They are the gate keepers. Falcom certainly have solid games, but they lack the mainstream appeal to carry the genre on top. Atlus fits the description more since they are gaining more mainstream popularity.
@@suiken3149 There's a difference between lacking mainstream appeal and lacking mainstream popularity. I can only speak for myself, but having played a Falcom game, I've purchased and committed to playing several more; I'd argue that their popularity roadblocks have more to do with budgeting and the fact that so many of their games simply have yet to make it out of Japan. Nevertheless, I wouldn't use language like "lord and savior" to describe one of dozens of developer companies that create great games for the world to enjoy.
It blows me away how well connected and real the world of Trails is. To hear that it was all planned from the very beginning has me extremely impressed. I never get enough of stepping into the continent of Zemuria and I'm dieing in anticipation for Cold Steel III or localizations of Zero and Ao. Fantastic job interviewing Ben, you just made my month!
Musing Mojack having a interconnected plot is hard to pull off especially when it's heavy on continuity in both lore and characters,the only one I can think of is steven universe(i know its not a game,but its a good show) and suikoden (minus other games not being connected)
Damn right. Their world building for the trails series had been amazing, and so grounded on its story details. And shoutout to the localizations for Zero and Ao!!! They were like the missing link for that series!
The world building in Trails really is impressive. I actually enjoy talking to all the NPCs because they all have their own little lives and stories going on.
That, is one HELL of a CEO. Ben, you asked the right questions, and we thank you for it. Hope you keep on enjoying Falcom products, for they rock as hard as JDK. And to Kondo-san: what a career, you are one inspired individual, I, personally admire you, and can't wait to see what else you have in store for us, innocent, unsuspecting fans.
Very pleased to see that you managed to get a full interview with Kondo-san! Great work as always, Ben, this was an especially enjoyable interview to watch. I recently got to talk a fair bit with him myself at AX during an autograph signing, as well as attended one of the panels he held for Ys 8. Kondo's the real deal, man,;such a nice and straight-forward kind of guy. Being at the very top of Falcom as its president, you'd think he'd be a lot more conservative and in it for the business side of things, but he never made it seem that way at all with the kind of honesty and surprisingly cheeky humor he treated his fans with. It' was his first time in the US as well; I hope he continues to come by in the future!
This was a great interview! If I wouldn´t already heard his statement on Ao/Zero for the west I would´ve wished that would have been a question you ask, but he already said they wanna bring them over somehow if possible.
Never heard of Nihon Falcom before this. I've heard of their games (I have a friend who keeps trying to get me to play Trails in the Sky series), but not the company. Even still, it was a really interesting and engaging interview. Great moves, keep it up.
11:15 I'll never not be impressed with how intricate the worldbuilding for the Trails series is and how the overarching story has been already planned out.
You are so good at this Ben!! You have an impressive ability to engage those you interview. I had fun watching this even though I've never even played a Nihon Falcom game :)
awesome, falcom is my favourite game developer. All of their games have so much passion put into them and the legend of the heroes is actually my favourite game series of all time. Hopefully the rest of the games get released over here.
i love how you (and everybody else on the allies) combines professionalism and passion in a way that never feels fake and really distinguishes you from other outlets out there!
One of my favourite companies, making two of my favourite franchises of all time, Ys and Trails. Especially Trails. I just wish it was a bit more well known so we didn't have to wonder whether they would be localized.
The quality of their games, combined with how passionate, open, and free they are with their IPs, not only makes me want to buy their products, it actually makes me want to go out of my way to give them money. Also, can't wait for Cold Steel 3 & 4!
Great interview. Both Kondo and the translator were great! Very interesting about the Japanese audio too. I never knew there were additional fees to use in in the west!
Hey EZA, do you have a raw version of the interview where Kondo wasn't dubbed over? And were Ben's questions being translated verbally as well? Seems like there's content here that hasn't been discussed in JP yet and I'd like to share with some acquaintances. Also, where and when was this brilliant interview?
I wonder what the possibility of seeing their less known works coming to PC is - I'd love to see their older titles ported over to PC, as well as their PSP exclusive titles ported over too (Brandish: The Dark Revenant, Nayuta no Kiseki, etc.).
I really liked the interview, i hope that easy allies gets to interview more personalities. Also Ben is getting better and better at moderating and interviewing, just wanted to show my support. :)
THANK YOU BEN, This was so cool! I can't wait for YsVIII and only wish it came on the Switch too. But I'm still stoked as hell it's coming on PC next month. It's like a dream come true. I'm still sitting on Trails in the Sky on my Steam backlog. It seems so daunting to take up such a narrative heavy long RPG these days. I'll get to it some day... >_> Played all the Ys games except Celcetta though.
Thank you so much for conducting this interview and for preparing really well thought out questions from both fans and yourself, great production quality content and thanks for asking the qns i wanted to know most about ys - using the old formula of difficulty that I truly enjoyed
Great interview Ben and what an amazing company with a passionate, professional president, it's rare to see that kind of dedication to the craft and too its consumers!
Falcom, very interesting video game company. Been around there for 20 years but didn't expand their company, like, at all, just doing their own things. I remember long ago some people has a term of "The big four RPG franchises in Japan", with YS being one of them (the other 3 are FF, DQ and Zelda, though YS didn't quite keep up with the other 3). Their trails series has become much more popular in Japan and Asia market. Sora no kiseki was amazing series, though too bad Zero and Ao were released on PSP only, and at the time PSP was basically dead in the west so they didn't get localized. Best hope for Zero and Ao in English are through steam, the publisher for Zero and Ao on PC (later ported) in China has recently released them on steam, and is [considering] to translate Zero and Ao to English by player's request. Hope it could happen before cold steel 3 get localized in the west, as it will be heavily related to Zero and Ao in story.
Nice! But can somebody explain to me how anybody can actually give a thumbs down on these type of videos. You like Falcom, JRPG's or game development in general this video is unexpected content, a rare original/FIrst Hand source of information/insight/stories of a japanese developer. No obvious PR-Crap/Spin, just a good conversation ... This is just perfect bonus-content. So 4 people cared enough to watch this and leave a feedback and find it more negative than positive? ... I can be a miserable person at times, but those guys. Wow.
Nihon Falcom is one of the best developer ever, in my opinion. Their games may be not that great like FF7, but I personally like The Legend of Heroes more than ANY Final Fantasy game. Falcom's games are just so good and charming, that you just dive in to them and don't quit until you done it. The only thing I want from them right now is English versions of Zero no Kiseki, Ao no Kiseki and Trails of Cold Steel 3, and I don't care when they will come out or what games will come out with them, for me this games will be GOTY.
Yeah don't say there games aren't as good as ff7 there games are better then ff7 period. ff7 isn't a good rpg it made a stamp in history and is popular yes but thats it, it aged poorly and does not have a interesting and rich universe like trails matter in fact u can't even compare the two because they are too grand in difference.
What a strange timing for this to pop out on my subscription feed. I just bought Tokyo Xanadu. I should totally finish Trials of Cold Steel tho, P5 kinda got in the one of that one.
huge fan of Falcom since ens of laat year. i own cold steel 1 and 2 brand new and will buy again when it drops on steam. and i also need to grab trails in the sky. i wonder do they sell ost for the games
TheNegroShoddy nobody has,it wasn't until 2011 through 2016 xseed has localized each games by falcon for a couple years and lately falcom has been eagerly waiting for western feedback on their games.
TheNegroShoddy funny thing is falcom is one of the oldest Japan video game companies that's still around, but they didn't expand or grow the company much in the past 20 years… they are just there doing their own thing. I heard their company size is still only about 50 people. They were focusing their games on PC for a long time (back from DOS time) until they moved some of their games to PSP and got huge success (relatively but enough for them), and then they focus on console and became sort of a Sony's "second party", release all their new games on PS platform.
Don't know if you've been able to identify the track in the past two months, but it's "The Byway of Departure" from the Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter OST.
I really wish he'd stop some of his odd tendencies with Falcom, like not allowing anyone the rights to CSIII until CSIV is out in Japan when they're a year apart in release. Legend of Heroes games aren't action games like Devil May Cry, they're text-heavy RPGs. They take time to localize.
NIHON FALCOM! LORD AND SAVIOUR OF JRPG!
They are the gate keepers. Falcom certainly have solid games, but they lack the mainstream appeal to carry the genre on top. Atlus fits the description more since they are gaining more mainstream popularity.
nah that's Bandai Namco
You mean Monolith Soft
Real man of great culture: I worship many gods.
@@suiken3149 There's a difference between lacking mainstream appeal and lacking mainstream popularity. I can only speak for myself, but having played a Falcom game, I've purchased and committed to playing several more; I'd argue that their popularity roadblocks have more to do with budgeting and the fact that so many of their games simply have yet to make it out of Japan.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't use language like "lord and savior" to describe one of dozens of developer companies that create great games for the world to enjoy.
THE PROFESSIONALISM.
No, but seriously this is an amazing interview. Great job Ben!
He is very very good with his questions
It blows me away how well connected and real the world of Trails is. To hear that it was all planned from the very beginning has me extremely impressed. I never get enough of stepping into the continent of Zemuria and I'm dieing in anticipation for Cold Steel III or localizations of Zero and Ao. Fantastic job interviewing Ben, you just made my month!
Musing Mojack having a interconnected plot is hard to pull off especially when it's heavy on continuity in both lore and characters,the only one I can think of is steven universe(i know its not a game,but its a good show) and suikoden (minus other games not being connected)
Damn right. Their world building for the trails series had been amazing, and so grounded on its story details.
And shoutout to the localizations for Zero and Ao!!! They were like the missing link for that series!
The world building in Trails really is impressive. I actually enjoy talking to all the NPCs because they all have their own little lives and stories going on.
Hi, I'm from the future. Cold Steel 3 is coming this fall!
They're the best games in the series by far as well. Though, now I'm looking forward to post cold steel.
That, is one HELL of a CEO.
Ben, you asked the right questions, and we thank you for it. Hope you keep on enjoying Falcom products, for they rock as hard as JDK.
And to Kondo-san: what a career, you are one inspired individual, I, personally admire you, and can't wait to see what else you have in store for us, innocent, unsuspecting fans.
Ys series is some of the best in the biz and has some of the best music in the gaming industry!
I have just bought all Ys' games from Steam, no regrets
Some? Not all? I can see you're not being honest here good sir.
Preordered the collectors edition of Ys VIII from the Nisa store! I feel so passionate about Falcom...they have that jrpg golden era vibe about them.
Excellent interview. Toshihiro Kondo is the real deal!
Very pleased to see that you managed to get a full interview with Kondo-san! Great work as always, Ben, this was an especially enjoyable interview to watch.
I recently got to talk a fair bit with him myself at AX during an autograph signing, as well as attended one of the panels he held for Ys 8. Kondo's the real deal, man,;such a nice and straight-forward kind of guy. Being at the very top of Falcom as its president, you'd think he'd be a lot more conservative and in it for the business side of things, but he never made it seem that way at all with the kind of honesty and surprisingly cheeky humor he treated his fans with. It' was his first time in the US as well; I hope he continues to come by in the future!
And that my friend is why they still make godlike games nowadays.
This was a great interview! If I wouldn´t already heard his statement on Ao/Zero for the west I would´ve wished that would have been a question you ask, but he already said they wanna bring them over somehow if possible.
Cool interview. It really shows how humble and cool the guys of Nihon Falcom are.
It really makes me wish that their work got more recognized.
Never heard of Nihon Falcom before this. I've heard of their games (I have a friend who keeps trying to get me to play Trails in the Sky series), but not the company. Even still, it was a really interesting and engaging interview. Great moves, keep it up.
11:15 I'll never not be impressed with how intricate the worldbuilding for the Trails series is and how the overarching story has been already planned out.
You are so good at this Ben!! You have an impressive ability to engage those you interview. I had fun watching this even though I've never even played a Nihon Falcom game :)
awesome, falcom is my favourite game developer. All of their games have so much passion put into them and the legend of the heroes is actually my favourite game series of all time. Hopefully the rest of the games get released over here.
i love how you (and everybody else on the allies) combines professionalism and passion in a way that never feels fake and really distinguishes you from other outlets out there!
Even if I'm not familiar with this company or its games, I really enjoy these interviews.
50 years old man and Nihon Falcom fan.
Thanks to ys my english is good.
Thank you Nihon Falcom.
Woah, that 2009 music policy. No wonder I recognize so many Falcom tracks even while being on a long hiatus from single player games.
One of my favourite companies, making two of my favourite franchises of all time, Ys and Trails. Especially Trails. I just wish it was a bit more well known so we didn't have to wonder whether they would be localized.
The Dragon of Iowa
Great interview Ben, never heard of Ys but now I wanna get it. This president seems really passionate
Please, do more of these.
Ben... Thank you for this.
Awesome interview Ben! Perfect timing too since I just got into Trails of Cold Steel recently per your recommendations in the past!
This was awesome Ben. Thank you for this.
I'm really looking forward to this game.
Great Interview!
On another note: thanks for recommending Trails in the Sky on your streams. I'm about halfway through FC and I'm loving it.
The quality of their games, combined with how passionate, open, and free they are with their IPs, not only makes me want to buy their products, it actually makes me want to go out of my way to give them money.
Also, can't wait for Cold Steel 3 & 4!
You guys rock! Thanks so much for securing this interview for all us english fans :D
Great interview! Love all Falcom games, especially the Ys and Trails series.
Great interview. Both Kondo and the translator were great! Very interesting about the Japanese audio too. I never knew there were additional fees to use in in the west!
Fantastic interview, you got yourselves a subscriber. Especially nice to hear about the potential comeback of the hardcore style Ys games.
Whoa, what?! Kondo?! That's a hell of a get, Ben! I'm proud of you!
Superb! Thank you both, Ben and Toshihiro Kondo, for this perspective and for your hard work in general!
thank you so much to all the allies and specially Ben for this awesome interview!
This was an amazing interview. Great job Ben!
That was a great interview, Ben. Nice jacket Ben
How the hell did I miss Ben gathering questions for this interview? Was it on the Patreon site? Now I'm super bummed I missed my chance...
great convo - what an interesting life he has had!!
Cool interview! Good job Ben!
Great interview with an incredible Dev.
So looking forward to Ys VIII, can't wait. Great interview!
Hey EZA, do you have a raw version of the interview where Kondo wasn't dubbed over? And were Ben's questions being translated verbally as well? Seems like there's content here that hasn't been discussed in JP yet and I'd like to share with some acquaintances. Also, where and when was this brilliant interview?
amazing interview from Ben san
Great interview, asked questions that I've never seen come up anywhere else and surprisingly got answers
I wonder what the possibility of seeing their less known works coming to PC is - I'd love to see their older titles ported over to PC, as well as their PSP exclusive titles ported over too (Brandish: The Dark Revenant, Nayuta no Kiseki, etc.).
I really liked the interview, i hope that easy allies gets to interview more personalities. Also Ben is getting better and better at moderating and interviewing, just wanted to show my support. :)
THANK YOU BEN, This was so cool! I can't wait for YsVIII and only wish it came on the Switch too. But I'm still stoked as hell it's coming on PC next month. It's like a dream come true. I'm still sitting on Trails in the Sky on my Steam backlog. It seems so daunting to take up such a narrative heavy long RPG these days. I'll get to it some day... >_> Played all the Ys games except Celcetta though.
Great Interview. Thanks Ben and Easy Allies!
Ben's Interviews are the best, that Suda 51 and Kodaka interview is the best imo
hey ben, nice jacket! Also shit I have to get into the Ys series, looks like a lotta fun
Thank you so much for conducting this interview and for preparing really well thought out questions from both fans and yourself, great production quality content and thanks for asking the qns i wanted to know most about ys - using the old formula of difficulty that I truly enjoyed
Awesome interview, the production value is top notch!
Great job Ben, solid interview! Nice editing on the video too. -Julian/FUNKNOWN
I truly love Easy A, Ben is my gaming hero, I would love to meet the people he has interviewed.
Great interview Ben and what an amazing company with a passionate, professional president, it's rare to see that kind of dedication to the craft and too its consumers!
huh. I've never played a falcom game, but this interview sold me. gonna have to check out trails and Ys now.
Fazuzu thanks! I'll probably do that. Didn't Ben also have high praise for origin in particular?
awesome interview
Such a great interview!
Amazing interview Ben. Continue the awesome work. Toshihiro Kondo seems like a great president for Nihon Falcom.
Fantastic interview Ben. I need to pick up the Trails games on Steam soon
Great Interview! Keep them coming plz!!
I tried the demo, and the gameplay is fantastic. And it is the first Ys game i have tried, looking forward to the full release.
great interview!! thank you Ben!
Well done interview.
Great interview Ben. After listening to this guy I'm going to check out these games. Look like some solid RPG's.
This is an amazing idea for an interview! Fuck yes Ben!
Falcom, very interesting video game company. Been around there for 20 years but didn't expand their company, like, at all, just doing their own things. I remember long ago some people has a term of "The big four RPG franchises in Japan", with YS being one of them (the other 3 are FF, DQ and Zelda, though YS didn't quite keep up with the other 3).
Their trails series has become much more popular in Japan and Asia market. Sora no kiseki was amazing series, though too bad Zero and Ao were released on PSP only, and at the time PSP was basically dead in the west so they didn't get localized. Best hope for Zero and Ao in English are through steam, the publisher for Zero and Ao on PC (later ported) in China has recently released them on steam, and is [considering] to translate Zero and Ao to English by player's request. Hope it could happen before cold steel 3 get localized in the west, as it will be heavily related to Zero and Ao in story.
Sen No Kiseki 1 & 2 are one of the greats. Can't wait for the 3rd one coming out later this year.
awesome job Ben, you da best
10/10 interview.
Nice!
But can somebody explain to me how anybody can actually give a thumbs down on these type of videos. You like Falcom, JRPG's or game development in general this video is unexpected content, a rare original/FIrst Hand source of information/insight/stories of a japanese developer. No obvious PR-Crap/Spin, just a good conversation ... This is just perfect bonus-content. So 4 people cared enough to watch this and leave a feedback and find it more negative than positive? ... I can be a miserable person at times, but those guys. Wow.
This man is a good man.
Oh thank you so much. This was amazing. Also, am surprised to hear they'd planned out everything for Trails for before they even started Sky. Jesus.
Hey Ben, cool jacket!!!
Ben always has the best jackets
If anyone knows about jackets it'd be Knight BLAZER.
Damn right.
Great Interview, hope to see more of Falcom games in the West since the won me totally over with with Trails of Cold Steele as well as Ys VIII
Nice jacket Ben.
I love Ys! Thank you Kondo-san and Falcom for the great times!
Holy shit I love the free music policy I love Nihon Falcom!
This is the best translator I've ever seen/heard
Nihon Falcom is one of the best developer ever, in my opinion. Their games may be not that great like FF7, but I personally like The Legend of Heroes more than ANY Final Fantasy game. Falcom's games are just so good and charming, that you just dive in to them and don't quit until you done it. The only thing I want from them right now is English versions of Zero no Kiseki, Ao no Kiseki and Trails of Cold Steel 3, and I don't care when they will come out or what games will come out with them, for me this games will be GOTY.
Zloy_dedulya FF7 is too easy as a RPG when you know about the best materia combination
Yeah don't say there games aren't as good as ff7 there games are better then ff7 period. ff7 isn't a good rpg it made a stamp in history and is popular yes but thats it, it aged poorly and does not have a interesting and rich universe like trails matter in fact u can't even compare the two because they are too grand in difference.
Kondo-san has such a lovely English voice
I've been buying all these games (at least, the turn based ones).., now I just need time to find the time to play them xD
Falcom is one of the best game developers out there. ❤
THANK YOU THANK YOU AWESOME
Falcom makes the best games period
It was a great interview but OH BOY THAT JACKET!!
What a strange timing for this to pop out on my subscription feed. I just bought Tokyo Xanadu. I should totally finish Trials of Cold Steel tho, P5 kinda got in the one of that one.
This guy has a legendary story. Now... Bring all Legendary Heroes to the west...
How did you guys go about finding a guy to work as an interpreter? this interview was really cool.
huge fan of Falcom since ens of laat year. i own cold steel 1 and 2 brand new and will buy again when it drops on steam. and i also need to grab trails in the sky. i wonder do they sell ost for the games
Shima Shimanoseki they do in fact kondo said they have about 500 albums.
I have never heard of this company.
TheNegroShoddy nobody has,it wasn't until 2011 through 2016 xseed has localized each games by falcon for a couple years and lately falcom has been eagerly waiting for western feedback on their games.
TheNegroShoddy funny thing is falcom is one of the oldest Japan video game companies that's still around, but they didn't expand or grow the company much in the past 20 years… they are just there doing their own thing. I heard their company size is still only about 50 people.
They were focusing their games on PC for a long time (back from DOS time) until they moved some of their games to PSP and got huge success (relatively but enough for them), and then they focus on console and became sort of a Sony's "second party", release all their new games on PS platform.
incredible review! i love the trail games and i cant wait for cold steel 3
Can't wait for Trails of Cold Steel PC!!!
YEEES!
This developer looks like he loves his job
Everyone should be playing their games, seriously.. especially Trails :)
Came for the interview, stayed for the jacket. L&R
I know this is a 3 year old video, but does anyone know what track is playing at 16:45?
Don't know if you've been able to identify the track in the past two months, but it's "The Byway of Departure" from the Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter OST.
@@bannin I would have never guessed. Thank you
@@Joshua-hg8ru You're welcome!
sooo ben,have you finished your trails in the sky playthrough yet?
I really wish he'd stop some of his odd tendencies with Falcom, like not allowing anyone the rights to CSIII until CSIV is out in Japan when they're a year apart in release. Legend of Heroes games aren't action games like Devil May Cry, they're text-heavy RPGs. They take time to localize.