| Type | Kabushiki gaisha |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Headquarters | Japan |
| Website | http://www.grev.co.jp/ |
G.rev (or G.revolution) is a Japanese arcade video game developer. The company was founded by former employees of Taito's arcade division who had worked on G-Darius and RayStorm, and is known primarily for their acclaimed arcade shoot 'em up games.
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G.rev was founded with the mission of developing arcade shooters, but they realized the cost of development was more than their initial investment capital. To generate revenue, they took on contract work for Taito and Treasure, co-developing the popular shooter Ikaruga with the latter. This relationship would remain fruitful, with G.rev assisting again on Gradius V, and Ikaruga director Hiroshi Iuchi assisting on G.rev's own Strania. G.rev's first independent release was a puzzle game, Doki Doki Idol Star Seeker, a Mine Sweeper-like arcade puzzle game, created with low investment and high returns in mind.
With the money in place to develop a full-fledged arcade shooter on their own, the team, under direction of president Hiroyuki Maruyama, set out to develop Border Down a spiritual successor to the Taito arcade classic Metal Black. Border Down was met with wide acclaim among shooter fans following the release of its Dreamcast port, with particular praise paid to its unique beam mechanics and "border system", which put players on different paths if they died. They followed this success with Under Defeat, a helicopter shooter praised for its gritty wartime atmosphere. Its port to Dreamcast would be one of the last games released on the system.
Their next release was the unique hybrid gameSenko no Ronde, which combined shooter-like firing patterns and themes in a projectile-based fighting game similar to Taito's Psychic Force series. With the Dreamcast gone, they chose to port the Sega NAOMI game to Xbox 360, remaking the game's graphics and adding gameplay enhancements along the way. This release, Senko no Ronde Rev. X, became the first G.rev game to be released in North America as WarTech: Senko no Ronde. The American release was met with mixed reviews that praised the title's innovation but criticized the brief length and high pricepoint. As of present it is the only retail release of a G.rev game outside of Japan. Some of the gameplay enhancements of Rev. X were carried over to the arcade release Senko no Ronde SP.
Following the formation of Gulti, another small developer formed by veterans of the shooter genre, G.rev proposed a collaborative effort, as Gulti didn't have the capital needed for a full-scale shooter of their own. The two companies created Mamoru-kun wa Norowarete Shimatta!, or Mamorono for short, an overhead-view, multi-directional shooter with a Japanese fantasy theme, initially released on the NAOMI. The title was ported to Xbox 360, and a widescreen version made it to PlayStation 3 much later.
The company's next title was Senko no Ronde DUO: Dis-United Order, a sequel to their earlier crossover title. This time, G.rev chose to develop for the more powerful Taito X2 hardware, allowing the graphical quality of the arcade version to match the later Xbox 360 port. Unlike its predecessor, the title was not released outside of Japan.
G.rev continued to develop on Taito X2 hardware, releasing Seisou Kouki Strania, a vertically-scrolling shooter that allows players to arm two different selectable/upgradable weapons at once. For the first time, G.rev decided to forego a retail release, instead releasing a fairly direct port on Xbox Live Arcade, and promising some of the usual bonus features like an alternate course as future downloadable content. The home version was released simultaneously across all regions, giving Western gamers their first G.rev title since Senko no Ronde.