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Falcom has been the first step towards greatness for many of the videogame industry's best creators

Morrigan

Morrigan

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Oct 24, 2017
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That's a really interesting thread. I knew about Yuzo Koshiro, but not really about the others.
Dio Over Heaven said:
Falcom tends to attribute all their work after a certain point in time to "Falcom Sound Team jdk," which is a legendary sound team created just to score Falcom's games.

The fact is, no one artist gets 'credited' for certain works this way. This means that those of us in the Japanese AND Western fandom actually have to ask the composers on Twitter or guess which ones worked on which track, because Falcom doesn't 'credit' individual artists for composing individual songs and hasn't for a very long time.
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I did notice that. I often wonder who composed that music because it seems difficult to ascertain. That's too bad that Falcom does this. I mean, if that's their tradition, so be it, but I feel like they should really credit their artists and musicians more.

Dio Over Heaven said:
Wataru Ishibashi was an incredible musician who stuck on board with Falcom, but sadly he died at 39 in 2014 (he was the composer for Silver Will, one of the most iconic songs in Falcom history, from Trails in the Sky.)
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No way. :( That sucks. Silver Will is indeed the emblematic Kiseki track for me. RIP, 39 is so young too.

Gu4n said:
Great thread.

Another one that comes to mind is Minako Iwasaki, who did a lot of character design for Falcom during the 90s. Her most recent efforts for Falcom were the lovely portraits for the Gagharv PSP trilogy before she went on to do Rune Factory.

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...Why is there a random dude upside down in the middle? :D
 
sibarraz

sibarraz

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Falcom History is quite interesting, would be cool to see the cultural influence that the Company had in the 80's and how survived after all this years
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

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this is a great thread, and yuzo korshiro is a great man

i need to check back & see if the saturn falcom collection discs ever got a fan translation of any kind
 

Deleted member 11413

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While this is incredibly interesting, it's not surprising considering the company has been around so long, it's basically as old as the Japanese games industry. When you've been around 40 years you are gonna be the birthplace of a lot of talent.
Sammy Samusu said:
Err this thread is basically telling us that they can't retain talent.
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Uh, that's pretty unfair all things considered, none of this is really evidence of talent drain at all, more like visionaries getting their start and moving on to bigger and better things, which happens at any company.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

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Oct 25, 2017
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Oman
Sorry for asking this here, but this thread got me to go look up Falcom's older titles and...
OK so Falcom released various of their titles on the SNES, SEGA MD, SEGA CD, PCE line and then onto Saturn and PS1; how were these conversions or ports compared to their PC counterparts? Were there any stand out titles among them?
 
Bulbul

Bulbul

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Nov 20, 2017
833
Morrigan said:
A 36 years old company has had many people coming and going over the years? C'mon, that's totally normal.
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I can see where that post is coming from, all these talented people became famous and made their mark in their respective careers AFTER they left the company.

So in a way it's a good thing that they left? They obviously couldn't achieve what they visioned in Flacom.

Thought I never imagined Shinkai worked for them in the past! Interesting!
 
Chaosblade

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Bulbul said:
I can see where that post is coming from, all these talented people became famous and made their mark in their respective careers AFTER they left the company.

So in a way it's a good thing that they left? They obviously couldn't achieve what they visioned in Flacom.

Thought I never imagined Shinkai worked for them in the past! Interesting!
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Falcom isn't exactly a premier developer and working there isn't really going to get you recognized. I believe they have also always brought in a lot of young and fresh talent, and it's not really surprising that someone might feel like they hit a creative ceiling working for such a small, conservative developer and "graduate" to bigger things (and probably get paid better).

Maybe that will change if Falcom continues to see more success with the Kiseki series (and to an extent others, Tokyo Xanadu blew away their expectations) we will see them grow a bit, but they still seem hesitant to go that route.
 
Merun

Merun

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Oct 25, 2017
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Marche90 said:
Yep. Kinda blows my mind how they have stayed kinda low-key compared to the amount of talent that has gone through their gates.



Related, but I'm still wondering how he landed his gig with minori to produce the opening for Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two (a visual novel). I think he produced some more works for them but I'm not sure
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It's simple, he needed a job and only them would accept him at the time.

All Shinkai work at minori can be found on their channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/minoriworks

This includes Wind a breath of Heart, Haru no Ashioto, Bittersweet fool ( never finished I think), and the most well known, both ef. During his time at minori, he said that those opening were possible thanks to the incredible team.

After ef, he left, but his influence is still in eden* and supipara which have beautiful opening as well despite no involvement by Shinkai (Tenmon is still there though ). Sadly supipara tanked hard and since then minori hasn't made any new animated opening.
 

preta

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Oct 25, 2017
1,491
Tizoc said:
Sorry for asking this here, but this thread got me to go look up Falcom's older titles and...
OK so Falcom released various of their titles on the SNES, SEGA MD, SEGA CD, PCE line and then onto Saturn and PS1; how were these conversions or ports compared to their PC counterparts? Were there any stand out titles among them?
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SNES:
Legend of Heroes I and II: The worst versions
Lord Monarch: No idea
Popful Mail: Good, but significantly different from the other versions (has an attack button like SCD, but the changes go well beyond that)
Brandish: Bad
Brandish 2: Pretty good, but still inferior to the PC-98 version

MD/SCD:
Legend of Heroes I and II: Excellent ports with the best graphics of any version, and very good arrangements of the music
Popful Mail: Good, but with some notable differences such as a dedicated attack button
Lord Monarch: Good, but with a number of differences from the PC versions
Sorcerian: Good, but with almost entirely different scenarios than the other versions, so pretty much a different game
Ys III: Probably the overall best console version of Ys III (X68000 is better still though)

PCE:
Ys I and II: Good, but Chronicles is still the best overall
Ys III: Good
Legend of Heroes I and II: Good
Brandish: Bad
Popful Mail: The most similar to the PC-88/98 original version (side-scrolling bump system combat), but slower-paced and with smaller sprites

Saturn:
Ys I and II: Bad to mediocre
Dragon Slayer: The best version of the game by far, featuring infinitely better graphics than its original 1984 incarnation and a brand new, proper soundtrack
Revival Xanadu: No idea
Asteka II: No idea
Legend of Heroes III: Pretty weird - extremely different art style from any other version, and the battle system changed to a more traditional turn-based one

PS1: No idea about anything released here

I think that's everything. I didn't cover the games natively developed for those systems.
 
Steel

Steel

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Oct 25, 2017
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Dio Over Heaven said:
Well, I didn't say all of their talent left. Wataru Ishibashi was an incredible musician who stuck on board with Falcom, but sadly he died at 39 in 2014 (he was the composer for Silver Will, one of the most iconic songs in Falcom history, from Trails in the Sky.)
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Ah, man, that sucks. Didn't know about this. Loved Silver Will.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

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preta said:
SNES:
Legend of Heroes I and II: The worst versions
Lord Monarch: No idea
Popful Mail: Good, but significantly different from the other versions (has an attack button like SCD, but the changes go well beyond that)
Brandish: Bad
Brandish 2: Pretty good, but still inferior to the PC-98 version

MD/SCD:
Legend of Heroes I and II: Excellent ports with the best graphics of any version, and very good arrangements of the music
Popful Mail: Good, but with some notable differences such as a dedicated attack button
Lord Monarch: Good, but with a number of differences from the PC versions
Sorcerian: Good, but with almost entirely different scenarios than the other versions, so pretty much a different game
Ys III: Probably the overall best console version of Ys III (X68000 is better still though)

PCE:
Ys I and II: Good, but Chronicles is still the best overall
Ys III: Good
Legend of Heroes I and II: Good
Brandish: Bad
Popful Mail: The most similar to the PC-88/98 original version (side-scrolling bump system combat), but slower-paced and with smaller sprites

Saturn:
Ys I and II: Bad to mediocre
Dragon Slayer: The best version of the game by far, featuring infinitely better graphics than its original 1984 incarnation and a brand new, proper soundtrack
Revival Xanadu: No idea
Asteka II: No idea
Legend of Heroes III: Pretty weird - extremely different art style from any other version, and the battle system changed to a more traditional turn-based one

PS1: No idea about anything released here

I think that's everything. I didn't cover the games natively developed for those systems.
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WljaRxX.gif


Thank you for the info.
 
Mauricio_Magus

Mauricio_Magus

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Oct 25, 2017
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Great thread, long live Falcom.

The opening of Ys 2 is one of my favorite moments in gaming history, so I'm happy to see that in the OP.

and Koshiro of course, making some of my favorite soundtracks ever with Ys 1+2 and anything Etrian Odyssey.
 

Deleted member 28376

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Falcom is an amazing company that has certainly left its mark on the industry and the RPG genre. It's a shame that it never seems to receive the widespread recognition it deserves.
 
Gu4n

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Morrigan said:
...Why is there a random dude upside down in the middle? :D
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"Blame everything on Michel" is the best (and only?) Gagharv meme.
That fine gentleman is Michel de Lap Haven, the greatest mage of the three continents and the only character that appears in all three Gagharv titles. He is also pretty much the only one who knows what's going on. And decides to not help.
I should get back to Cagesong of the Ocean.
 
Knurek

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I wish we had English translation patches for PSP versions of Gagharv trilogy. :\
 
Vadara

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KonradLaw said:
A development studio surviving this long is extremely impressive. Most of other companies of this type that survived became huge publishers. Small development studio surviving just on making game after a game for almost four decades is huge acomplisment.
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The fact that Falcom survived being pc-only for so long in goddamn Japan of all places, the most anti-PC market in the first world, is honestly pretty staggering.
 
hibikase

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Vadara said:
The fact that Falcom survived being pc-only for so long in goddamn Japan of all places, the most anti-PC market in the first world, is honestly pretty staggering.
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Japan had a very rich pre-IBM-PC-standard history, with hardware that was often better at graphics than the western market. Naturally there was a game industry that developed out of it. Many of the long time Japanese game companies started on MSX or PC-88 or whatever.
 
Dreamboum

Dreamboum

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Oct 28, 2017
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Hat22 said:
Ambitious people always want to have their own projects.

They're still putting out good games so I think they're doing fine when it comes to getting the talent they need.
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Not just that, shuffling was very easy back then, and a lot of game companies were launching pad for successful careers in tangential areas of entertainment.

His post doesn't make a lot of sense anyway.
 
Pasokon Deacon

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Oct 25, 2017
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hibikase said:
Japan had a very rich pre-IBM-PC-standard history, with hardware that was often better at graphics than the western market. Naturally there was a game industry that developed out of it. Many of the long time Japanese game companies started on MSX or PC-88 or whatever.
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IBM PCs had their place in the Japanese PC market, but more as curiosities once the corporation managed to introduce a successful but limited Japanese-compatible DOS platform called DOS/V. NEC basically took the place of IBM, especially around 1989 when game developers overwhelmingly adopted the PC-98 after years of dividing effort over NEC, Fujitsu, and Sharp PC platforms. The FM-7 and X1 had something of a following despite the PC-88's lead, and MSX stayed relevant through the early-1990s as well. But the FM Towns and X68k really couldn't keep up, and Falcom was right to focus on PC-98 after some dabbling with ports to FM Towns and X68k.
 
sibarraz

sibarraz

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I'm more curious on how falcom survived between the death of the PC 98 and the birth of the PSP
 

Lucumo

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Oct 25, 2017
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Dio Over Heaven said:
Also, XSEED has single-handedly revived the popularity of Falcom games in the West by localizing them and then distributing them on Steam.
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Huh? Revived? When was Falcom ever popular in the West before?

Pasokon Deacon said:
Sadly that ended around 2008...all the older 8-bit/16-bit J-PC owners and Falcom fans had grown older and more burdened with work, if I may speculate. So the company's chased younger markets on new consoles ever since.
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Yep, one of the reasons why I abandoned Falcom. It hurts every time when I see what happened to the Ys series.
 
DanSensei

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Nov 15, 2017
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preta said:
SNES:
Legend of Heroes I and II: The worst versions
Lord Monarch: No idea
Popful Mail: Good, but significantly different from the other versions (has an attack button like SCD, but the changes go well beyond that)
Brandish: Bad
Brandish 2: Pretty good, but still inferior to the PC-98 version

MD/SCD:
Legend of Heroes I and II: Excellent ports with the best graphics of any version, and very good arrangements of the music
Popful Mail: Good, but with some notable differences such as a dedicated attack button
Lord Monarch: Good, but with a number of differences from the PC versions
Sorcerian: Good, but with almost entirely different scenarios than the other versions, so pretty much a different game
Ys III: Probably the overall best console version of Ys III (X68000 is better still though)

PCE:
Ys I and II: Good, but Chronicles is still the best overall
Ys III: Good
Legend of Heroes I and II: Good
Brandish: Bad
Popful Mail: The most similar to the PC-88/98 original version (side-scrolling bump system combat), but slower-paced and with smaller sprites

Saturn:
Ys I and II: Bad to mediocre
Dragon Slayer: The best version of the game by far, featuring infinitely better graphics than its original 1984 incarnation and a brand new, proper soundtrack
Revival Xanadu: No idea
Asteka II: No idea
Legend of Heroes III: Pretty weird - extremely different art style from any other version, and the battle system changed to a more traditional turn-based one

PS1: No idea about anything released here

I think that's everything. I didn't cover the games natively developed for those systems.
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Gotta disagree in a few places. I think the pce ys12 is better than chronicles, at the very least cause the new intro section of tea in chronicles is an annoying slog and this is coming from someone who lines the childhood arc in tales of graces

Saturn loh3 is the best in my opinion, bit that ones subjective. Basically if you like the Saturn or ps1 lunar game, get loh3 for Saturn and be disappointed they didn't do loh4 or 5 like this on Dreamcast

I liked ys2 on Saturn back in the day, but today is probably take the pce version over it

I haven't played Any other versions, bit I really enjoyed popful mail on Sega CD. Working designs also have it a really funny localization.

And Genesis ys3 is the best one before the remake
 
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tiesto

tiesto

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Oct 27, 2017
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Didn't know that Makoto Shinkai once worked for Falcom, blows my mind. Though it's always so interesting how much the Japanese PC gaming scene is barely known in the west, and how many seminal developers, musicians, and companies all got their starts here. From Hitoshi Sakimoto scoring a hentai Breakout clone to The Scheme containing many people who would go on to form Quest...
 
Psxphile

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Lucumo said:
Huh? Revived? When was Falcom ever popular in the West before?
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Maybe he meant popular with first and third party publishers, because for a brief time we got a number of ported Falcom titles during the 8 and 16-bit generation over in the west, which wouldn't be the case again until the PSP hit it big:

  • Faxanadu (NES) Nintendo
  • Tombs & Treasure (NES) Infocom
  • Ys: The Vanished Omens (SMS) Sega
  • Ancient Land of Ys (DOS) Kyodai Software Publishing
  • Legacy of the Wizard (NES) Brøderbund Software
  • Sorcerian (DOS PC) Sierra Entertainment
  • Ys Book I & II (Turbo CD) NEC Home Entertainment
  • Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Genesis) Renovation Productions
  • Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (SNES) American Sammy
  • Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Turbo CD) Turbo Technologies
  • Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (Turbo CD) Turbo Technologies
  • Brandish (SNES) Koei
  • Popful Mail: Magical Fantasy Adventure (Sega CD) Working Designs

EDIT: actually I think Faxanadu was an original project inspired by the Xanadu series
 

Syril

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Oct 26, 2017
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Dio Over Heaven said:
Makoto Shinkai, the incredible director responsible for the anime movies Your Name and 5 Centimeters Per Second, got a job at Falcom straight out of college. He worked there for 5 years making animations and working on graphics there, even doing website stuff for them. While there, he met Tenmon aka Atsushi Shirakawa, who also composed a lot of incredible music on Falcom's sound team, including Brandish. Tenmon would go on to do all the soundtracks for Shinkai's movies.

Shinkai animated the opening for Ys II way, way back in the day before his time of working on stuff like Your Name.
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He actually used his work equipment there to make Voices of a Distant Star.
 

Zelas

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,020
Igniz12 said:
Xanadu Next:
Idk if someone from FROM took inspiration from it but this game has so many similarities to the Souls game in terms of mechanics.
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Currently playing this for the first time now and I absolutely agree. From level design to even the way you circle enemies in combat. Falcom really doesn't get the respect they deserve.
 
NexasX

NexasX

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Oct 29, 2017
263
This is pretty cool info. I'd be interested to see a similar post for a "where are they now" of the unsung devs from famous franchises.
 
X68k

X68k

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Oct 25, 2017
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preta said:
PCE:
Ys I and II: Good, but Chronicles is still the best overall
Ys III: Good
Legend of Heroes I and II: Good
Brandish: Bad
Popful Mail: The most similar to the PC-88/98 original version (side-scrolling bump system combat), but slower-paced and with smaller sprites
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what's wrong with pce brandish, if i may ask? i found a sealed copy a while back but i haven't had time to try it yet.
thoughts on victor's sorcerian port?
 

preta

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,491
X68k said:
what's wrong with pce brandish, if i may ask? i found a sealed copy a while back but i haven't had time to try it yet.
thoughts on victor's sorcerian port?
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PCE Brandish has a fatal flaw that breaks the combat - you have to wait for enemies to completely move onto the tile directly in front of you to be able to hit them, unlike in the other versions where you can hit them as they're moving between tiles. This is essential to be able to attack with minimal risk of getting hit back. The soundtrack is also of... questionable quality. I've heard MD Sorcerian is good, but I haven't played it - and like I said, the scenarios (the missions comprising the game, and the levels contained within) are all different, so it might as well be a different game in the same series rather than a port.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

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Oct 25, 2017
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Oman

TID
Yuzo Koshiro did the music for a PC-88 Visual Novel for Enix under the title Misty Blue

Speaking of which: Anyone here ever played through the Asteka games? How are they and were there any noteworthy people who worked on it that then went on to make noteworth titles?
 
OP
OP
Sun's Resting Place

Sun's Resting Place

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Oct 25, 2017
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Tizoc said:
Speaking of which: Anyone here ever played through the Asteka games? How are they and were there any noteworthy people who worked on it that then went on to make noteworth titles?
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Takahito Abe composed Asteka II - Templo del Sol, which is the only one I think people give a fuck about because it was the one that was brought over as Tombs & Treasure on NES. The NES version was actually designed by Compile of Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari fame. I've never played it myself, so sorry I can't chip in.

https://vgmdb.net/artist/1686

You can read more about it here.

http://hg101.kontek.net/asteka/asteka.htm

Since I can't read Japanese, the credits of Tombs & Treasure would be the place to look at for the Compile side of things, I think.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/tombs-treasure/credits

Double Dragon, a group of 4 people
Die Hard, a group of 3 people

Lucumo said:
Huh? Revived? When was Falcom ever popular in the West before?
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It had the mindshare for there to be an entire episode dedicated to Faxanadu in Captain N.
 
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