Sacnoth

Aruze Global Trading Corporation

The original Sacnoth logo
Native name	アルゼグローバルトレーディング株式会社
Romanized name	Aruze Gurōbaru Torēdingu Kabushiki gaisha
Formerly	Sacnoth (1997–2002) Nautilus (2002–2007)
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	30 April 1997; 27 years ago (1997-04-30)
Founder	Hiroki Kikuta
Defunct	1 February 2009; 15 years ago (2009-02-01)
Fate	Merged into Aruze Marketing Japan
Headquarters	Tokyo , Japan
Key people	Hiroki Kikuta (CEO, 1997–1999) Matsuzo Machida (game director)
Products	Shadow Hearts
Parent	Aruze (2002–2009)

Sacnoth Inc.,^[a] renamed Nautilus Inc.^[b] in 2002, was a Japanese video game developer based in Tokyo. The company was founded in April 1997 by Hiroki Kikuta with funding from SNK; its staff, including Kikuta, were veterans of Square. While their first releases were the Dive Alert games for the Neo Geo Pocket Color (NGPC), the company was founded to produce Koudelka, a role-playing video game for the PlayStation. The development of Koudelka was troubled due to creative differences between Kikuta and the rest of the staff, with Kikuta resigning as CEO following the game's release and being replaced by Jun Mihara. The company also released the NGPC game Faselei!.

Following Koudelka, the company went on to develop the first game in the Shadow Hearts series. In 2002, Aruze acquired Sacnoth and renamed it to Nautilus. Under that name, the company developed two more Shadow Hearts games. As part of a larger reorganization within Aruze, Nautilus was renamed Aruze Global Trading Corporation^[c] and exited the video game business in September 2007 before being absorbed into another Aruze subsidiary in February 2009. The work of Sacnoth for the NGPC has been mentioned positively in articles on the console, while the Shadow Hearts series retains a cult status and is remembered for its setting and gameplay. Multiple former employees joined Feelplus.
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