The story
Culture Brain was founded in 1980 as Nihon Game Corporation. In 1981, a subsidiary to handle the sales operations of the company was established. Its first video games were arcades games, with titles such as Shanghai Kid and Chinese Hero that were manufactured under "Taiyo System" trademark.
1984 saw the release of Chinese Hero, a beat-em-up and the first entry in the Super Chinese series for the Famicom, retitled as Kung-Fu Heroes.
In 1987, it transitioned from arcade to console video games and renamed itself "Culture Brain". The company has also alternatively used the brand "Micro Academy" in the mid-1980s.
In North America, Culture Brain is mostly known for its six video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System and its three for the Super NES. Three of those NES games, Baseball Simulator 1.000, The Magic of Scheherazade and Flying Dragon 2, were strongly redesigned from their Japanese source to better appeal to North American consumers. Several spinoffs were also released on the Game Boy, Ninja Boy and Ninja Boy 2.
Culture Brain was distinct for its innovative gameplay by incorporating multiple genres in its games. Somewhat ahead of their time, the genre-bending in titles such as Scheherazade foreshadowed development of the Metroidvania genre, for example, even when games' designs were flawed. Titles such as Little Ninja Brothers built on this and were experimental, and used humor. These games combined genres, including Super Ninja Boy, the SNES entry of the Super Chinese series, which feature RPG elements alongside beat-em-up mechanics.
Like other Japanese video game companies, Culture Brain ceased its operations in the United States in the 1990s. Ever since the demise of Culture Brain USA, video games developed by the parent company have rarely made it in America. One exception is the Nintendo 64 title Flying Dragon, which was published by Natsume Inc. in the United States.
Culture Brain Excel era
In 2016, the company was renamed Culture Brain Excel and the website's URL was changed to the new name. The longtime Culture Brain logo was instantly dropped with the intent of launching a new logo in the following year.
In September 2021, Culture Brain Excel was renamed as Nihon Game once again, returning to its original name from 1980.
From Wikipedia’s article on Culture Brain, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3