sacrificing performance, but the devs just didn't bother.

Then there was the Pokémon roster and the new forms—some of which were… questionable, to say the least. But Ichin wasn't a professional designer; he could only comment from a player's perspective without going into deep critique.

Another big issue: voice acting. Pokémon games had always lacked it.

After all these years, the only sounds in-game were music and Pokémon cries. Would it really kill them to add voices for NPCs? Even if it's just for the main characters?

Ichin longed for it, but he figured having voice acting in the next Pokémon game was still unlikely.

Oh well. It is what it is.

After playing for a while, Ichin returned to writing his impressions, trying to list out as many points as possible.

Some staff members who had already completed the game were also writing their post-game reflections. Once collected, Ichin would read through all of them and compile a full report to send to Nintendo and Game Freak.

As he typed, Ichin couldn't help but mutter, "Feels like we could run our own game review site at this point. We'd be way more legit than IGN or whatever."

Eriri, who wasn't working and was instead gaming with Utaha and Yukino in the office, looked up and said, "Let's not. These days, how many review outlets actually do honest work? Most of them just take the money, barely play the game, toss in a few lines of commentary, slap on a score. And if the bribe's not big enough, they just lower the score. Speaking of which, are we sending Persona to reviewers before launch?"

"We are—but we're not paying them."

Ichin continued typing as he said, "They can rate it however they want. I don't care what IGN or those sites give it. But there are a few decent game reviewers here in Japan—we'll send them copies too. And also to streamers. Speaking of which, it's probably time to announce the release date."

That afternoon, after arriving at the company, Ichin had reviewed the development progress with the team.

Persona had finally entered its final development phase. They were almost ready to move on to physical cartridge production.

So Ichin figured—might as well lock in a release date soon.

It was early February now. A May release?

How about May 1st?

Three months should be plenty of time to finish remaining testing and bug fixes.

"Alright, let's do it."

Clapping his hands, Ichin opened the company chat and summoned Yagami Kou, Umiko, and Hazuki to his office to discuss the May 1st release.

"May 1st, huh?" Hazuki rubbed her chin in thought. "I think it works. We can actually finish development this month. What's left are just minor tweaks. We'll have plenty of time to polish and prepare a day-one patch. And yeah, now's a good time to announce the release. The pre-order players must be getting antsy."

Umiko added, "No problem on my end. The dev team's been asking me about the release date. They think it's about time we ramp things up."

Yagami Kou, of course, had no complaints. The art team always worked efficiently once given tasks. In fact, she even had free time to "goof off" and draw extra illustrations of the main cast.

"Great, then let's lock it in."

With Ichin's final word, the release date was officially set. He asked Hazuki to inform the rest of the company and let them know there'd be another all-hands meeting tomorrow to boost morale for the final stretch.

Half an hour later, Ichin posted new updates on Bilibili and Twitter, officially announcing the release date for Persona.

It would launch on May 1st.

*

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