Native name 株式会社アルファドリーム Products Mario & Luigi series Number of employees 38 | Formerly called AlphaStar Key people Tetsuo Mizuno | |
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Romanized name Kabushikigaisha ArufaDorīmu Video games Mario & Luigi: Superstar, Mario & Luigi: Dream Te, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, Mario & Luigi: Partners i | ||
AlphaDream Corporation, Ltd. (株式会社アルファドリーム, Kabushikigaisha ArufaDorīmu) is a Japanese video game development company founded in 2000 by Tetsuo Mizuno in Tokyo, Japan. It was formerly known as Alpha Star.
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In partnership with Nintendo, it has produced software for the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS, including the Mario & Luigi series. The company's staff includes prominent former developers from Square, such as Chihiro Fujioka.
History
AlphaDream was founded on January 12, 2000. They were then known as Alpha Star. Several members of their staff were notable staff from Square. They are known for their RPGs, most notably the Mario & Luigi series for the Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo 3DS.
The company was founded in 2000 by Tetsuo Mizuno, the past president of Square. Their first game, Koto Battle, was a Pokémon-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 Game Boy Color. While it remains a Japan-only game, it was later re-released for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console.
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 and Final Fantasy Legend III. 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.