Graphic Research
| Graphic Research | |
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| Founded | 1992-05-?? |
| Closed | 2005-06-28 |
| Headquarters | Japan |
| Other Names |
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Graphic Research (グラフィックリサーチ株式会社) was a Japanese video game developer founded by Yoshiaki Sawada (沢田 義明) in May of 1982. The company developed several well-known titles including DeCap Attack (GEN), Xerd no Densetsu (GB), and Psy-O-Blade (GEN). They are also known for developing the unreleased NES game Secret Ties (NES).
The company had an in-house sound team, Team Hyakumangoku, led by Hiroto Kanno and consisted of Fumito Tamayama, Yasuyuki Hamada, and Tetsuya Kidokoro.
The company later went bankrupt in June of 2005. Some Graphic Research staff would go on to create Seekz.
Contents
Games
Music Development
GB
The Game Boy sound driver was presumably a direct conversion of Graphic Research's NES sound driver and was written in Music Macro Language. According to the credits of Xerd no Densetsu 2, the sound driver was programmed by Hiroto Kanno, Yasuyuki Hamada, and Fumito Tamayama.
The company programmed another sound driver, which was loaned out to various developers. Graphic Research was most likely the originator, as the first five games to use the driver were by Graphic Research; Power Mission, Power Racer, Gem Gem, Solomon's Club, and Koi wa Kakehiki.
NES
The first version of Graphic Research's sound driver was written in 6502 assembly language by Yasuyuki Hamada, who wrote the music in 6502 assembler macros. Hamada and Fumito Tamayama later reprogrammed the driver to use Music Macro Language, and updated the fidelity of the instruments.
While the game Shounen Majutsushi Indy was never released, an arcade game by Graphic Research has the game's credits, which reveals the game's music was by the music group Inoyama Land. While the credits do not specify any arrangers, both Fumito Tamayama and Yoshiyuki Hamada are both credited for programming, so either of the two most likely implemented Inoyama Land's music into the sound driver.
SNES
The sound team created their own sound driver. It was presumably programmed by either Hamada, Kanno, and/or Tamayama. The music would have been written in either MML or MIDI.
WonderSwan/WonderSwan Color
The music was written in MIDI, and then run through a converter. Some composers used Logic.
Audio Personnel
Graphic Research had an in-house audio team called "Hyakumangoku" (百万石). This stood for "One Million Stones", and was headed by Yasuyuki Hamada (who sometimes used the name as an alias), but also appears to have applied to Hiroto Kanno and Fumito Tamayama.
The following composers worked at Graphic Research:
- Fumito Tamayama
- Hiroto Kanno
- Kiyomi Tanaka
- Maki Kirioka
- Manabu Ito
- Michihiro Nishikawa
- Mikio Masuzawa
- Shigenori Masuko
- Shinji Tachikawa
- Takuya Hanaoka
- Tetsuya Kidokoro
- Thinp. Uchibori / Tinpu Uchibori - Unknown female composer. Real name unknown.
- Yasuyuki Hamada
- Yoko Kawashima (formerly Yoko Suzuki)
Makoto Inoue and/or Yasushi Yamashita of the group Inoyama Land composed the music for GRC's unreleased Famicom game Shounen Majutsushi Indy.
