Like Hiro's bedroom in the first game, the Akazawa living room acts as our main menu. Rather than have a list of options in text however, the interface fully embraces the 90s craze of skuedomorphisim to have various functions be represented by real world objects. Looking back, the couple of cursor based sections of Zero4Champ II feel like they were a prototype for this.
At the moment we only seem to be able to click on a few things, like the window…
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The weather is nice today too.
And the bookshelf:
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There are no erotic books.
Not ones without Samurai in them, anyway. Probably a good thing. We don’t want to spoil this nice living room with nosebleeds.
The address book next to the phone seems to be the games save / load screen.
And tantalizingly, there’s a Super Famicom there. It doesn’t seem to do anything, nor do the other books and objects. Perhaps we can do something with them later.
However, probably the most obvious thing we’re supposed to click is that big bag on the middle of the table with the word ‘CAR’ on it.
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Should I go to driving school? yes / no
Alright! Driving School!
I expect Taro probably needs to learn how to drive a car first in order to become Zero4Champ. Though then again, it didn't really stop Hiro.
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Today is the day to do it.
Good morning. Today is your practical training. Please go to car number 3.
Hello, nice to meet you.
Ah, this must be our driving instructor. Hopefully he is going to tell us how to heel-toe and rev-match on our gear shifts.
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Today we'll practice driving a car. Try doing as I say.
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yes
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Well, first release the clutch and put it in first gear…
Uhhh… ok. Which one was the clutch again?
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Disengage the clutch and shift into first gear.
Well…
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Disengage the clutch and shift into first gear.
Just hang on a minute would you, guy?
You’d think I’d be used to this by now after doing this for two games. But I didn’t account for the fact that there’s additional unfamiliar buttons on the Super Famicom…
The clutch wasn’t the button I expected it to be, and what’s more… we have new features… like brakes!
… Pretty sure we're never going to need those.
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Disengage the clutch and shift into first gear.
… Ok, I finally got it figured out. Sort of.
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Let's get going.
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Accelerate a little and the car starts to move
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Release the accelerator and apply the engine brake.
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Please take a look.
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Shift up to second gear.
Ah shit, I hit the brake and stalled it.
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Please put the gear in neutral.
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Disengage the clutch and shift into first gear.
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Try releasing the accelerator and applying engine braking.
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Increase your speed to 40km.
Alright, alright! Cool your jets, guy. We'’ll get it… eventually…
This little driving tutorial was a clever way to introduce the concepts of Zero4Champ to new players, especially if they are unfamiliar with a manual transmission.
Timely too, as it seems like Taro needs all the help he can get…