Chrono Trigger is a 1995 role-playing video game by Square. It was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the first entry in the Chrono series. The game's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, creator of Enix's Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, character designer of Dragon Quest and author of the Dragon Ball manga series. In addition, Takashi Tokita co-directed the game and co-wrote the scenario, Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game, while Masato Kato wrote most of the story. The game's plot follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.
Final Fantasy IV, titled Final Fantasy II in its initial North American release, is a 1991 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The fourth main installment of the Final Fantasy series, the game's story follows Cecil, a dark knight, as he tries to prevent the sorcerer Golbez from seizing powerful crystals and destroying the world. He is joined on this quest by a frequently changing group of allies. Final Fantasy IV introduced innovations that became staples of the Final Fantasy series and role-playing games in general. Its "Active Time Battle" system was used in five subsequent Final Fantasy games, and unlike prior games in the series, IV gave each character their own unchangeable character class — although at a few points in the story, a dark knight will choose the path of a paladin, or a summoner will evolve to a new tier of spellcasting.
Dragon Quest, previously published as Dragon Warrior in North America until 2005, is a series of role-playing video games created by Japanese game designer Yuji Horii, character designer Akira Toriyama, and composer Koichi Sugiyama and published by Square Enix. Since its inception, development of games in the series have been outsourced to a plethora of external companies until the tenth installment, with localized remakes and ports of later installments for the Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo Switch being published by Nintendo outside of Japan. With its first game published in 1986, there are eleven main-series games, along with numerous spin-off games. In addition, there have been numerous manga, anime and novels published under the franchise, with nearly every game in the main series having a related adaptation.
The Mana series, known in Japan as Seiken Densetsu, is an action role-playing game series created by Koichi Ishii, with development formerly from Square, and is currently owned by Square Enix. The series began in 1991 as Final Fantasy Adventure, a Game Boy handheld side story to Square's flagship franchise Final Fantasy. The Final Fantasy elements were subsequently dropped starting with the second installment, Secret of Mana, in order to become its own series. It has grown to include games of various genres within the fictional world of Mana, with recurring stories involving a world tree, its associated holy sword, and the fight against forces that would steal their power. Several character designs, creatures, and musical themes reappear frequently.
Enix Corporation was a Japanese multimedia publisher who handled and oversaw video games, manga, guidebooks, and merchandise. It was founded in 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima as Eidansha Boshu Service Center, initially as a tabloid publisher and later attempting to branch into real estate management. Beginning in 1982, Enix began publishing video games. Notable early collaborators were designers Yuji Horii and Koichi Nakamura, artist Akira Toriyama, and composer Koichi Sugiyama. Horii, Nakamura, Toriyama, and Sugiyama would all work on the 1986 role playing video game Dragon Quest for the Family Computer; one of the earliest successful RPGs for consoles, it spawned a franchise of the same name which remained Enix's best-known product.
Dragon Quest Monsters is a spin-off series of the Dragon Quest games. Primarily developed by Tose and published by Square Enix, it sets the player in a medieval/fantasy world filled with magic, monsters and knights. Unlike the original Dragon Quest games, the player's character does not do any of the fighting in battles; instead the player has to rely on capturing, breeding and raising monsters to do the fighting for them. The concept originated from Dragon Quest V (1992). The character and monster designs are by Dragon Ball creator, Akira Toriyama. The series spans several handheld gaming systems, and each game has received positive reviews from critics. The series' gameplay has been compared to Pokémon.
Dragon Quest, titled Dragon Warrior when initially localized to North America, is a 1986 role-playing video game developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was originally released in Japan in May 1986 and by Nintendo in North America in August 1989. It is the first game in the Dragon Quest video game series. Dragon Quest has been ported and remade for several video game platforms, including the MSX, MSX2, PC-9801, Super Famicom, Game Boy Color, mobile phones, and Nintendo Switch as of 2019. The player controls the hero character who is charged with saving the Kingdom of Alefgard and rescuing its princess from the evil Dragonlord. Dragon Warrior's story became the second part in a trilogy, with several spinoff anime and manga series.
Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation, titled Dragon Warrior III when initially localized to North America, is a 1988 role-playing video game developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix. It is the third installment in the Dragon Quest series and was first released for the Family Computer (Famicom) in Japan and later for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America. The game saw an enhanced remake for the Super Famicom in 1996 and the Game Boy Color in 2001, and a port to mobile phones and the Wii in 2009 and 2011. A version of the game for Android and iOS was released in Japan on September 25, 2014, and worldwide as Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation on December 4, 2014. It was the first time the game was given an official English subtitle. Later in 2021, another remake of the game titled Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, based on the graphical style of Octopath Traveler (2018), was announced during the franchise's 35th anniversary livestream, and it was eventually released in November 2024 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series consoles.
1-Up Studio Inc., formerly Brownie Brown Inc., is a Japanese video game developer founded on June 30, 2000, in Tokyo, Japan by Shinichi Kameoka and Kouji Tsuda, who worked on the Mana series. The studio developed games for both Nintendo and Square Enix, including Magical Vacation and Sword of Mana.
Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans, known in Japan as Dragon Ball Kai: Saiyan Invasion, is a video game based on the Dragon Ball franchise for the Nintendo DS. It was released in Japan on April 29, 2009, and in Europe and North America in November 2009. The game is developed by Monolith Soft and distributed by Namco Bandai in North America ; it is one of the first games in the Dragon Ball franchise to be published by Namco Bandai, as the company would acquire the license from previous holder Atari in July of the same year.
indieszero Corporation, Ltd. is a small video game development company headquartered in Musashino, Tokyo, Japan. It was founded on April 21, 1997, and has developed video games for other video game companies, including Nintendo, SEGA, and Square Enix.
The Japan Game Awards is the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's awards ceremony, which was created in 1996 as the CESA Awards. While it represents the Japanese video game industry, it is not limited to Japanese video games, but also includes international video games.
M2 Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game developer and publisher, best known for handling emulation of re-released games, such as some Sega Ages titles, Virtual Console titles for Nintendo systems, the 3D Classics series for the Nintendo 3DS and their ShotTriggers range of classic STG games. M2 has also created entirely new titles such as WiiWare games for Konami under the ReBirth moniker and more recently a new GG Aleste game. In addition, M2 currently holds the rights of Aleste series and all NEC Avenue and NEC Interchannel games on TurboGrafx-16 and variants, previously owned by Lightweight.
Silicon Studio Corporation is a Japanese computer graphics technology company and HR services provider based in Tokyo. As a technology development company, Silicon Studio has produced several products in the 3D computer graphics field, including middleware software, such as a post-processing visual effects library YEBIS, real-time global illumination technology, such as Enlighten, and Mizuchi, a physically based rendering engine. As a video game developer, Silicon Studio has worked on many different titles for several gaming platforms, most notably, the action-adventure game 3D Dot Game Heroes on the PlayStation 3, the role-playing video games Bravely Default and Bravely Second: End Layer on the Nintendo 3DS, and Fantasica on the iOS and Android mobile platforms.
Paon DP Co., Ltd. (株式会社パオン・ディーピー) is a Japanese video game developer. The company was founded in August 2004 as DP Inc. and merged with Paon Corporation, Ltd. in March 2015 to form Paon DP.
Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden, known as Dragon Ball Z in Europe, is a 1993 fighting video game developed by Tose and published by Bandai for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is based upon Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball franchise, and was its first fighting game.
