An Outside Perspective - How Toshihiro Kondo Leads Nihon Falcom

I picked up Trails in the Sky on my PSP several years ago, I could play those games over and over. Falcom is definitely an underappreciated company and also kudos to XSeed who handles the localizations which are a TON of work. The amount of dialogue to translate is mind boggling.

Hi Ben, glad to see some original and interesting content coming from you. An interview of a developer/person involved in the making of games is always interesting, especially when it concerns Japanese games! I think you led this interview very well, in a nice atmosphere and with insightful questions but i have one remark/request: please stop with the "-san" ! Coming from Westerners in their homeland, it just sounds so otaku and unprofessional. I hope you won't take it personally but this kind of bad habits is one that should disappear from the American "press".

I have never played a Falcon game but this was fantastic. If time permits I might check 'em out. Good job Ben!

Falcom is definitely one of my favorite Japanese Gaming companies in existence (they games boast some of the best soundtracks and the most complex and massive worlds out there), and the only few that stay entirely true to their eastern gaming lineage this entire time. Thank you very much for introducing them to the western world, for they (and us) deserve nothing less.

BHL

Wow, that was amazing. I'm one of those massive Falcom fans within EZA (if my avatar wasn't indication enough) so hearing from the man currently at the top of it all was such a treat. I became a Falcom fan a little over two years ago when I completed Trails in the Sky and have been a diehard for the Trails series ever since. I definitely want to get into the Ys series at some point because if it has even a fraction of the polish the Trails series has it's also something special.

So this raised my interest in Ys from "Not even on my radar" to "This looks like my jam, WHAT THE HECK IS IT?" I tried to look up a Youtube retrospective on the series that would lay out its history but failed to find anything. Is there any video out there that could paint a picture of the franchise for me? I know I could read through the Wikipedia article, but I'm just looking to multitask while I work if possible!

SubSamJam

I know nothing about Falcom or their games but the interview was still engaging, great job Ben.

Mark van Dijken

So nostalgic! It's good to see what small companies are capable of.

Awesome work Ben. My first Ys was book three I believe, on the SNES. Then the anime. I later picked up Legend of Heroes on PSP. Fell off because there were too many releases for that system. There's an anime for Legend of Heores too btw. Keep up the great work.

Pet Rent is So Dumb