was a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

development company founded in 2000 by Tetsuo Mizuno and

Chihiro Fujioka is a video game designer and composer, as well as rock drummer. He has worked at Xtalsoft, Square, and AlphaDream where he is primarily known for directing ''Super Mario RPG'' as well as his involvement in several '' Mario & Luigi'' games. He ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, Japan. In partnership with Nintendo, it produced software for the

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...

, Nintendo DS,

Nintendo 3DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generati ...

, and

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...

, including the '' Mario & Luigi'' series. The company's staff included former developers from

Square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

, such as Yoshihiko Maekawa. On October 1, 2019, AlphaDream was shut down after filing for bankruptcy.

History

AlphaDream is a spinoff company from , a staffing agency that dealt in construction work also known as . Chihiro Fujioka joined AlphaStar in 1999 to head up a video game production division. He and Tetsuo Mizuno spun the company off as AlphaStar Software on January 12, 2000, before renaming it to AlphaDream in July of that year. Several members of their staff had previously worked at

, including Mizuno, Square's second president, and Fujioka and Yoshihiko Maekawa, who were game directors at Square. The name AlphaDream, meaning the 'first dream', is a play on ''

Final Fantasy is a Japanese science fantasy anthology media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science fantasy role-playing video games. The ...

'', Square's most notable series. The company is known for their role-playing games, most notably the '' Mario & Luigi'' series for the

, the Nintendo DS and the

. Their first game, ''Koto Battle'', was a ''

Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...

''-style role-playing game, wherein the player battles three of their twenty character cards against AI opponents. It was released in March 2001 for the

. While it remains a Japan-only game, it was later re-released for the

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Un ...

. AlphaDream's next game was ''Tomato Adventure'', released in January 2002. The player, as DeMille, a tomato-hater in the Ketchup Kingdom, fights his way from his outcast village to rescue his girlfriend. The in-game weapons are toy-like and the battles against opponents involve minigames. ''Tomato Adventure'' was co-developed with Graphic Research and directed by Chihiro Fujioka of ''

Super Mario RPG ''Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars'' is a role-playing video game developed by Square and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1996. It was the final ''Mario'' game published for the SNES. The game was ...

'' and ''

Final Fantasy Legend III ''Final Fantasy Legend III'', known in Japan as ''SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha'', is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Game Boy. The third entry in the ''SaGa'' series, it was released in Japan in 1991 and in North A ...

''. It was expected for release on the Game Boy Color as ''Gimmick Land'', but was pushed to the new Game Boy Advance and renamed for better marketing. ''Tomato Adventure'' has not been released outside Japan. AlphaDream became the developer of the ''Mario & Luigi'' series of games shortly after, with the first entry in the series, '' Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga'', releasing in 2003. On October 1, 2019, AlphaDream declared bankruptcy, citing sluggish revenues and high development costs, and being unable to keep up with growing debt (which as of March 2018 was over ¥465 million).

Games

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Alphadream Defunct video game companies of Japan Japanese companies established in 2000 Video game companies established in 2000 Japanese companies disestablished in 2019 Video game companies disestablished in 2019 Video game development companies Software companies based in Tokyo Companies that have filed for bankruptcy in Japan