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These days, Japanese developer Genius Sonority is probably best known for its Denpa Men series of RPGs, which has earned itself quite a few fans all over the world. At one point, though, the studio was known better for developing Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD on the Gamecube—and despite Denpa Men having taken off, Genius Sonority still appear to be very closely tied to the Pokémon franchise.
While The Pokémon Company has never contracted Genius for another single-player RPG since Pokémon XD, it has given the studio a number of other Pokémon-related projects to work on, including the recently released Pokémon Shuffle, which is actually Genius’ second major free-to-play title on the Nintendo 3DS (the other being The Denpa Men RPG Free). While Pokémon Shuffle has been downloaded 2.5 million times worldwide, The Denpa Men RPG Free is no slouch either, with 1.8 million downloads in Japan.
Aside from Pokémon Shuffle, Genius Sonority has worked on a bunch of other recent Pokémon games as well, including: Pokémon Battle Revolution (Wii), Pokémon Typing DS (NDS), and Pokémon Battle Trozei (3DS).
In the non-Pokémon category, the studio has developed Dragon Quest Swords for Square Enix on the Wii, and has also developed Otona no Renai Shousetsu DS Harlequin Selection for Nintendo. The latter is a series of harlequin novels released in Japan for the DS. You might be more familiar with other similar Nintendo DS releases in America and Europe, such as the 100 Classic Book Collection, which was also developed by Genius Sonority.
It’s interesting to see that while other small Japanese studios are transitioning to mobile, Genius Sonority have managed to remain focused on dedicated game platforms, largely due to their frequent Nintendo contracts. When Siliconera spoke with him in 2012, the company’s CEO, Manabu Yamana, said to us that he intended to use downloadable games on dedicated gaming devices such as the Nintendo 3DS to combat the decay of Japan’s console game industry.
Product list courtesy Genius Sonority’s website.
