Not every anniversary is always a reason for celebration with companies. Nintendo was noticeably quiet during Legend of Zelda Recently 35th, but Nihon Falcom does things differently. A special 40-year broadcast is scheduled for 11:00 GMT and is hosted by President Toshihiro Kondo, who looks back at the company’s long history in RPGs. And what history is it not?
Nihon Falcom opened its doors on March 9, 1982 and was an early pioneer of RPGs, focusing primarily on Japanese personal computers. Nihon Falcom usually does not get the same love as other major publishers – Square Enix and Atlus, for example, are better known in the west – but throughout its history he has successfully developed a dedicated cult following.
After early attempts such as Panorama Island, Nihon Falcom’s first big hit came in 1984 with dragon butcher, a franchise that will eventually start The Legend of Heroes and Tokyo Xanadu. The latter has not been seen since 2015, but Legend of Heroes has gained great notoriety for its impressive world build. Eventually it leads to the “Trails” sub-series, especially known on Nintendo platforms for Traces of cold steel.
We can not define the efforts of Nihon Falcom to define the action-RPG genre, which is often attributed Ice. This series described the adventures of the red-colored adventurer Adol Christin and began in 1987 with Ice I: Ancient Ice Vanished, arrived at Famicom a year later. Nowadays, Ice has appeared on Switch Your origin, Lacrimosa from DANA, and the coming Monstrum Nox.
These releases highlight the recent move with Nihon Falcom. The past decade has only sporadically appeared on Nintendo consoles, but it is very active, even if the release dates are not very stable compared to the PlayStation and PC versions.
So, what can we expect from this broadcast? Well, we will not count on Western news as NIS America usually handles publication duties here. This seems to be a major issue for the most part, although new information needs to be released. Kuro no Kiseki, the latest Legend of Heroes entry.
We are hopeful for the news of a Switch issue, but as we await further details, we would like to wish Nihon Falcom a Happy Fortieth Birthday. Since Monstrum Nox is only payable later this year, we can at least look forward to Traces of cold steel IV arrives on Switch next month.