For everyone that’s a fan of JRPGs, just like we are, chances are you know of the developer, Nihon Falcom mostly referred to as “Falcom” for short. It’s been over 35 years since the developer has given players JRPGs that have an excellent cast of unique characters, well-crafted gameplay, and of course, truly memorable stories. Predominately, Falcom has been known as an outstanding video game developer due to two of their long-running series, the action JRPG series Ys, and the turn-based JRPG series The Legend of Heroes.

Publisher NIS America will be releasing The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III (the thirteenth separate entry in The Legend of Heroes series) in the west for PlayStation 4 on September 24 in North America and September 27 in Europe. Western fans of The Legend of Heroes series, more specifically, the Cold Steel series, have been patiently waiting to get their hands on the title as it originally released in Japan on September 28, 2017. In order to get to know more about the developer’s past, present, and future, Noisy Pixel sat down with Nihon Falcom’s president Toshihiro Kondo and NIS America’s senior associate producer Alan Costa for an in-depth interview.

Brad Crespo: Nihon Falcom has been around since 1981, well over 35 years ago. How has the company stayed true to its roots yet also make sure to evolve after so many years? I bet the company today is pretty different from years ago.

Toshihiro Kondo: So, I don’t necessarily believe that it’s been a conscious decision to sort of decide where Falcom needs to go exactly. Basically, it’s the people that have entered the company, who take a look back at the previous works the company has done and have a deep respect for those titles, who end up not wanting to tarnish what the company has accomplished so far. Falcom has made excellent titles in the past, and everyone that’s part of the company loves those games and wants to put their own spin with each title. This drive to be innovative yet respect what’s come before has continued to been passed down since the very beginning of the company.

BC: On the topic of evolving, you’ve been in the gaming industry for quite some time, and have seen how JRPGs have changed. With the current state of JRPGs, is there anything that you think should change, or something great from the past that should come back?

TK: There are probably various things that JRPG fans love or appreciate about JRPGs, for example, a turn-based combat system, or a story-focused or character-focused narrative. For our own games, like with the Trails of Cold Steel series, due to the way we want to tell our stories for that series, in particular, the JRPG format is the perfect way to achieve the excellent level of storytelling we want, and it’s actually the only way to do it.

To go more deeply into what makes JRPGs so great is that you often hear about open-world games, they’ve kind of been a hot for a while now, but this idea of open-world games isn’t something that jives well with JRPGs. This is because when it comes to writing stories, whether it be a novel or anything else, there’s a certain process that the viewer, player, reader, etc., needs to go through in order to get to where the story wants them to go, and if it’s an open-world format, you don’t know when you’ll be reaching a certain point in the story, which doesn’t allow for deliberate storytelling to take place that our games are going for. When you want to tell a really deep, evolving story, JRPGs are the most suitable format for doing so.

BC: Just kind of going back to Falcom’s history until now, has having story-focused games been one of the main focuses for the company specifically or has there been a change in game development philosophy, so to speak, over the years, where the company is focusing more on gameplay?

TK: Yes, over the past 20 years, having story-focused games has been something that the company has pursued, particularly with The Legend of Heroes series. The third installment of The Legend of Heroes series, The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch, was actually the first time that we really focused as a company on a very story-focused game.

The background as to why was, at the time, a lot of innovative and impressive games were coming out, so when the company noticed this, we questioned “What can we do about this?” and “Can we really compete with this?” and the answer we came up with is “Maybe, but most likely, no.” However, what we did know for a fact was that we could come up with a good story, and so with The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch, we decided to bring in a dedicated scenario writer, who could create a really good tale and one that would last a long time. That’s one of the great things about stories is that they can live on forever, for example, Gone with the Wind, which came out so long ago, but still, many remember the story that it told. We really love telling stories and will continue to do so.

When compared to the storytelling in The Legend of Heroes series, the Ys series is quite different as it more so focuses on the tales of one character, Adol, and obviously, the series is more action-focused. For the Ys series, the story actually comes last during a game’s development, whereas, for The Legend of Heroes series, the story comes first.

BC: Localization is undoubtedly a hot topic when it comes to bringing games over to the west. In regards to the upcoming western release on Trails of Cold Steel III, did you decide to give translators a break and limit the amount of in-game text or did you go all out and trust that they can tackle this huge project?

TK: When it comes to each installment of The Legend of Heroes series, we always try to limit the amount of text in it, but then, well, the games just end up being gigantic. This is especially the case with the Cold Steel series, since it takes place in Erebonia, which needs to be massive, given that there needs to be so many characters in it that all play important roles, it’s basically impossible to limit the scope we have for the Cold Steel series.

Ever since the Trails in the Sky series, the writers have been able to become more proficient with their craft with every title they work on. There are so many stories we want to tell, and that’s why every The Legend of Heroes title ends up becoming really huge.

BC: I can imagine that having Trails of Cold Steel III on PS4 has actually allowed for Falcom to make the game’s world bigger than ever before in the series. Is that right?

TK: So, we didn’t originally intend the places that players can visit to be very vast, and for there to be so many. However, because we discovered that we could include more worldbuilding content, and also because there was so much that we wanted to give players, we ended up making the world of Trails of Cold Steel III to be larger than expected.

What’s interesting to point out is that when we were developing Trails of Cold Steel III, the PS4 was new hardware for us, and we thought we could do so much with it, but then as we were making the game, we ended up reaching the console’s limit. For Trails of Cold Steel IV [currently only available in Japan], specifically, we originally wanted to put all the places players visited in all of the past Trails of Cold Steel titles into the game, however, we couldn’t as we, once again, ran into the roadblock of there not being enough space to do so.

BC: I’m sure that with every title in the series, you want to introduce as much as possible, and if you can, try to bring back what fans are familiar with.

TK: That’s precisely what it is. We want players to have new experiences, such as meeting new characters, but also enjoy familiar experiences, like bringing back previous characters, as well. So, in the end, when it comes time to finally decide what to include in the next installment, there are a lot of tears when deciding what to cut.

Going back to the point of limitations, some times, not even when we want to, we’re basically forced to cut out certain aspects. For instance, for Cold Steel III and IV, characters from across all the past titles, make a comeback, like characters from Trails in the Sky, and overall, the number of characters that are included are between 80 to 90 characters. Even though we want to showcase all these characters, and make sure each character gets screentime, there’s surprisingly limitations on how many character models can be shown at one point, so that made us have to re-write certain scenes. This limitation is why for many scenes, the camera will actually just focus on one character at a time, rather than multiple.

BC: When it comes to the Trails of Cold Steel, there are now four titles in the series. Does the popularity of the series give you room to expand the scope of the story and tell as many stories as possible within its world?

TK: When Trails in the Sky first came out, obviously, there were lots of limitations there — biggest example was that at the end of the game, you can only have eight characters in your party, which you can choose. After that game, as the games in the series began to sell, and sell well, kind of organically, we knew that we could do so much more.

We had the story planned out, for the Cold Steel series, from the very beginning. However, we were told from those that had been around in the company since the beginning, that even though we had our vision for how the story would play out, the series had to sell in order to make that story a reality. But of course, The Legend of Heroes series, overall, has continued to sell well, and every time a new installment came out, we gained more confidence in wanting to make our story happened. This confidence actually was heightened when we decided to bring The Legend of Heroes series to consoles, which was a good decision since the series on consoles performed very well.

BC: Do you have a conclusion in mind or has the ending changed over the years that the series has been in development?

TL: Oh, absolutely! Tons and tons of things have changed. One of the biggest changes, in particular, was that the main character for the Cold Steel series, Rean, was originally intended to be a soldier in the military, like an officer. But, we realized as we were planning for that, is that since soldiers live such regimented lives, that wouldn’t exactly be suitable for the main character in a JRPG, for the types of things that JRPG characters should be able to do. Also, given what was popular back then, which were how JRPGs focused on having relationship-building elements, that also influenced us to change Rean to go from a soldier to a student, more specifically, a student in a military school.

BC: Oh, wow! That’s very interesting. So, I know that a good chunk of animes, not all animes, of course, take place in a high school setting. Did that, by any chance, also influence that major change with the main character of the Cold Steel series?

TK: To be fair, yes, that did play a part in us making that change, actually! There’s more to it, though.

Editor’s note: Before Alan Costa translated the following, Costa mentioned, “I don’t think he’s ever shared this before…”:

Actually, we originally intended — and this goes back to how things change over time — we expected to jump straight into Erebonia from the Liberl Kingdom (the region in the first Trails in the Sky), but here’s the thing, we never intended to make The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Zero [Zero no Kiseki] and The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Azure [Ao no Kiseki]. However, because we wanted to show how powerful of a country Erebonia is, rather than jumping right into that, we thought it would be excellent to have two titles that show how Erebonia became what it is, which we never intended to do — to have the Crossbell arc. That’s probably the biggest change so far, and it was like a three or four-year diversion before coming back to what we originally wanted to do.

BC: Being a fan of Falcom yourself, even before joining the company, is there anything in Trails of Cold Steel III that makes you think, “Holy crap, I’m playing an amazing game here!”?

TK: I would say the changes we’ve made to the battle system would be the major change that I really like. The past games in Cold Steel series had a battle system that was already quite different from the battle system in the Trails in the Sky series. The biggest difference with Cold Steel III compared to the other titles in the Cold Steel series is that it no longer has the ring command system, as instead, every action is mapped to a particular button, which makes the combat system in Cold Steel III is a lot faster. This increased level of speed in combat actually helps tempo of not only battles themselves, but also with the game overall, and I think that the combat system is very well done.

BC: I can definitely see that. Did the Ys series, or maybe other JRPGs, influence the change for Cold Steel III to have speedier combat?

TK: For the more fast-paced action in Cold Steel III, the Ys series wasn’t exactly an influence. However, we decided to change the speed for a couple of reasons. One reason was that we still wanted to improve the speed of combat, but we also wanted to make sure we didn’t alienate any fans that liked the more traditional turn-based combat system, so we made sure to keep that in-tact but to just turn it up a little. Another reason we changed combat was that one of the recent games we looked at was Persona 5, which did a good job of making turn-based combat a little more lively. These two reasons basically led us to make the combat system in Cold Steel III the best it could be.

BC: How about that new Ys IX trailer though? That game is looking good. My question is, as Falcom creates larger environments, is it getting tougher to fill that world with stuff for the player to do?

TK: Filing up worlds with meaningful content is something we have to think about, for example, when you look at the Trails series, it’s the NPCs that make the big worlds in the series so great. Now, with the Ys series, the worlds in the series are smaller in scope, as they’re more like a town, but regardless, we still want to make them meaningful for players to explore.

BC: This might be a personal preference, but when it comes to world-building is it important for you to focus on the content within that world or just focus on how big it is?

TK: Honestly, if you were to put directly between a highly concentrated amount of content versus being an open-world, I would lean more towards being highly concentrated. With that said, the world is dictated by what the story needs. Taking a look at Trails of Cold Steel, the game is set in the Erebonian Empire. Here, you have the word “empire” which conjures up something large to the imagination. However, when you have a world that’s so huge that it becomes a chore to move around and play in, that’s not good. So, when creating a world for us, things are big and grand when they need to be, such as when we are trying to convey a part of the game for the sake of the story, but at the same time, making sure that it’s balanced enough to where it’s still enjoyable to the player so that it never feels like a chore when trying to do things.

BC: With the Ys series and the Legend of Heroes series, Falcom has continued building upon existing series. In terms of the company’s plans for the future, can we expect any new IPs in the pipeline that isn’t connected to a series?

TK: Yes, we’d definitely like to try new things. A great example would be Tokyo Xanadu, which we have heard players say that they would like another one, so that is kind of on our radar. There are desires to do other things, but because this Legend of Heroes world is all planned out, we’d like to finish what we started within our lifetime. The staff has been increasing little by little so it’s possible that we can do a little more in the future.

BC: While we’re talking about future plans, can we expect for any Falcom titles to release on next-gen platforms as early as 2020, or will you and your team continue to support current-gen platforms moving forward?

TK: It’s a difficult question, but we have typically been focused on where our fans are. Historically, we are one of the last companies to release games on PC Engine [known as TurboGrafx-16 here in the west], and we did so because our core fans moved to that platform. However, now we are seeing a tendency where the fans in Japan will stick to older hardware longer, while the fans in the west will jump on new hardware as soon as it comes out. For us, it’s getting difficult to gauge where our fans are actually playing. Internally, we are constantly studying what is coming in the future so that we can be ready for when it releases.

BC: That makes sense, especially since the Trails of Cold Steel series is now making the move over to the PlayStation 4, is that right?

TK: Yes, that’s right. Particularly, at least from our perspective, JRPG fans typically play on PlayStation platforms. It’s important for us to do what we can as a developer to reach our fans. Within our head office and ourselves, we are always trying to boost up that fanbase on a platform so that we don’t have to focus too many internal resources on porting, and we can focus on making new games.

BC: I can understand that. Looking back, the PSP and PS Vita housed some of the best Falcom RPGs and the mobility of the consoles played a huge roll in that. What are your thoughts about the Switch now that Falcom titles have been released on the Nintendo hardware, and would you ever think to release games exclusively to the console?

TK: When it comes to the Switch, we recognize the system’s dual functionality, our games really match these mobile platforms especially for players who might not have access to their own personal televisions. Being able to play our games whenever a fan wants, is something appealing to us and to the fans. In terms of exclusivity, as nice as it would be, the truth of the matter is finding where the user base is. When it comes to Ys VIII, we released it on Switch. While western sales for the Switch version were right around where we thought they’d be, the game struggled in Japan, which reinforced to us that our user base is on PlayStation.

BC: Did Falcom handle the Switch port for Ys VIII?

Alan Costa: Our head office in Japan made a deal with them and handled the port. NISA does not have an in-house development team, so that was all done in Japan.

TK: In a practical sense, we have never actually developed a game on Switch, so that would take us a large number of resources and have us starting from zero, which would take time away from developing games. So, we leave the porting to our partners. There’s a misconception in Japan from fans, that there’s bad blood between Nintendo and Falcom, but that’s not the case at all. We’d love to have more of a working relationship with them, but we don’t have the means to develop on the platform.

BC: This wouldn’t be a western Falcom interview unless we asked if there are plans to localize Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki in the west, at this point, I’m sure a PC port will suffice?

TK: So, that’s something that I have heard for years now and the truth is that this time the only way to play those games is on outdated hardware. As creators, we want as many people as possible to play these games, and also to give Japanese players a chance to replay them. Although there isn’t anything to officially announce there, we are working internally to figure out how to get these games on newer consoles and once we do, I’m confident that NISA will translate them for you and release them in the west.

BC: Would you consider this to be the best time for new players to jump into the Trails of Cold Steel series?

TK: We’ve had this discussion internally recently, which brought up questions that gamers ask such as, “I’ve been hearing about this series for so long, but can I start here?” Well, because this series is story-focused, we had to think carefully about how to do that. So, to alleviate that, we have included a detailed story summary within the game. This doesn’t only tell the story of Trails of Cold Steel either, we are talking about characters from all over The Legend of Heroes series. Even players who are familiar with the series could enjoy this because it catches them up on characters that they might have forgotten about.

BC: Do you think the fast-paced battle system in Trails of Cold Steel III is something that players will get into easily as well?

TK: Even from the battle system, we’ve put everything that we’ve learned from past titles into this game. Even though a player might now have the history with the series, the modern feel of the battle system will be apparent to new players. It’s not uncommon that we hear people enjoy the game even after playing the series from the middle and enjoy it so much that they play the previous ones too.

BC: Is there anything you’d like to say to new and old fans of Falcom?

TK: To the existing fans, thank you so much for waiting and sorry to have kept you waiting, but I can guarantee this is a title that will live up to your expectations and it all leads up to a big climax, so please look forward to that. For the new fans out there, even though this is an ongoing story, with a little bit of reading you’ll be ready to go, if this is something that you enjoy, I think you will find more enjoyment in playing the previous games as well. This is a series with a 15-year history, and I am confident with it. Not all the fans today have played every entry in the series, yet they have found enjoyment in it, which I hope you will too.

BC: Last but not least, who is your favorite character in the Trails of Cold Steel series?

TK: I’ve been asked this before and my answer seems to change from time to time. Generally, I would choose Jusis Albarea, but now I’m going to have to say Rean Schwarzer particularly because the story has reached its conclusion in Japan. Looking back at the entire game and seeing Rean’s growth, through all of his wins and losses, I can look at it all and say, “Good Job, Rean”.

Thank you for reading!