Not every birthday is always a cause for celebration for companies. Nintendo was remarkably quiet during Legend of Zelda’s 35th recently, but Nihon Falcom is doing things differently. A special 40th anniversary broadcast planned at 11am GMT, and will be presented by President Toshihiro Kondo, looking at the company’s long history in RPGs. And what a story this is.
Nihon Falcom opened its doors on March 9, 1982 and was one of the pioneers of RPGs, focusing mainly on Japanese personal computers. Nihon Falcom usually does not receive the same love as other major publishers – Square Enix and Atlus are more famous in the west, for example – but throughout its history, it has successfully developed a dedicated cult of followers.
After initial efforts such as Panorama Island, Nihon Falcom’s first big success came in 1984 with Dragonkiller, a franchise that would eventually become The legend of heroes and Tokyo Xanadu. The latter has not been seen since 2015, but Legend of Heroes is known for its impressive worldwide construction. Eventually it led to the “Trails” sub-series, best known on Nintendo platforms for Cold Steel Trails.
We cannot dismiss Nihon Falcom’s efforts to define the action RPG genre, which is often credited to Yea. Telling the adventures of red-haired adventurer Adol Christin, this series began in 1987 with Ys I: Old Ys gone, arriving at the Famicom a year later. Nowadays, Ys appeared on the Switch with Origin Ys, Tearful of DANA, It is the next Monstrum Nox.
These launches highlight a recent change at Nihon Falcom. Having only appeared sporadically on Nintendo systems, the past decade has seen a much more active boost, even though the release dates are not particularly stable when compared to the PlayStation and PC versions.
So, what can we expect from this transmission? Well, we wouldn’t have any Western news, since NIS America generally handles the publishing tasks here. For the most part, it appears to be a fan-driven case, although new information should also be shown about Kuro no Kiseki, the last entry of Legend of Heroes.
We hope to hear from a Switch edition, but while we wait for more details, we would like to wish Nihon Falcom a happy 40th birthday. With Monstrum Nox not due by the end of this year, we can at least expect Cold Steel Trails IV coming next month on Switch.