Nihon Falcom

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Nihon Falcom
Key people
Toshihiro Kondo (President)
Products
Number of employees
62 (2019[1])
Websitewww.falcom.co.jp

Nihon Falcom Corporation (日本ファルコム株式会社) is a Japanese

Japanese role-playing game genres, as well as popularizing the use of personal computers
in Japan.

History

Main article: List of Nihon Falcom video games
Company president Toshihiro Kondo in 2014

Nihon Falcom was founded by Masayuki Kato in 1981.

Japanese role-playing game genres.[3][4][5] The name Falcom came from the Millennium Falcon and the final "n" was changed to an "m" to fit naming trends of that time. The word Nihon, taken after one of the native names of Japan, was added to make it sound more complete.[6]

Falcom's first role-playing game (RPG) was Panorama Toh, released for the

hit points. The island also has traps, which require calling for help and waiting for NPCs to help. The player could also be bit by snakes that poison and paralyze the player, requiring medicine to heal or calling for help from NPCs.[7]

Falcom eventually went on to create their flagship franchises, including the

Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu (1985) had more than 400,000 copies sold,[9] making it the best-selling PC game up until that time.[10][failed verification
]

While most of Falcom's games have been ported to various video game consoles of all generations, they have only developed a few non-PC video games themselves.[11] The company's decision to develop mainly for PCs rather than consoles set them apart from their main rivals, Enix and Square, but limited the company's popularity in the Western world, thus limiting their growth potential in the 1990s.[4][2] By the early 2010s, the Ys series was second only to the Final Fantasy series as the largest Japanese role-playing game franchise in terms of the overall number of game releases.[12]

Falcom was also a pioneer in video game music, with their early soundtracks mostly composed by chiptune musicians Yuzo Koshiro and Mieko Ishikawa.[13][14][15][12]

References

  1. ^ a b Wen, Alan (October 6, 2019). "Hot on the Trails of Falcom, Japan's longest-running RPG developer". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  2. ^
    1UP.com. Archived from the original
    on July 29, 2012. Retrieved September 13, 2011.
  3. eurogamer.net
    . Gamer Network.
  4. ^ a b Szczepaniak, John (July 7, 2011). "Falcom: Legacy of Ys". GamesTM (111): 153. (cf. Szczepaniak, John (July 8, 2011). "History of Ys interviews". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved September 6, 2011.)
  5. Gamasutra. p. 13. Archived from the original
    on October 12, 2011. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  6. ^ Yamashita, Akira. "Nihon Falcom – Ys Developer Interview". Shmuplations. Retrieved August 29, 2022.
  7. ^ Derboo, Sam (June 2, 2013). "Dark Age of JRPGs (7): Panorama Toh ぱのらま島 - PC-88 (1983)". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  8. 1UP.com
    . Retrieved July 11, 2011.
  9. ^ "Xanadu Next home page" (in Japanese). Retrieved September 8, 2008. (Translation)
  10. ^ Hendricks, Fayyaad (December 22, 2011). "A complete history of role-playing videogames: Part 2". EL33TONLINE. Archived from the original on January 15, 2012. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
  11. eurogamer.net
    . Gamer Network.
  12. ^ a b Szczepaniak, John (July 7, 2011). "Falcom: Legacy of Ys". GamesTM (111): 152–159 [154]. Archived from the original on January 14, 2013. Retrieved September 8, 2011. (cf. Szczepaniak, John (July 8, 2011). "History of Ys interviews". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved September 8, 2011.)
  13. ^ Chris Greening & Don Kotowski (February 2011). "Interview with Yuzo Koshiro". Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved August 27, 2015.
  14. ^ Kalata, Kurt (February 2014). "Ys". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
  15. ^ Ryan Mattich. "Falcom Classics II". RPGFan. Archived from the original on October 7, 2012. Retrieved September 3, 2011.

External links

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