is a Japanese video game developer founded in 1995. It is known for its role-playing games, most notably the Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile series.
History tri-Ace was formed in March 1995 by former Telenet Japan employees Yoshiharu Gotanda (programmer, current tri-Ace President), Masaki Norimoto (game designer) and Joe Asanuma (director). The name is a play on words regarding the "three aces" who formed the company. Most of tri-Ace's games have been published by Square Enix (formerly Enix).
The company exclusively makes role-playing video games, and is known for giving its games' action-packed battle systems and deep skill systems. This trademark style began when the founders of tri-Ace originally worked for Telenet Japan's Wolfteam, and had created Tales of Phantasia. This game, published by Namco, is a precursor to tri-Ace's own Star Ocean games in several ways; e.g., an action battle system where the player controls one character and AI controls others in the party and special battle skills that the player can assign to different buttons. Besides the Star Ocean series, it also released Valkyrie Profile in 1999.
After its long-time Square Enix liaison and producer, Yoshinori Yamagishi, announced that he was done working on the Star Ocean series in 2009, several of tri-Ace's works started to be published by different game companies other than Square Enix. Such as its 2010 release of Resonance of Fate which was taken to Sega publishing. As well, onwards there began to be a lack of tri-Ace games that received English localizations until Exist Archive in 2016.
tri-Ace games have sold over 3.8 million copies worldwide as of September 2005. The company's sound programmer Hiroya Hatsushiba formed tri-Crescendo in 1999 which has since developed several games independently of tri-Ace.
Japanese mobile company Nepro Japan acquired tri-Ace in February 2015. Despite being acquired by a company focusing on mobile gaming, tri-Ace continued developing video games for consoles, as evidenced by Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness in 2016 and then Star Ocean: The Divine Force in 2022, but weeks before the release for Star Ocean: The Divine Force, tri-Ace was reported to have financial issues and was insolvent.
Games developed Year Title Publisher(s) Platform(s) Star Ocean Enix SNES Star Ocean: The Second Story PlayStation Valkyrie Profile Star Ocean: Blue Sphere Game Boy Color Star Ocean: Till the End of Time PlayStation 2 Star Ocean: Till the End of Time Director's Cut Square Enix Radiata Stories Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria Infinite Undiscovery Xbox 360 Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume Nintendo DS Star Ocean: The Last Hope Xbox 360 Resonance of Fate Sega PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Star Ocean: The Last Hope International Square Enix PlayStation 3 Final Fantasy XIII-2 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Frontier Gate Konami PlayStation Portable Beyond the Labyrinth Nintendo 3DS Danball Senki W Level 5 PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita Frontier Gate Boost+ Konami PlayStation Portable Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Square Enix PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Silent Scope: Bone-Eater Konami Arcade Judas Code tri-Ace PlayStation Vita Phantasy Star Nova Sega Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky Spike Chunsoft PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness Square Enix PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 Heaven × Inferno NTT Docomo iOS, Android Star Ocean: Anamnesis Square Enix Star Ocean: The Last Hope - 4K & Full HD Remaster Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 Resonance of Fate 4K / HD Edition tri-Ace Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 Mist Gears Shueisha iOS, Android Star Ocean: The Divine Force Square Enix Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S OCTOPinbs Aniplex Microsoft Windows
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