To be honest, there may be few people who immediately recognize the company name ”STARFISH-SD.” However, once you learn about the path this company has taken and the titles they have worked on, you will be instantly drawn into its uniqueness. Positioned apart from the major players, they are an entity that sometimes brings nostalgia and sometimes surprises you by saying, ”Wait, you're picking up that!?” That is the kind of game company STARFISH-SD is.

It is said that the company was originally founded by staff from the bankrupt Hot-B, and it plays a role as the ”successor of the soul” of former Hot-B works. For fans, there is no greater joy than seeing memorable works revived in a new form, and their steady attitude in continuing this could be called ”preservation of culture” that goes beyond commercial success. Their stance of not just releasing sequels but challenging the difficulty of maintaining the spirit and atmosphere of the original works gives off a sense of quiet beauty.

At the time of Nihon Telenet's bankruptcy, they appeared to have held the copyrights to its library of works for a period; this movement can be glimpsed from the ”2007 STAR FISH SD” credit in the second volume of the ”Valis: The Fantasm Soldier” comic. They were also proactive in creating new developments for old titles, such as releasing ”Tokyo Twilight Busters” on the Nintendo DS in 2010. Although the rights eventually left Starfish's hands after Sunsoft formally acquired the copyrights including Valis in 2009, those works might not have been passed down to this day if it weren't for that period where they served as a ”bridge.”

What is also interesting is the movement of their affiliated companies. It is surprising to learn that the representative, Shiori Kojima, managed other companies such as Joyful Table and the former Triumph Corporation, and even expanded into the restaurant business with ”Hakata Motsunabe Yokasanbou.” This Yokasanbou was also sold to City Connection in 2016 along with game copyrights, showing a rare development where dining and gaming intersected. It can be said that Starfish took its own unique path in the fusion of management and content.

Even as the forms of rights and distribution change—as seen in 2017 when Super Black Bass X2 and Blue Marlin were distributed by Mobius via Game Archives—the will to deliver these works to modern players lives on somewhere. They are ”games of memory” that resonate deeply with a specific audience, even if they aren't big titles everyone knows. In Starfish's attitude of continuing to cherish them, one can feel their pride as an ”unsung hero” of the game industry.