Few studios have worked so closely with two rival console makers in turn. For seven years the Takahashi brothers made the Shining role-playing games for Sega, including the Shining Force strategy games on the Mega Drive. Then they left, and their company, Camelot, became the maker of Nintendo’s Mario golf and tennis games and of the Game Boy Advance role-playing game Golden Sun.
Fast facts
- Founded: 4 April 1994, in Shinjuku, Tokyo, as Camelot Co., Ltd., by its own record. The brothers’ earlier studio, Sonic, was set up with Sega’s backing in 1991.
- People: Hiroyuki Takahashi (producer, writer and president) and his brother Shugo Takahashi.
- For Sega: Shining in the Darkness (1991), Shining Force (1992), Shining Force II (1993), Shining Wisdom (1995), Shining the Holy Ark (1996), Shining Force III (1997–1998).
- For Sony: Beyond the Beyond (1995) and Everybody’s Golf (1997, Hot Shots Golf in America).
- For Nintendo: Mario Golf (1999), Mario Tennis (2000), Golden Sun (Europe, 2002) and Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour for the GameCube, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (2010), and Mario sports games ever since.
The Shining games
Hiroyuki Takahashi came into games through a newspaper advertisement. In a 1992 interview with Famicom Tsūshin he said he had answered a wanted advertisement from Enix, the publisher of Dragon Quest, thinking his experience of planning projects could be useful there. He loved Dragon Quest, and he recalled having “the rough idea for a game like Shining Force just three months after joining Enix”.
His first game for Sega was Shining in the Darkness (1991), a first-person dungeon game for the Mega Drive. Retro Gamer describes the team behind it as tiny: a studio called Sonic, with four people, the brothers Hiroyuki and Shugo Takahashi, the programmer Yasuhiro Taguchi and a secretary. The Takahashis created the world, story and game, and contracted other work to people at the newly formed Climax.
The sequel was Shining Force (1992), a tactical role-playing game in which the player moves an army around a battlefield like pieces on a chessboard, a style Nintendo’s Famicom Wars and Fire Emblem had used but that was little known in the West. Takahashi said he had been attracted by a game “where you used your head more”, but wanted “something more like Dragon Quest, a dramatic tale full of tears and romance”, with “fully animated fight scenes, something different than what you normally saw in strategy games”. For the world he drew on King Arthur, The Lord of the Rings and Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. Five more Shining Force games followed on the Mega Drive, Game Gear and Mega-CD between 1992 and 1995, with the Takahashis in charge of every one.
Camelot was founded in April 1994. Retro Gamer explains the arrangement: it could make games for other platforms, while the Takahashis went on making the Shining games for Sega as Sonic. Its first game for someone else was Beyond the Beyond (1995), a role-playing game for Sony’s PlayStation. On the Saturn came Shining Wisdom (1995), an action game, and Shining the Holy Ark (1996). The last was Shining Force III (1997–1998), released in Japan as three separate scenarios. Sega Saturn Magazine called it “the best battle RPG the Saturn’s ever seen” and credited it to “Sonic Software Planning (now known as Camelot)”. Only the first scenario was released in English.
Then Camelot left Sega. Retro Gamer reports that a production diary by Taguchi, hidden on the Shining Force III Premium Disc, accused Sega of failing to support Camelot while Sega moved its effort from the Saturn to the Dreamcast. Sega carried the Shining series on with other developers.
Golf for Sony, then Nintendo
Camelot’s next success was a golf game for Sony. Everybody’s Golf (1997), called Hot Shots Golf in America, used the three-press swing that golf games had used since the eighties, The Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine made it its sports game of 1998, and Camelot developed the sequel too. Then Camelot brought its golf game to Nintendo. Mario Golf, “developed by Camelot Software Planning”, as Nintendo Power put it in 1999, put Mario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong and their friends on the course, each with different accuracy and driving power. Readers of Britain’s N64 Magazine placed it seventh in their game of the year vote, and the magazine summed it up: “Well-designed courses, intuitive controls and tons of challenges.”
Mario Tennis followed in 2000. N64 Magazine reported that it had been “widely regarded as the most playable game on show at E3”: where Nintendo’s Super Tennis had used six buttons, Camelot’s game used two and the analogue stick.
Golden Sun
For the Game Boy Advance Camelot returned to role-playing games. Golden Sun reached Europe in March 2002, and Edge found it “an RPG so old school you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a Super Famicom conversion”, and “a good game which offers nothing new, but offers what it has with exuberance and depth”. A sequel, The Lost Age, followed in 2003, and a third game, Dark Dawn, came to the Nintendo DS in 2010.
Still making Mario sports games
Camelot has stayed small and has worked almost entirely for Nintendo since. Its own list of games runs from Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour on the GameCube, which Edge counted among its games of E3 2003, through Mario Tennis Aces and the Switch’s Mario Golf: Super Rush (2021) to Mario Tennis Fever, released in February 2026. Its one game for another publisher in that time was We Love Golf! for Capcom. In 2025 the company had 40 staff, and Hiroyuki Takahashi was still its president.
Sources
- Camelot Co., Ltd., company outline (web): founded 4 April 1994; president Hiroyuki Takahashi; 40 employees as of 1 April 2025. https://www.camelot.co.jp/wp/company_outline/
- Camelot Co., Ltd., list of games (web): the Sega, Sony and Nintendo games, from Shining and the Darkness to Mario Tennis Fever. https://www.camelot.co.jp/wp/product_introduction_game/
- Retro Gamer Collection volume 4 (2010), pp. 170–175, retrospective on the Shining series: the four-person Sonic team; Climax; Shining Force and its sources; the Takahashis in charge of the series; Camelot set up after the first Shining Force; Beyond the Beyond; the Saturn games; Shining Force III in three scenarios, only the first released in the West; Taguchi’s production diary; the split with Sega; the list of Shining games and dates.
- Hiroyuki Takahashi and others, interviews in Famicom Tsūshin (1992), translated by Shmuplations as “Shining Force – Developer Interview” (web, secondary): answering Enix’s advertisement; Dragon Quest; the idea for Shining Force; animated fight scenes; King Arthur, The Lord of the Rings and Conan. https://shmuplations.com/shiningforce/
- Sega Saturn Magazine issue 32, June 1998, p. 28: Shining Force III, “Sonic Software Planning (now known as Camelot)”.
- Saturn Power issue 7, December 1997, p. 38: Sonic Software Planning’s Shining Force III.
- Sega Retro, “Sonic! Software Planning” (web, secondary): founded on 12 June 1991 with Sega’s investment, citing Mega Drive Fan, November 1991. https://segaretro.org/Sonic!_Software_Planning
- Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, August 1999, p. 68: Hot Shots Golf 2, Sony, developer Camelot, “the sequel to OPM’s 1998 Sports Game of the Year”.
- Wireframe issue 54, August 2021, p. 112: the three-press swing in Everybody’s Golf and Mario Golf.
- Wireframe issue 54, August 2021, p. 70: Mario Golf: Super Rush (2021), by Camelot.
- Retro Gamer issue 31 (2006), p. 21: Camelot “transferred its superb golf series across to make Mario Golf”.
- Nintendo Power issue 122, July 1999, pp. 60–61: Mario Golf, “developed by Camelot Software Planning”.
- Edge issue 73, July 1999, p. 14: Mario Golf at E3, developer Camelot.
- N64 Magazine issue 43, July 2000, p. 10 (Mario Tennis at E3; two buttons against Super Tennis‘s six) and p. 31 (readers’ game of the year vote, Mario Golf seventh); issue 44, August 2000, p. 19 (Mario Tennis).
- Edge issue 108, March 2002, p. 79: Golden Sun review (Nintendo, developer Camelot, European release in March).
- Edge issue 125, July 2003, p. 15: Golden Sun: The Lost Age among the month’s releases.
- Edge issue 125, July 2003, p. 56: the GameCube Mario Golf at E3, developer Camelot, “one of Edge’s games of the show”.
- Edge, Christmas 2010 edition, p. 29: Camelot’s DS role-playing game (Golden Sun: Dark Dawn).