denpa-men

Latest

  • Genius Sonority's Denpa Men reaches back to the company's 16-bit roots

    by 
    Kat Bailey
    Kat Bailey
    10.24.2012

    This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. Genius Sonority made its debut under that name in 2003, with Pokemon Colosseum. It was billed as a successor to Pokemon Stadium, and I ended up putting in more than a hundred hours before eventually souring on the recycled sprites and Colosseum's grinding "purification process."Since then, Genius Sonority's name has mostly been a byword for "outsourced" among Pokemon fans, bringing the same shudders that Backbone does for retro gamers. But with the recent release of Denpa Men: They Came by Wave, a kind of augmented reality RPG for the Nintendo 3DS, I've found that their roots go back further than Pokemon.%Gallery-169215%