The Early History of Falcom

Comments · 796

• BO

  @bowloflentils · 3 years ago (edited) · pinned

  Corrections (Last edited in 2024): <br><br>1.) I mispronounced Ys in this video, it should have been pronounced as &quot;Ees&quot;. I also made similar mistakes with a few other names such as Masayuki Kato.<br><br>2.) In this video I speculated that the Ys development team perhaps left Falcom because the company changed Ys III into a number installment when it was only meant to be a spin-off. However, I later found a blog by Hiromasa Iwasaki (Ys I&amp;II&apos;s PCE-CD director) that went into the history behind Ys III. According to the blog, the staff initially wanted to make an original title and used Adol as a placeholder graphic for the player character. This led to the game becoming a spin-off called Adol&apos;s Great Adventure which was later renamed to Wanderers from Ys. Before development had even begun, Masaya Hashimoto/Tomoyoshi Miyazaki were planning to leave Falcom and Wanderers was going to be their last game at the company. However, tension built between Hashimoto and Falcom&apos;s president and eventually almost the whole team left at the beginning of 1989 once development of the core game was finished. Falcom&apos;s remaining staff then put the final touches on the game and changed the title to &quot;Ys III&quot; at the last minute (only after the original development team had left). You can read more about Ys III&apos;s development on Iwasaki&apos;s blog here: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/mr2a5yfy">https://tinyurl.com/mr2a5yfy</a><br><br>3.) Masayuki Kato did not make Toshihiro Kondo the third president of the company like I stated in my video. Apparently, according to a recent interview with Kondo, it was actually one of Falcom&apos;s board of directors that offered the position to him after Shinji Yamazaki stepped down due to illness. Here is the source: <a href="https://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/interview/231106c">https://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/interview/231106c</a><br><br>4.) The magazine ad shown at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIcbJn-RylQ&amp;t=1721">28:41</a> is not announcing that Falcom is making Xanadu 3 and Ys IV. The ad is actually saying that Falcom&apos;s next game is NOT going to be one of those sequels and will instead be a new franchise, Brandish. <br><br>5.) This magazine chart at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIcbJn-RylQ&amp;t=1185">19:45</a> is not ranking PC titles in terms of sales data. These are actually results of a popularity poll based on reader submitted surveys.<br><br>6.) At <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIcbJn-RylQ&amp;t=3274">54:34</a>, I mentioned that Trails from Zero was Falcom&apos;s last PC port. While the title was published by Falcom, the Japanese release was actually based on the Chinese PC port developed by Unistar and Joyoland in 2011. So, technically, the final PC title to be developed directly by Falcom was Zwei 2 in 2008.

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• ST

  @stupendously_silly · 3 years ago

  Fun Fact : Shinji, the protagonist of Evangelion had a walkman where he rewind the same cassette over and over again.<br><br>The cassette is the soundtrack of Ys titled Lilia ~from Ys~. What made it even more interesting is the vocal for one of the song is done by the VA for Misato.

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• ZZ

  @zzasdfwas · 5 years ago

  When all the staff left, the fans got hired and became the company. Who else could have the passion and knowledge to continue such a legacy?

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• CA

  @casekocsk · 5 years ago

  Wow... All those people who left Falcom, ALL OF THEM turned out to be GREAT names in video game industry... So that means at one time, Falcom is full choke of talents...

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• HE

  @hemangchauhan2864 · 1 year ago (edited)

  RIP Masayuki Kato.<br>His work in maintaining the company that pioneered RPGs changed the industry.

  46

• TA

  @tats_sacs · 5 years ago

  I’m Japanese. I love falcom music. But how they treated their composers mainly Yuzo koshiro was appalling. <br>Imagine creating the music for Ys and they release all these CDs with multiple arrange versions and they would put the name of the arranger but not ONE mention of the name of the composer. &nbsp;They sold a lot of these CDs and the composers never got any royalties.

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• SM

  @smttms8946 · 5 years ago

  If it werent for xseed, we wouldn&apos;t have trails &nbsp;series outside Japan. At that time nobody wanted to work on that game because of the large script. Xseed was the only one who had the balls to take on that project without knowing if it was going to sell outside Japan.

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• OI

  @Oi_Guilherme · 2 months ago

  Yeah i know i&apos;m five years late, but just wanted to stop and say I&apos;m really in love with Falcom games and now i&apos;m in love with editing of this, great work, man!

  1

• TW

  @twitchykun · 11 months ago

  It&apos;s 2025 and I&apos;m playing Trails in the Sky 1st chapter on my PS5. &nbsp;I&apos;ve bought Ys: VIII 3 times. &nbsp;I&apos;ve got the entire Cold Steel series, the crossbell duology, and I&apos;m praying that SC and 3rd get a full remake like 1st. &nbsp;Picked up Tokyo Xanadu on a whim and man, I&apos;m glad I did. &nbsp;<br><br>Falcom, what a ride.

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• えす

  @えすい-v4q · 5 years ago

  あえて日本語で<br>ここまで日本ファルコムについて海外から調べることは容易なことではないと思いますし、尊敬します。<br>自分も好きなメーカーではあるのですが軌跡シリーズに代表されるように<br>良くも悪くもJRPGの固定観念から抜け出せずにいる伝統芸能のようなゲーム会社です。<br>歴史を振り返って、あえて変わらないでほしいと願ってやみません。

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• RO

  @Rojaniel · 1 year ago

  Insane. Falcom was the start for so so many famous developers. Xenogears? XenoBLADE? Quintet?! LUNAR?! And they&apos;re still around today. Not absorbed by another company, even. One of the few remaining Japanese game companies still doing things on their own terms.

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• MA

  @MasterAlucardGV · 1 year ago

  i share this video in internet like people share their cat pics

  12