Yasunori Mitsuda is a Japanese composer and musician. He is best known for his work in video games, primarily for the Chrono, Xeno, Shadow Hearts, and Inazuma Eleven franchises, among various others. Mitsuda began composing music for his own games in high school, later attending a music college in Tokyo. While still a student, he was granted an intern position at the game development studio Wolf Team.
Arc System Works Co., Ltd., commonly referred to as ArcSys, is a Japanese video game developer and publisher located in Yokohama. Founded by Minoru Kidooka in 1988, the company is known for arcade 2D fighting game franchises, including Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, as well as other license-based fighting games for Dragon Ball FighterZ, Persona 4 Arena (Ultimax), Granblue Fantasy Versus (Rising), and others.
Nippon Ichi Software, Inc. is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. The company was founded in 1991 and has developed several role-playing video games, most notably the Disgaea and Marl Kingdom series. Its mascot is the penguin-like Disgaea character Prinny.
Daisuke Ishiwatari is a Japanese video game developer, illustrator, musician, composer and voice actor. He is best known for creating the 2D fighting game series Guilty Gear. He designed the characters and storyline, and wrote the music. He also provides the in-game voice for the characters Sol Badguy and Order-Sol, as well as Freed Velez in Battle Fantasia.
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is a fighting game developed by Arc System Works in 2008. The game's name is a combination of the words "blaze" and "blue" when the title is rendered in rōmaji, and of the words "brave" and "blue" when rendered in katakana. As Japanese people usually follow the katakana rendering, the Japanese pronunciation is made similar to the word "bray", entirely omitting the "z" sound. Originally released for the arcades, it was also released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. A port for the PlayStation Portable, titled BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Portable, was released in 2010. It was the first title in the BlazBlue game series and extended franchise.
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift is a 2009 fighting game developed by Arc System Works as an official sequel to BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. As with the previous game, the game first came to arcades before both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions as the game was currently released for the Taito Type X2 arcade system board, with a 16:9 ratio and 768p resolution.
The Evolution Championship Series, commonly known as Evo, is an American annual esports event that focuses exclusively on fighting games. The tournaments are completely open and use the double elimination format. As with Super Battle Opera, contestants travel from all over the world to participate, most notably from Japan. The first Evolution was originally held as a Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2 tournament called the Battle by the Bay. It changed its name to Evo in 2002. Every successive tournament has seen an increase of attendees. It has been held at various venues across the Las Vegas Valley since 2005. As of 2021, the event is jointly owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment and the Endeavor esports venture RTS.
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma, released in Japan as BlazBlue: Chronophantasma, is a 2-D fighting game developed by Arc System Works. It is the third game of the Blazblue series, set after the events of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. The game was originally to be released first as an arcade game in the early fourth quarter of 2012, which was later pushed forward to November, 2012. A PlayStation 3 version of the game was released in Japan on October 24, 2013, while it was released in the North America on March 25, 2014. Due to limited hardware and disc space the game was not released on the Xbox 360.
Numerous video games were released in 2016. New hardware came out as well, albeit largely refreshed and updated versions of consoles in the PlayStation 4 Pro, PlayStation 4 Slim, and Xbox One S. Commercially available virtual reality headsets were released in much greater numbers and at much lower price points than the enthusiast-only virtual reality headsets of earlier generations. Augmented reality also became mainstream with Pokémon Go. Top-rated games originally released in 2016 included Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Inside, Overwatch, Forza Horizon 3, Madden NFL 17, WWE 2K17, NBA 2K17, Dark Souls III, and Battlefield 1 and Doom 2016. The top five highest-grossing video games of 2016 were League of Legends, Honor of Kings/Arena of Valor, Monster Strike, Clash of Clans, and Dungeon Fighter Online.
Guilty Gear is a series of fighting games by Arc System Works, created and designed by artist Daisuke Ishiwatari. The first game was published in 1998, and has spawned several sequels. It has also adapted to other media such as manga and drama CD. Guilty Gear has generally received praise from video game reviewers for its highly technical gameplay, graphics, soundtrack, and for its characters. Another fighting game franchise by Arc System Works, BlazBlue, is considered a spiritual successor of the series.
XBlaze Code: Embryo is a prequel visual novel of the fighting game series BlazBlue by Arc System Works. It was released in Japan for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita on July 23, 2013 and North America on June 24, 2014 by Aksys Games. The Microsoft Windows's version was released worldwide on March 1, 2016. A sequel titled XBlaze Lost: Memories has been released for the PS3 and Vita in 2015 and on Windows in 2016.
Tales of Zestiria is an action role-playing game. It is the fifteenth main entry in the Tales series, developed by Bandai Namco Studios and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It was released in January 2015 in Japan on the PlayStation 3. For Western release in October of the same year, it was also ported to PlayStation 4 and Windows via Steam. The PS4 version was released in Japan in July 2016. As with previous entries in the Tales series, the game uses a variation of the action-based Linear Motion Battle System, with additional elements including a navigable open world, and the ability for certain characters to fuse into a single entity in battle to deliver powerful attacks.
Trails, known as Kiseki (軌跡) in Japan, is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Nihon Falcom. It is a part of their larger The Legend of Heroes franchise and began with the release of Trails in the Sky in 2004. Trails features a large cast of characters and consists of interconnected story arcs set in different nations on the continent of Zemuria: Liberl, Crossbell, Erebonia, and Calvard. The series primarily features turn-based combat, with a few spin-offs and more recent entries featuring other styles of gameplay.
XBlaze Lost: Memories is a sequel to the 2013 visual novel Xblaze Code: Embryo developed by Arc System Works. It was released in Japan for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita on April 9, 2015, in North America on August 11, 2015 and in Europe on June 21, 2016 by Aksys Games. The Microsoft Windows's version was released worldwide on August 11, 2016.
BlazBlue: Central Fiction, released in Japan as BlazBlue: Centralfiction, is a 2-D fighting video game developed by Arc System Works. It is the fourth game in the BlazBlue series, and is set after the events of BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma. It is also the final game with Ragna as the main protagonist, and serves as the conclusion of the C-Series that began in Calamity Trigger.
Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky is a role-playing video game developed and published by Spike Chunsoft, with assistance from tri-Ace, for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 video game consoles. It was released in Japan in December 2015 and worldwide in October 2016.
I Am Setsuna is a 2016 role-playing video game (RPG) developed by Tokyo RPG Factory and published by parent company Square Enix for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Microsoft Windows. A version for Nintendo Switch was released in 2017 as a console launch title. The storyline, set in a snow-bound world plagued by monsters, follows silent protagonist Endir as he becomes the guardian of Setsuna, a young woman journeying to the Last Lands to act as a sacrifice for pacifying the monsters. The gameplay, which is designed to emulate RPGs from the genre's "golden age" in the 1990s, uses an Active Time Battle system blended with unique mechanics.
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is a 2D crossover fighting game developed and published by Arc System Works, first released for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Windows in 2018. Cross Tag Battle features characters from different series, including BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth and RWBY. After the game was released, characters from Arcana Heart, Senran Kagura and Akatsuki Blitzkampf were added as downloadable content. An arcade port was released in 2019 in Japan, a version for Amazon Luna was made available in 2021, and the Special Edition with all post-launch content was released for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in 2023. The game received mostly positive reviews, with praise for the visuals, music, online functionality and mechanics. However, it was criticised for lack of overall content at launch and DLC practices.
Granblue Fantasy Versus is a 2.5D fighting game developed by Arc System Works for the PlayStation 4. It is based on the role-playing video game Granblue Fantasy, and was released in Japan and Asia by Cygames and Sega, respectively on February 6, 2020, and in the west by Xseed Games and Marvelous Europe in March. A Windows version was released worldwide on March 13 in the same year. A sequel, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, was released on December 14, 2023.
