Grezzo

Grezzo Co, Ltd is a Japanese video game developer best known for their partnership with Nintendo, particularly for their involvement in the development and co-development of various The Legend of Zelda titles.

Founded in December 2006 by former Square Enix designer Koichi Ishii.  Ishii began working for Square in 1987 where he directed and produced every game released in the Mana series until his departure in 2006.   Ishii departed Square Enix in 2006 to form his own development studio.

Koichi Ishii named the studio after an Italian phrase “diamante grezzo”, which means “a diamond in the rough”.  His vision for the new studio was to take great ideas and craft those ideas into polished games similar to how a jeweler would polish a rough diamond into a beautiful jewel.   With this notion Ishii chose the name Grezzo to foster this philosophy.

The company’s first development project was to assist with the development of Final Fantasy XI’s expansion packs and add-ons.  Also known as Final Fantasy XI Online, the game is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Square and released in 2002.  Since its debut in 2002, five expansion packs and six add-on scenarios have been released for the game.   Ishii was the director of the original game and after his departure from Square he was able to leverage his relationship with the company and his experience with the Final Fantasy franchise to negotiate a deal for his new company, Grezzo to assist with the development of some of the expansion packs.

Grezzo began working with Nintendo in 2009 on a smaller scale initiative for the Wii’s WiiWare service.   Published by Nintendo, Line Attack Heroes released for the Wii’s WiiWare service in Japan on July 27, 2010.  While the game was not overly successful from a commercial perspective it did help the development studio to form a relationship with Nintendo.