- Name
- Nihon Falcom Corp.
- Abbreviation
- Founded
- 9 March 1981
- Location
- Tachikawa-Shi, Tokyo,Kantō,Japan
- Website
- http://www.falcom.com/
- Aliases
Nihon Falcom Corp.
Tachikawa-Shi, Tokyo,Kantō,Japan
A video game development company known for creating some of the first Japanese action RPGs and many long-running franchises such as Ys and The Legend of Heroes.
Company Images Related Pages
Overview
Nihon Falcom (日本ファルコム) is one of the oldest developers of Japanese role-playing games that is still actively making games, creating some of the first examples of the genre in Japan. Today they are most famous for creating the long-running action RPG series, Ys (Franchise), as well as their storied Legend of Heroes franchise, who's Trails (Franchise) sub-series is one of the company's most popular properties.
Origins
Computer Land Tachikawa during its opening in 1981.
Nihon Falcom was formed on March 9, 1981 by Masayuki Kato (Person), a former employee at Hino Motors. Soon after, Falcom opened a brick and mortar store located in Tachikawa, Tokyo called Computer Land Tachikawa on May 31, 1981 [17][25]. The store was an authorized seller of Apple products and software that quickly attracted various hobbyist programmers [3]. One of these hobbyists was Falcom's future star programmer, Yoshio Kiya (Person), who was a regular customer at the store. Kiya would sometimes barter software he created in his spare time to purchase computer hardware at the shop, with one of his first being a video game called Galactic Wars 1 (Game). This title would be published by Nihon Falcom in limited quantities in late 1982 and would mark the company's debut into the video game industry.
Throughout the proceeding decades, Nihon Falcom would play a pioneering role in the growth of Japan's early PC game industry, creating some of the best selling titles of the era and establishing many classic franchises that are still continuing to this day.
Development Style
Composer Hayato Sonoda helping to debug Trails of Cold Steel in 2013.
Falcom's current president, Toshihiro Kondo (Person), has described the company as a "handcrafted studio" that places a lot of importance on their ability to create every aspect of their games in-house [29][26]. One reason Falcom is able to do this, despite their small size, is because it is very common for staff to be involved in various aspects of a game’s creation rather than having rigidly defined roles [26]. Someone who is a composer might also help with network-related tasks whereas another employee that oversees sales might also assist with editing graphics [26]. The most famous example of this is Toshihiro Kondo himself, who directly writes dialogue and scenarios for the Ys franchise while still serving as the company's president [27]. Even as Falcom begins getting more help from outside studios, due to the increased workload of modern development, they still highly value fostering their in-house skill set [26].
Nihon Falcom is also a developer that strongly values maintaining a consistent release schedule in order to remain profitable. Falcom publishes at least one new title every year, a schedule that is so strictly adhered to that projects have regularly been split into multiple titles rather than get delayed. This has happened several times throughout Falcom’s history with the first two installments in the Ys and Trails franchises originally planned to be a single game [20][23]. The company’s development motto also reflects this focus on punctual releases, which is: "Don't spend too much time, but don't cut corners" [21]. This saying comes from Falcom's founder, Masayuki Kato, and has been repeated by the company's second president, Shinji Yamazaki, and Toshihiro Kondo [20][22]. Falcom is a fairly small studio that only consists of around 68 employees with 40 to 50 people directly involved in game development and even fewer than that involved with each individual project [20][29]. Since the company's resources are more limited compared to larger studios, Falcom's motto basically encourages staff to use their resources and time wisely while still making the best game possible.
History in North America
Richard Garriott meeting with Masayuki Kato.
Nihon Falcom refrained from moving fully into developing for home consoles and handhelds until the mid-2000s, with the company publishing a majority of their titles for PCs like the NEC PC-88 and later Windows-based computers. Due to their once heavy emphasis on Japanese PC development, many of Falcom's earliest western releases were ports created by other developers like Sega (Company), Hudson, Bandai Namco, and Konami (Company). In fact, the very first Falcom game to be localized into English was Sega's Master System port of Ys I in 1988. Third-party publishers like Infocom (Company), Working Designs (Company), and Atlus USA were also sometimes responsible for translating these ports. However, translations of titles directly developed by Nihon Falcom were very rare for several decades.
One of the company's earliest attempts to bring their games overseas ended in failure. Sometime in the mid-1980s, Origin Systems (Company) almost published the original Xanadu in the United States as part of a deal where Falcom would also help them translate and port Ultima IV to Japanese computers. However, after the game was presented to Richard Garriott (Person) during a meeting in Japan, the deal broke down when it was discovered that some of Xanadu's graphics copied artwork fromUltima III’s manual. The negotiations ended with Origin settling the issue out of court, with Falcom paying a settlement and changing Xanadu's graphics in future releases [11]. After this initial attempt to bring Xanadu to the West, the only games directly created by Falcom to be published in English were Broderbund's release of Legacy of the Wizard (Game) in 1989, Sorcerian (Game) released by Sierra Online (Company) in 1990, and Mastiff's translation of Gurumin for the PlayStation Portable (Platform) in 2007. Falcom also dabbled with translating games themselves in the late 1990s when they released English versions of Vantage Master Online and Lord Monarch Online as freeware titles on their website.
Falcom showing off their US releases in 1991's All That Falcom LOGiN supplement.
It wasn't until 2010 that games directly developed by Falcom began to be regularly localized by XSEED Games (Company). The publisher announced in May 2010 that they had established a partnership with Nihon Falcom to release the PSP ports of Ys: The Oath in Felghana, Ys I & II Chronicles, Ys Seven, and the Trails in the Sky trilogy [12]. For much of the 2010s, XSEED was the sole publisher for Falcom's games in the United States, with the company also eventually finding success bringing their PC titles to Steam (Concept) [13]. After over a dozen releases from XSEED, Nihon Falcom began branching out to other publishers around 2016 and 2017. Aksys Games (Company) localized Tokyo Xanadu (Game), DotEmu (Company) began releasing ports of Ys Origins, and NIS America translated Ys VIII [14][15]. NISA’s release of Ys VIII began a partnership between their parent company, Nippon Ichi, and Nihon Falcom where they would become the company’s new de facto English publisher for many years. This situation led to an impasse for almost half a decade where modern ports of titles previously translated by XSEED and Aksys did not leave Japan for one reason or another. However, in 2024, Falcom seemingly returned to working with multiple publishers once again, with XSEED publishing the new Ys Memoire remasters and Asksys Games releasing the Switch port of Tokyo Xanadu, alongside NIS America continuing to publish many of Falcom's newest releases. This year also saw GungHo America and refint/games reveal that they would be working with Falcom to release Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter (Game) and Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga respectively.
Trivia
Galactic Wars 1
- Nihon Falcom's name is actually a play off the name of Han Solo (Character)'s space ship from the Star Wars (Franchise) films, the Millennium Falcon (Object). The "com" was added to the end of "Falcon" since it was a popular ending suffix for Japanese computer companies at the time and "Nihon" (the Japanese word for "Japan") was added to make the title feel more complete [4]. There is even a space ship featured on the cover of Falcom's first game, Galactic Wars 1, that looks very similar to the Millennium Falcon and one of the ships the player controls in-game is even named the "Falcon."
- Famed anime director Makoto Shinkai (Person), known for works such as Your Name and 5 Centimeters Per Second, was employed at Nihon Falcom before he created films during the late 90s and early 2000s. While at the company he helped produce a number of opening animations for various games including Ys II Eternal (Game) and The Legend of Heroes V among other credits. Shinkai was also responsible for creating the iconic animated version of Falcom's logo that still plays at the beginning of many of their games and commercials [9]. The director has also stated that Falcom's games have even influenced his own movies, stating that the Goshintai crater in Your Name was directly inspired by Bagyu Ba'dead in Ys I [28].
- Nihon Falcom's logo features a design made up of four horizontal stripes of the colors blue, green, yellow, and pink. This design may very well be inspired by Apple's 1977 rainbow logo and, in fact, older versions of Falcom's logo feature almost the exact same same colors as Apple's iconic icon. This would make sense with the company's origins as an Apple retail store in the early 80s.
- The official English localizations of many Falcom titles are actually based on fan translations created by various groups and amateur translators. XSEED Games began this trend in the 2010s with their release of the Oath in Felghana and Ys I & II Chronicles, both of which contained edited versions of fan translations that were licensed by the publisher. The same was also done for their release of Ys Origin (Game), Xanadu Next (Game), and Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection. NIS America would later continue this tradition in the 2020s when they also licensed fan scripts for their release of Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure [24].
- Among their licensed fan translations, XSEED also obtained outside help for their release of Trails in the Sky SC which was translated by Carpe Fulgur (Company), a small localization team known for publishing Japanese indie games on Steam [16].
- At some point in the mid-1990s, Falcom published an English translation of their 1987 manga adaption of Xanadu on their official website.
External Links
- [https:/www.falcom.co.jp Nihon Falcom Official Website]
- Nihon Falcom Official Twitter Account
References
- Falcom Official Corporate History Timeline
- Chronicles of Ys: A Series Retrospective by Tom Massey (Eurogamer, 2014).
- The Prehistory of Nihon Falcom by Kevin Gifford (1up.com, 2011).
- Ys Interview Collection translated by Shmuplations.
- Preserving Nihon Falcom’s First Game by Takeshi Kanazawa (Game Preservation Society, 2017).
- The Falcom Museum - Japanese fan site.
- Interview with Yoshio Kiya (4Gamer, 2006).
- Falcom Package Exhibition by the Game Preservation Society (@tk_nz, 2017).
- Interview with Toshihiro Kondo and Masayuki Kato (Denfaminicogamer, 2018).
- List of Falcom Game Release Dates 1984-2011 (Kiseki Fandom Wiki) - Transcribed from the "Falcom Chronicle 30th Anniversary Book."
- The Official Book Of Ultima by Shay Addams, Pages: 77-78 (1990).
- XSeed Games Announces Wide-Ranging Partnership with Nihon Falcom by IGN Staff (IGN, 2010).
- XSEED Games Ys-es into Steam market by JC Fletcher (Engadget, 2012).
- Aksys Games localizing Tokyo Xanadu for North America on Vita and PC in 2017 by Adam Vitale (RPG Site, 2016).
- NIS America is localizing Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, and it's coming to Steam by Adam Vitale (RPG Site, 2017).
- PROJECT FOUR: TRAILS IN THE SKY SC By SpaceDrake (Der Dräkblög, 2013).
- Nihon Falcom 30th Anniversary Vol.1: Memorial Roundtable (Dengeki Online, 2011).
- The Trail of Nihon Falcom by Kevin Gifford (1up.com, 2011).
- Nihon Falcom's Board of Directors (Ullet).
- Looking Back on the 17 year-long "Trails" series, President Kondo Talks about what Falcom Values (Denfaminicogamer, 2021).
- Interview: President of Nihon Falcom reflects on their 40 years in the game industry (GOG, 2021).
- Yamazaki's Person in Charge Column (Nihon Falcom, 1998) - Mentions the company's motto in the September 1998 entry.
- AX2019 - Toshihiro Kondo, From Fan to President (NIS America, 2019).
- From Fantasy to Reality: Our Partnership With NIS America by Supremezerker (Geofront, 2021).
- News Story Covering the Opening of Computer Land Tachikawa (Monthly Micom July 1981).
- President Kondo and the Power of In-House Staff at Nihon Falcom by Kalai Chik (Anime News Network, 2024).
- RPG Site Interview with Nihon Falcom President Toshihiro Kondo (NIS America, 2024).
- 「25年前に言えなかった言葉が弔辞になるなんて、とても、とてもとても寂しい」新海誠監督らが弔辞を述べる...日本ファルコム創業者、加藤正幸氏を偲ぶ「お別れの会」が開催(Game Spark, 2025).
- Falcom CEO Behind ‘Trails’ Games Started Off as a Fan by Jason Schreier (Bloomberg, 2025).
Developed Games
View all developed games
Sorcerian (Game)
Sorcerian, also known as Dragon Slayer V: Sorcerian, is an action RPG released by Nihon Falcom in 1987. It was considered unique for its party-based action combat, magic combination system, and open-ended multi-scenario system that could be extended with expansion packs.
Ys V: Ushinawareta Suna no Miyako Kefin (Game)
The Red haired hero Adol sets out on a new adventure, looking for Kefin, an ancient desert city which mysteriously disappeared.
Ys I & II: Complete (Game)
A compilation containing the Complete editions of both Ys I and II, which in turn are enhanced versions of the Ys Eternal remakes.
Published Games
View all published games
Ys I & II: Complete (Game)
A compilation containing the Complete editions of both Ys I and II, which in turn are enhanced versions of the Ys Eternal remakes.
Ys II Eternal (Game)
A remake of Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter developed by Falcom for Windows PCs.
Ys I Complete (Game)
An enhanced version of Ys Eternal, featuring improved graphics, gameplay tweaks and a new opening video, developed by Falcom for the PC.
Ys II Complete (Game)
An enhanced re-release of Ys II Eternal, featuring improved graphics and gameplay, developed by Falcom for the PC.
Advanced Lord Monarch (Game)
The "advanced" version of Falcom's Lord Monarch which includes new maps and other improvements.
Revival Xanadu 2 Remix (Game)
A expansion pack for Revival Xanadu that includes a remake of Xanadu Scenario II and an "Easy Version" of Revival Xanadu.