Kure Software Koubou

Kure Software Koubou (呉ソフトウェア工房), or "KSK", is a Japanese game development company founded in 1985 that creates games for many platforms, but focusing mostly on home computers. KSK's games are well known for the ゴチャキャラ (Multiple Character) system which KSK invented, as well as most of their games having a very strong European art style and theme (something very rare for a Japanese company to do given that the majority of other Japanese games out all used anime style) KSK is also famous for having most of the cover art for their games created by renowned artist Yoshitaka Amano.

Game history

One year after being founded KSK released their first game Argo for the PC-88, it was a 1st person view RPG game. Two years later in 1988 KSK released 2 games, Silver Ghost and First Queen. These games established the new style of RPG that KSK would then use as the basis of most of their further productions, this was the concept of the 'Gochyakyara' system (Multiple Character System) This was basically an action-RPG system however it let the player have a huge amount of party members and allowed for enormous battles as well as strategy elements (such as army formations and tactics). This system was very simple yet highly dynamic, and gained such popularity that by 1995 KSK released a further 7 titles using this system (Duel98, First Queen 2, Kawanakajima Izuroku, Early Kingdom, First Queen 3, First Queen 4 and Dark Seraphim).

In 1996 KSK then released a game called Duel Succession. This incorporated many elements from the 'Gochyakyara' system, but removed the RPG and action elements making it strictly a war strategy game. In the same year a Playstation version of First Queen 4 was released featuring enhanced graphics and sound.

After this KSK then released a new First Queen game in 1999 called . This brought the 'Gochyakyara' system into 3d but was not very popular and fans preferred the old style. This resulted in KSK's next game being a remake of First Queen 1, and which was released in 2001. This featured the original game completely redone with new 2d graphics and sound. A year after this in 2002, KSK released a Windows version of First Queen 2, this however was just the original First Queen 2 game updated to work in Windows, and did not feature remade graphics and sound. 2 years later in 2004 A compilation pack of First Queen 3 and 4 was released. This pack included First Queen 3 updated to work in windows, as well as First Queen 4 updated to work in Windows and featuring the updated graphics from the PlayStation version of First Queen 4 released in 1996.

Also released in 2004 was a game very different from anything KSK had done before. It was a game called Tennis, which obviously was just a tennis game. However, it was not released as a boxed game available in stores, instead it was only available to buy over the internet as a download for a small price. KSK followed this up with a Golf game released in 2005, which is also only available over the internet.

The president of Kure has noted recently in a diary on the KSK website that they are working on a new RPG using the 'Gochyakyara' system. This would mean it would be KSK's first proper original game since in 1999 (Considering everything since then has just been the remake/updates of First Queens 1-4 and the Tennis and Golf games weren't properly boxed full priced games, just small internet downloads at a cheap price)

Works

PC-88
* "Argo" (1986)
* "Silver Ghost" (1988)
* "Duel" (1989)

X68000
* "First Queen" (1988)
* "First Queen 2" (1990)

X-1
* "Silver Ghost" (1988)

PC-98
* "Argo" (1986)
* "First Queen" (1988)
* "Duel98" (1989)
* "First Queen 2" (1990)
* "Kawanakajima Ibunroku" (1992, 川中島異聞録)
* "Early Kingdom" (1992) (With help from C's World)
* "First Queen 3" (1993)
* "First Queen 4" (1994)
* "Dark Seraphim" (1995)
* "Duel Succession" (1996)

Super Nintendo
* "" (1993) (Developed by Culture Brain under license from KSK)

IBM AT
* "First Queen 4" (1994)

Playstation
* "First Queen 4" (1996)

Windows
* "" (1999)
* "First Queen 1" (2001)
* "First Queen 2" (2002)
* "First Queen 3+4" (2004)
* "Tennis" (2004)
* "Golf" (2005)