ADK, also known as Alpha Denshi Corp., was a Japanese video game company, very famous in the 1990s, who made various games mainly for SNK's Neo-Geo platform, as many console games. The K in ADK comes from the Japanese term for "corporation", kabushiki kaisha. ADK made various video games for many genres, but their most popular works are their fighting games, particularly the World Heroes series.
A prevalent theme in all of their works was adding a ninja character into the cast, even if the ninja contrasts the game's setting.
History[]
Origins[]
ADK was created in 1980 in Saitama, Japan. The first game ADK made was called Janputer (ジャンピュータ, Janputer), the world's first arcade Mahjong game, which was sold by Sanritsu Giken Corp. Afterwards, Sega and Tecmo would sell ADK-produced games through the early 1980s. In the later 1980s, ADK became something of a 2nd-party developer for SNK.
ADK made games for many genres, including sports, shooters, platformers, fighters, and beat 'em up games. The company became quite famous, with considerable success in North America.
In early 1990s, ADK started developing many games for SNK's Neo Geo system. However, through the mid-90s, ADK failed to win very much success. The company eventually went bankrupt and closed its installations in early 2000 (SNK itself would declare bankruptcy the very next year). SNK ended up buying ADK's intellectual properties.
Legacy[]
Today, ADK has a legacy in the hands of SNK Playmore, with new appearances of its characters, notably in the fighting game Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, where Hanzo, Fuuma, Mudman and Neo Dio from the World Heroes series appeared, as well as Kisarah Westfield and Joe Kusanagi (in a cameo in one of Kisarah's attacks) from Aggressors of Dark Kombat.
Twinkle Star Sprites had received a 2 games which was supervised by former ADK employees in the form of Twinkle Star Sprites: La Petite Princesse released in 2005 for the Playstation 2 and Twinkle Star Sprites Gaiden: Twin Star Memories, a 2007 mobile game following the events directly after the first game.
There was also several compilations of ADK's games such as World Heroes Anthology that includes all four of the World Heroes series, and ADK Damashii which had Ninja Combat, Ninja Commando, Twinkle Star Sprites, Aggressors of Dark Kombat, and Ninja Master's.
Some originally ADK characters have made an appearance in SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS, like Hanzo from WH and Sasuke from Ninja Master's. Their characters appear in this game as SNK character cards and as Action and Counter cards. Jeanne D'Arc from World Heroes later appeared as a downloadable character in SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy.
Games by ADK[]
Arcade games (non-Neo Geo)[]
- Crush Roller / Make Trax (1981)
- Jump Bug (1981)
- Super Bond (1982)
- Champion Baseball (1983)
- Champion Baseball II (1983)
- Exciting Soccer (1983)
- Exciting Soccer II (1984)
- Bull Fighter (1984)
- Equites (1984)
- High Voltage (1985)
- The Koukouyakyu (1985)
- Splendor Blast (1985)
- Super Stingray (1986)
- Kyros No Yakata / Kyros (1986)
- Time Soldiers (1987)
- Sky Soldiers (1988)
- Gang Wars (1989)
- Sky Adventure (1989)
- Super Champion Baseball (1989)
- Miss Bubble II (1996)
Neo Geo games[]
- Blue's Journey / Raguy (1991)
- Magician Lord (1991)
- Ninja Combat (1991)
- Crossed Swords (1991)
- Thrash Rally / Rally Chase (1991)
- Ninja Commando (1992)
- World Heroes (1992)
- World Heroes 2 (1993)
- Aggressors of Dark Kombat (1994)
- World Heroes 2 Jet (1994)
- Syougi No Tatsujin - Master of Syougi (1995)
- World Heroes Perfect (1995)
- Ninja Master's: Haoh-Ninpo-Cho (1996)
- Over Top (1996)
- Twinkle Star Sprites (1996)
Neo Geo CD Games[]
- Crossed Swords II (1995)
- ADK World (1995)
- Zintrick / Oshidashi Zintrick (1996)
Hyper Neo Geo 64 games[]
- Beast Busters: Second Nightmare (1998) - (Co-developed with SNK)
Neo Geo Pocket games[]
- Melon Chan's Growth Diary (1998)
- Crush Roller (1999)
- Dokodemo Mahjong (1999)
- Neo Poke Pro Yakyuu (1999)
- Party Mail (1999)
- Dynamite Slugger (2000)
NES games[]
- Famicom Meijinsen (1988)
- Satomi Hakkenden (1989)
- STED: Iseki Wakusei no Yabou (1990)
External links[]
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