Genius Sonority, a team formed by folks originating from Heartbeat who worked on Dragon Quest 6 and 7. Funny enough, the founder of Genius Sonority, Manabu Yamana, originated at Chunsoft and worked on Dragon Quest 1-3.
The team was apparently formed using money from Yamauchi's Q-Fund and would for a number of years work exclusively on Pokemon spin-offs. Most notably Pokemon Colosseum, XD, Battle Revolution, Trozei, Typing, Battle Trozei, and their last to date; Pokemon Shuffle.
Pokemon Colosseum was the debut of a Pokemon RPG for a Nintendo home console, and getting Dragon Quest veterans was a pretty... genius idea! Anyway, the game more or less was a follow-up to the EPD Kyoto-developed Pokemon Stadium games on the N64, but obviously had a different flavor despite using the same battle engine and like, 90% of the Pokemon models (with little to no changes).
Pokemon XD would basically be a more polished up sequel. Human characters were much better modelled and had better animations to boot, as well as fleshing out the Shadow moveset to be more than just Shadow Rush.
Pokemon Battle Revolution would be their only Pokemon project on Wii and instead of an RPG, they went back to a more Stadium-like model. Much of the models (but not all) got remade for the game. Likely due to the 2-year contract prohibiting the 4Kids actors from returning to the series (sans defects Kayzie Rogers and Jimmy Zoppi), Ted Lewis was replaced by veteran narrator Rodger Parsons as the announcer for PBR.
Pokemon Trozei would more or less become the current Pokemon puzzle games, debuting on the DS in 2005 in JP and 2006 in the west.
Then all of the sudden they would work on Dragon Quest again in the form of Dragon Quest Swords for Wii, apparently not just being credited in the Planning, but actually took a more direct role, with GS-veteran James Turner even being the Art Director, as he was in their Pokemon games. You may recognize his name. :P
But then something happened.
First in 2008 it was found out that Genius Sonority were apparently hiring for an original RPG for Wii. Hype as hell right? Too bad, it got canned. That same year, it seemed the team got heavily down-sized. A number of folks would join Game Freak (like James Turner), and some would form Tabot Inc. (now known as Appci Inc.).
During this troubled few years, they'd make some small DS games, including a TINKERBELL DS game of all things. Blew my fucking mind when I saw their logo on the back cover one day at a store out of curiosity. Their last DS game would be this bizarre Pokemon typing game that never even came out in NA.
Then on 3DS they'd have a semi-resurgence in the form of a new Pokemon spin-off again in the form of Pokemon Battle Trozei. It even featured the return of GS's trusty composer Tsukasa Tawada, who last worked with them on PBR. Pokemon Typing was composed by Basiscape. Speaking of, Genius Sonority finally got to make a new IP; The Denpa Men on 3DS, which was also composed by Basiscape. Funny enough again, Appci actually worked with Tsukasa Tawada to compose a number of the Natsume Harvest Moon games they made like the two on 3DS. So yeah, the connections never die! :P
Unfortunately after Battle Trozei and Denpa Men, Genius Sonority sort of remained on cruise control, releasing numerous sequels to Denpa Men, as well as Pokemon Shuffle on both 3DS and even mobile, which they'd kept the lights on for like 4 years at this point, with nothing new since then.
Hope's not lost. Manabu Yamana confirmed back in an interview for New Years 2019 that they would finally release their next project this year hopefully:
... Well we're still waiting, but at least it's a blip on the radar again! They're long overdue for a Switch game. Hopefully another Pokemon game. Hell I'd take them assisting with Sword & Shield (which James Turner is the Art Director of, same as from his Genius Sonority days).
On a small note, Appci actually helped out with Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon (credited as Tabot), so already we potentially had more former Genius Sonority folks involved with Pokemon again! :P Hopefully they're back for Sword & Shield as well.
The best scenario is a new Genius Sonority-led Pokemon game with Game Freak lending James Turner and other GS folks that may be there, and have Appci do the larger programming role and also have Yoshiaki Iwasawa who was Genius Sonority's Director of Development who's there back in the same role. The world needs a new Genius Sonority Pokemon RPG dammit! :P
What are your thoughts?
