Talk:Tri-Ace

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Information

Leaving this here to document some finer details regarding tri-Ace and Star Ocean/Valkyrie Profile related games. Do whatever you want with this information. That includes doing nothing.

  • Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile IPs are jointly owned by tri-Ace and Square Enix
  • Charinko Hero (2003) and Dragon Drive: Tactics Break (2002) shares a lot of staff with Star Ocean: Blue Sphere (2001) and Radiata Stories (2005), considering the large gap of time between those two games (4-ish years) and the large multitude of character designs Radiata Stories has (177 recruitable characters) and how several tri-Ace members used to work for Bandai (Look at the credits for Digimon World PS1), Charinko Hero alongside with Dragon Drive: Tactics Break were probably developed in-between to keep staff from getting bored. Also, it is mentioned in an translated Star Ocean: Blue Sphere interview that the team consisted of newcomers which expressed the desire to work on completely brand new games for their next project. Certain staff members' previous history with Bandai and them wanting to work on new games combined with Radiata Stories taking a long time to complete is probably what spawned tri-Ace developing Charinko Hero and Dragon Drive: Tactics Break under Bandai/Banpresto publishing. [1] [2]
  • Originally, the publisher for Infinite Undiscovery was supposed to be Microsoft but it was switched to Square Enix publishing. Interestingly enough. the copyright for Infinite Undiscovery is shared between Microsoft and Square Enix. [3]
  • tri-Ace's long-time Square Enix liaison and producer, Yoshinori Yamagishi,stopped working on Star Ocean games in 2009. Which is why starting in 2010, a number of tri-Ace games started being published by companies other than Square Enix like Sega and Konami. This is also probably the reason why you see tri-Ace began to help other companies with their games like God Eater 2 and FFXII-2 and why tri-Ace games were also no longer as high scale as their previous games. The absence of Yamagishi affected them substantially. It seems that tri-Ace did whatever they had to in order to keep themselves stable or to keep money flowing. [4]
  • tri-Ace got bought by a mobile gaming company, Nepro Japan, in 2015. Before the release of Star Ocean 6 in 2022, they mentioned that they were having money problems. [5] [6] [7]
  • This of course is already documented on the Tose GDRI entry. Tose solely developed the Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth PSP port, they also developed the Star Ocean: First Departure PSP remake and the Star Ocean: Second Evolution PSP remaster. tri-Ace on one of their product pages said they had zero involvement in the development of them. The development was handled solely by Tose [8]
  • The development of Star Ocean Blue Sphere's mobile remake was probably handled mostly between Sonic Powered and Square Enix. You'll notice that the copyright of the mobile remake only mentions Square Enix which matches the copyright listings of the PSP ports/remasters of Valkyrie Profile 1 and Star Ocean 1/2 that Tose solely developed. Also, Square Enix, of course, use their own staff to playtest games. And tri-Ace, not a single time, has included the Blue Sphere mobile remake as part of their product history or catalogue. So yeah, most of the staff that worked on it were probably from Sonic Powered and Square Enix. Sadly though, there is no staff listing available for Star Ocean: Blue Sphere Mobile currently as the game itself cannot be played today because of Square Enix's mobile services shutting down in 2018. [9] [10]
  • Gemdrops ported/enhanced the Star Ocean 2 Tose PSP remaster to PS3/PS4/Vita. Gemdrops is also the developer for the upcoming complete remake for PS4/PS5/Switch/PC. The CEO and director of Gemdrops, Yuichiro Kitao is a former tri-Ace veteran so their involvement in these games does make sense. [11]
  • tri-Ace is listed in some games as subcontractors here [12]
  • Danball Senki game series has other ports and remakes. tri-Ace's name appears in the credits of Danball Senki W Super Custom. They might appear in the credits of Danball Senki, Danball Senki Boost, and Danball Senki Baku Boost as well. Not sure whether tri-Ace was actually involved in any of these ports/remakes or not. [13] [https://youtu.be/FF7_IkRUl64 @38.25)
  • Star Ocean 3 got a HD version released in 2017 for PS4, tri-Ace maybe didn't develop it. Square Enix maybe just used emulator technology to upscale the graphics by themselves and then released it. [14] [15]
  • Star Ocean: Material Trader wasn't developed by tri-Ace. It was developed by Hippos Lab and published by Square Enix. [16]
  • The Android and iOS enhanced ports of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth were developed by FINE.
  • It is unknown who developed the PS4/PS5 ports of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth. Haven't taken the time to look at the credits, maybe it was Tose again or Square Enix.
  • It is unknown who developed the recent PS4/Switch port/remaster called Star Ocean: First Departure R. Haven't taken the time to look at the credits, maybe it was Tose again or Square Enix.
  • Valkyrie Anatomia wasn't developed by tri-Ace. It was developed by Dokidoki Groove Works and published by Square Enix
  • Valkyrie Elysium wasn't developed by tri-Ace. It was developed by Soleil and published by Square Enix.
  • tri-Ace still uses their multi-platform ASKA game engine that was talked about in the GDC 2009 talk. They've pretty much have used it ever since Infinite Undiscovery. It was revealed in an interview with Yamagishi that the ASKA game engine started to be developed after Star Ocean 3 (around 2003-2004) [17] [18] [19]

How long tri-Ace games took to be made

* tried to denote the start of planning/pre-production to development finish/release whenever possible

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness (2016): Around 6 years (probably had talks about it since the release of SO4, trouble happened/in limbo because tri-Ace lost their main producer, then 2 years of development)

Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky (2015): 2 years

Resonance of Fate (2010): 3.5 years (around 2007, after VP2)

Star Ocean: The Last Hope (2009): 5 years (after SO3)

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume (2008): 2 years (After VP2)

Infinite Undiscovery (2008): Between 3 or 4 years (probably after SO3)

Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (2006): 6.5 years (planning started after VP1, then development period started in 2003 or 2004 after SO3

Radiata Stories (2005): 4 years (after SOBS)

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (2003): 3 years (after SO2)

'Star Ocean: Blue Sphere (2001): 1 year (almost everyone working on this game was a new hire)

Valkyrie Profile (1999): 3 years (planning/preproduction probably started after SO1 was done and then development maybe started after SO2 was finished)

Star Ocean: The Second Story (1998): 2.5 years (after SO1)

Star Ocean (1996): 1 year-ish

  • tri-Ace was founded on March 16, 1995
  • Star Ocean released on July 19, 1996

--Evtropy (talk) 16:57, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

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