Atlus

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Jack Frost, loveable mascot, hee ho.

Atlus is a videogame company that was founded in 1986. While not necessarily having the name-recognition of some larger companies, they have a huge number of quality products, both as a developer and a publisher, and often both at once. The Japanese HQ portion of the company is both a publisher and developer, the North American branch serves as a publisher and localization company that publishes more games than just what its parent company Atlus Japan develops and publishes; in the list of games below said games are listed with Atlus being the North American publisher.

For the record, a good number of their internally developed 21st-century games are freakin' hard, though good design means they usually avoid Fake Difficulty. Their American branch is also famous for the translation of their games: Woolseyism and Superlative Dubbing abound in games they publish. Atlus is also famous for first exposing North America to Nippon Ichi Software, having published Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure back in the Playstation 1 era, and later the first Disgaea game for PS 2. This led to NIS eventually branching out on their own, and to this day the companies share many staff amongst their translation and dubbing teams, as well as an amicable business relationship. In fact, NIS are the ones publishing Persona: Trinity Soul, the anime based on the Atlus game.

Currently holds the dubious title of "That One Company", due to their joy at making gamers suffer. And we like it, dammit. Funnily enough, even some games they merely published and not developed can be Nintendo Hard, like Demon's Souls and the Disgaea games.

Also note the number of Widget Series below.

On October 1, 2010, Atlus merged with Index Holdings Or something, it isn't quite clear what's going on.

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Tropes associated with Atlus

• Cash Cow Franchise: The Persona Series, specifically Persona 3 and 4.
• Friendly Rival: Nippon Ichi, in North America at least. The fact that many die-hard fans buy most of both companies' games probably helps them getting along.
• Nintendo Hard: Atlus-developed games have a tendency to be quite hard. However, with Atlus USA, this doesn't always apply to games from other companies that it picks up for a Western release (not that Atlus USA hasn't localized hard games from other companies, which it definitely has).
• That One Boss: We can't stress enough that they have their own page for it
• Widget Series
• Woolseyism: As Atlus USA doesn't develop anything itself, most of its publishing involves localizing Japanese games, which it does quite well.

Some of their titles (including externally developed games localized by Atlus USA) include:

• ~3D Dot Game Heroes~ (Publisher)¹
• Arcana Heart (Publisher, first game)
• Baroque (Publisher)²
• Bonk (Co-developer, with Red Co.)
• Catherine (Publisher/Developer)
• Class of Heroes (Publisher)
• Contact (North American Publisher)
• Cubivore (North American Publisher)
• The Dark Spire (North American Publisher)
• Demons Souls (North American Publisher)¹
• Dept Heaven series (Publisher)²
  • Riviera the Promised Land
  • Yggdra Union
    • Blaze Union
  • Knights in The Nightmare
• Disgaea (Published the first game in North America before NIS America was formed)
• Dokapon Kingdom (North American Publisher)²
• Don Pachi (Publisher)³
  • Do Don Pachi (Publisher)³
• Eternal Poison (Publisher)⁴
• Etrian Odyssey (Publisher/Developer)
  • Etrian Odyssey 2: Heroes of Lagaard
  • Etrian Odyssey 3: The Drowned City
• Growlanser (North American Publisher)
• Hexyz Force (Publisher)²
• Izuna (North American Publisher)
• The King of Fighters XIII (North American Publisher)⁵
• Lufia and the Ruins of Lore (North American Publisher)
• Luminous Arc (North American Publisher)
  • Luminous Arc 2 (North American Publisher)
• Magna Carta (Publisher)
• Maken X
• Master of the Monster Lair (Publisher)
  • My World My Way (Publisher)
• Ogre Battle (Publisher, Play Station version)
• Odin Sphere (Publisher)
• Power Instinct (Publisher and developer for most games; Matrimelee was published by SNK Playmore)
• Radiant Historia (Publisher/Developer)
• Robopon
• Rondo of Swords (Publisher)
• R-Type Command (Publisher)⁶
• Rule of Rose (Publisher)
• Shin Megami Tensei series (Publisher/Developer)
  • Shin Megami Tensei I
  • Shin Megami Tensei II
  • Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne
  • Digital Devil Saga
  • Persona 1
  • Persona 2
  • Persona 3
  • Persona 4
  • Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army
  • Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon
  • Devil Survivor
  • Devil Survivor 2
  • Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey
  • Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible / Revelations: The Demon Slayer
  • Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children Book of X / Demikids: X Version
• Sky Gunner
• Snowboard Kids
• Stella Deus the Gate of Eternity (publisher)
• Steambot Chronicles (publisher)⁶
• Summon Night (Published Swordcraft Story 1, 2 and Twin Age in North America)⁴
• Super Robot Wars (Published Original Generation 1, 2, and Endless Frontier in North America)
• Tail Concerto (Publisher)
• Thousand Arms (Publisher)
• Touch Detective (Publisher)
• Trauma Center series (Publisher/Developer)
• Xexyz (developer; published by Hudson Soft in the U.S.)

¹ - developed by From Software
² - developed by Sting Entertainment
³ - developed by CAVE
⁴ - developed by Flight-Plan
⁵ - developed by SNK Playmore
⁶ - developed by Irem