“Falcom is made up of ordinary people, so we will do whatever we can. While working our very best on the minor details—like running around towns with a stopwatch to figure out how much time it takes—I want to make playing our games as pleasant as possible. We’re really valuing those two things.”

“For example, they might say that the Trails series’ draw is that we tried to create a proper story, or that Ys VIII‘s draw is that we tried to create a strong heroine, which resulted in the birth of that sort of character. I want to put forth something that when players hear the game title, they remember something that stuck with them.

“However, I would like to say this for the honor of Falcom’s employees. They aren’t slacking off. Trails of Cold Steel concluded with the fourth title, but they created four games over the course of five years. There is almost no other company in the Japanese games industry that can continue to release 50 to 80-hour RPGs at that pace. For example, if we made CG movies over the course of two years, we would be able to achieve higher quality. But even so, at around 20 hours, the Trails series’ event scenes are far from two hours long. The staff naturally wants to increase the quality, but considering the release period of the Trails series and trying to deliver the games as quickly as possible, we have to make a compromise somewhere along the line. If we’re working while also raising the quality, we probably wouldn’t finish in our lifetimes.

“However, I would like to have nice graphics. I myself have been told ‘the graphics are shabby’ when recommending games I like to people, which was painful to hear. Currently, we have young new talent joining Falcom, who are making all sorts of proposals with the thought of further improvements. I think that those results will gradually show face, so please look forward to that.”