Chapter 179: Putting Cheng Tian into a retro arcade is like throwing a mouse into a rice bin.
Cheng Tian actually quite enjoyed the casual feeling of wandering around in a completely unfamiliar city, and then, when he eventually got lost, just hailing a taxi to his destination.
Stopping and going along the way, observing the culture and scenery completely different from his own city, and incidentally trying some snacks that he wasn't sure were authentic, but at least the brands seemed legitimate—it was a form of enjoyable exploration.
According to informant intelligence, Tianjin has what is reputed to be the largest arcade warehouse in North China, and the warehouse owner, without surprise, also opened an arcade with 'retro' as its main selling point.
This was clearly something only a 'Rich Guy PLUS' could achieve, enough to make Cheng Tian, a sugar painting vendor, drool with envy.
Leaving aside everything else, at least in terms of retro arcades, the arcade opened by this rich guy could truly be called Tianjin's No. 1... whether it made money was another matter.
Furthermore, according to internal intelligence, the number of machines displayed in his shop might not even be a quarter of what he had in his warehouse.
Cheng Mouren, upon learning this news, inevitably felt a surge of excitement.
Unfortunately, Cheng Tian's connections could only provide information and couldn't yet reach the rich collector, so he could only go to the shop first to take a look and gauge the 'retro concentration' inside.
When Cheng Tian arrived at the arcade, located in a shopping mall, it was exactly dinner time, and there were indeed quite a few people.
However, his gaze could no longer accommodate anything else.
A mouse entering a rice bin—that described Cheng Tian's current state.
The scope of arcade games is actually quite broad, and many games only have arcade-exclusive cabinets, with very few, or even no, versions released on other platforms.
Here were old games he was familiar with, but also many games he had never heard of.
For instance, 'Lethal Enforcers,' a light gun game from 1993, the same year as 'Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.' All the in-game visuals were real-life footage, making it significantly more realistic than 'Virtua Cop' and 'House of the Dead.' He wasn't sure if the revolver-shaped light gun was original or a later addition, but holding it felt somewhat like the light gun used for 'Duck Hunt' on the NES.
Another example was the music game 'Rolling Stone DJ,' with two large and four small rhythm buttons. As the music played, beats would fall from top to bottom, and players needed to hit them at the right time. Cheng Tian had played many handheld versions of 'DJMAX,' and now with his increased Agility and Spirit attributes, even high difficulties felt easy and enjoyable.
There were also immersive light gun shooters and racing games with cabinet designs resembling small independent rooms. The content was largely similar, but their essence was to provide interactive games where friends or couples could make a ruckus in a small, dark room.
'Silent Scope,' 'Cobra,' 'Crisis Zone 3,' 'Time Crisis,' 'Initial D3,' 'Wangan Midnight 3DX'... However, compared to these games requiring light guns or steering wheels, Cheng Tian personally preferred games with joysticks and buttons.
The owner was clearly a perfectionist in some sense. Cheng Tian noticed that the machine layouts were mostly categorized by publishing companies like Sega, Namco, Psikyo, Konami, SNK, NEO, IGS, and so on. Besides some common cabinets, Cheng Tian also discovered many special cabinets perfectly suited to their respective games.
After this tour, Cheng Tian had a general understanding of the shop owner.
At least for now, almost all of these machines were original cabinets without exception!
It was evident that the owner was definitely not running this shop to make money, which also meant he would be extremely meticulous and dedicated when it came to his collection.
Putting himself in the owner's shoes, if Cheng Tian himself had opened such a place—ostensibly an arcade, but actually his own personal collection museum—then these original cabinets would absolutely need to be equipped with original circuit boards. If even one machine compromised and used a pirated board, Cheng Tian would feel so itchy he couldn't sleep.
Unexpectedly, yet logically, Cheng Tian indeed found an original cabinet for Capcom's 'Cadillacs and Dinosaurs,' and it was an extremely rare single cabinet with three sets of joysticks and buttons, allowing three players to play simultaneously in an independent cabinet!
Games like 'Knights of Valour,' 'journey to the west: a tale of tribulation,' and 'Ninja Baseball Bat Man,' which support up to four-player co-op, usually involve two regular cabinets placed side-by-side and linked together for four players.
Although 'Cadillacs and Dinosaurs' has four selectable characters, it only supports a maximum of three players for co-op, and typical machines only support two-player co-op. However, the cabinet before him was a three-player co-op original cabinet. Cheng Tian was ninety-nine percent sure that it contained the original 'Cadillacs and Dinosaurs' circuit board.
But knowing it was one thing; being able to own it was another.
For a collector, especially one who was likely not short on money, such an item was essentially priceless and simply impossible to sell.
And as for stealing or robbing it directly, Cheng Mouren truly couldn't bring himself to do it.
It wasn't that his moral bottom line was particularly high, but purely because as a fellow collector (though without much money), Cheng Tian knew best that collectibles, especially complete and systematic sets that are hard to acquire even with money, once incomplete, would truly make one sleepless.
Again, putting himself in others' shoes, even for others' game collections, Cheng Tian hoped they could continue to be preserved intact.
Now, if Cheng Tian wanted to get a circuit board, he could only hope that the shop owner had a second or third original item, and that it possessed the attributes of 'for display, for preservation, for proselytizing.'
However, after Cheng Tian had stood in front of the 'Cadillacs and Dinosaurs' machine for a full three minutes, he suddenly slapped his forehead.
Darn it! He was too fixated! He had been led by the nose by the thought of unlocking his Soul Equipment!
Although the unlock material was within reach, why be so fixated on this one? The original circuit board for 'Cadillacs and Dinosaurs' was rare, yes, but it wasn't the only one left!
And this was only in the North China region; other regions definitely had them, or failing that, he could even go directly to Capcom's home country, where the used collectibles market was very developed, and there were many video game museums.
Most importantly, the unlock condition for the Soul Equipment wasn't time-limited; there was absolutely no need to rush and stake all possibilities on this one arcade owner.
In an instant, Cheng Tian's thoughts cleared. The expression he had, as if a hand was about to reach out from his throat to grab the machine, completely vanished, and his eyes regained clarity.
"...Desire is truly terrifying."
After muttering to himself, Cheng Tian turned around and walked directly towards the counter, immediately loaded a thousand yuan onto a membership card, and then, carrying a small basket full of tokens, he plopped down in front of the original 'Cadillacs and Dinosaurs' machine—
Cheng Tian decided: he would clear the shop!
He planned to spend all his free time until the next monthly trial here, going through every single machine in the entire shop, one by one, in order!
The 'Cadillacs and Dinosaurs' circuit board? He'd play enough first, then talk about it!