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Note: This is my second attempt to post this blog. My first attempt, the site ate everything after the introduction to Xanadu. 

Nihon Falcom is one of the oldest game developers in Japan. It's been in business since 1981, as long as EA and several years before Square. They never got as big as either of these companies and have remained a small but prolific studio. They're also notable for being one of the few PC-focused Japanese developers out there, though most of their games eventually come to console and they're releasing console versions alongside the PC versions these days.

Their primary product is RPGs, with their best-known product being the Ys series. However, their longest-running series dates back to 1984, the Dragon Slayer series. In the years since it's had multiple spinoffs to the point where the games are almost like one of those Russian stacking dolls. But they were highly influential in the way the Japanese RPGs that came after looked and sounded. Falcom's music has always been top-notch. 

Dragon Slayer (1984)

Dragon Slayer was the game that launched the series. It was a side-scrolling action RPG that also had a lot of puzzle solving, done in the dungeon crawl style. It was not released in the US. It took some of its own inspiration from the arcade game The Tower of Druaga.

Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu (1985)

A bigger and better follow-up to Dragon Slayer that offered improved side-scrolling game mechanics and combat. Battles and tow It also featured a more sophisticated RPG leveling system and even a karma system that would affect your interactions with the game world. Xanadu even intentionally limited the number of enemies in each area to discourage grinding. Equipment changed your character's appearance. Xanadu's in-game sprites were an influence on Japanese RPG sprites, including those seen in Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. 

Xanadu was hugely popular in Japan. It sold 400,000 copies, which made it one of the most successful PC games of all time at that time. There were OAVs, audio soundtracks, manga, and more based upon it. It got an expansion pack, Xanado: Scenario II, as well as a remake in the 1990s.  Its appearance influenced both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy with its anime RPG sprites. Origin Systems of Ultima fame was interested in releasing it in the US until Richard Garriott, the founder and designer of Ultima, found artwork from Ultima III in a couple of shops in Xanadu and decided to sue Falcom for copyright infringement. The companies settled out of court and Falcom removed the artwork from the game. 

It also got quite a few spinoffs:

- Faxanadu (1986) This Famicom spinoff game was only loosely related to Xanadu, and was developed by Hudson Soft under license from Falcom. In August 1989, it was published by Nintendo of America for the NES in the United States. You are an elf who returns to your home country only to find that it has been overrun by mutated dwarves. This game featured pretty good side-scrolling and role-playing mechanics, and was also an early example of the "Metroidvania" mechanic where certain treasures and locations can be seen early on but can't be accessed until the player has acquired certain power-ups. Its aesthetic was darker than usual for a NES title. One note: the name is pronounced "Fa-za-nadu" rather than "Fax-anadu."

- Legend of Xanadu I and II - Japan-only spinoffs released in the 1990s

- Xanadu Next (2005) Remember the N-Gage? Remember sidetalking? Remember unscrewing the back of your device to change the cartridge? No? This game was probably the most well thought-of game for the N-Gage. It was later remade for the PC with some differences from the N-Gage.  It is available through Steam.

- Tokyo Xanadu (2015) Originally released for the Vita, then ported to PS4 and PC. A dungeon-crawler set in modern-day Japan, with Persona-style visual novel elements and social links.

Romancia: Dragon Slayer Jr. (1986)

An RPG for kids, made with brighter colors. There were only three screens, and the object was to solve the game in 30 minutes.

Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family / Legacy of the Wizard (1987)

The Worzen family (despite the title, that's what their name is) is just your average family with Mom, Dad, a son, a daughter, grandparents, and the family dog, that just happens to be a family of adventurers. Their aim is to recover the Dragon Slayer from the dungeon below the Worzen family home so that the son can wield it and slay the dragon in the deepest recesses of the dungeon. Each playable family member has different jumping and attack abilities, different power-ups, and a section of the dungeon designed around their mechanics. The grandparents handle the password continue system. In Japan, Namcot (not a typo) published the Famicom version, and because of this, Legacy of the Wizard can be played on the Switch as part of Namco Museum Archives Volume 2. The soundtrack was composed by Yuzo Koshiro.

Released in 1989 a few months before Faxanadu, Legacy of the Wizard was the first Dragon Slayer game to appear in the US, and the second Falcom game, behind only Ys: The Vanished Omens for the Sega Master System.

Dragon Slayer V: Sorcerian (1988)

In this adventure, you can create a party of up to 4 characters using various races and classes and use them in one ot 15 dungeon-crawling scenarios. Expansion packs that added more scenarios were sold separately. In addition, your characters aged as you played the game and after a certain age could spontaneously die from old age. Released on multple PC platforms in Japan as well as the Mega Drive, the MS-DOS version was localized and released in 1990 by Sierra On-Line.

Dragon Slayer VI: The Legend of Heroes (1989)

In contrast to the previous games, which were mostly side-scrolling action RPGs, The Legend of Heroes was a full-blown overhead-view turn-based RPG in the style of Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. It was originally released on the PC Engine CD and sported redbook audio and voice-acting, then ported to multiple Japanese computer platforms as well as both the Super Famicom and the Mega Drive. It was localized by Hudson Soft for the Turbo-Grafx CD in 1992, complete with voice-acting, where its sheer size and CD audio made a strong impression on American reviewers. It was so successful that it ultimately supplanted the Dragon Slayer series completely and became its own series.

- Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes II (1992) Also originally released for the PC-Engine CD, it was ported widely to every computer platform in Japan as well as the 16-bit consoles, and ultimately the PlayStation and Saturn. It was never released in the United States.

After this, The Legend of Heroes became its own series and is the part of the Dragon Slayer legacy that survives to this day. It spawned its own spinoff series.

- The Gagharv trilogy (1994, 1996, 1999) Released originally on the NEC PC-9801 and then ported to various consoles. Set in a world where the nations of the world are separated from each other by a bottomless chasm called Gagharv. In 2004, these games were ported to the PlayStation Portable, which would become the leading JRPG system of the 7th generation as Japanese developers were caught unawares by the transition to HD, and in 2005, they became the first Legend of Heroes games to be localized in the United States since the original game in 1992, localized by Bandai. Unfortunately, Bandai's localization was widely considered to be very poor, and these games sadly didn't make much of a splash.

  - The Legend of Heroes: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch (1994) Bandai titled it as The Legend of Heroes II in the US, but it was actually the first game in the Gagharv trilogy. US release in 2006.

  - The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion (1996) The first game localized of the trilogy,. Set in a realm called El Phildin.  Released in 2006 before Moonlight Witch.

  - The Legend of Heroes: Song of the Ocean (1999) Final game in the Gagharv Trilogy, localized by Bandai and released in 2007 for PSP, set in the country of Weltluna.)

  And if that wasn't enough, the next arc of the series, the Trails series, became successful enough          to be spun off into several of its own subseries. Like I said, this series is like those Russian stacking dolls. The Trails series is set on the Continent of Zemuria where a multitude of nations, including the Kingdom of Liberl, the Crossbell State, the Erebonian Empire, and the Calvard Republic, are vying for power following the Orbal Revolution, where magical orbs have brought both prosperity and warfare to Zemuria. 

  - The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (2004) - The first game in the Liberl arc, this game follows the story of Joshua and Estelle Bright, new recruits in a guild of monster hunters and mercenaries known as the Bracer Guild, who find themselves caught up in political intrigues with the rulers of Liberl. Xseed, a company specializing in localization of Japanese RPGs (now a subsidiary of Marvelous AQ of Japan), localized this game with much more painstaking care than Bandai had done, and it became one of their biggest sellers to date on releasing in the US in 2011 for the PSP, later ported to Steam. 

  - Trails in the Sky Second Chapter (2006) - continuing the adventures of Joshua and Estelle Bright, this game was bigger than the first game, and Xseed contracted the US localization out to Carpe Fulgur. Unfortunately, the lead localizer of Carpe Fulgur had to leave the project due to personal issues, and an Xseed staff member completed the localization. It released in 2015 on PSP and Steam, and due to the PSP having been discontinued several years earlier, it did not receive a physical release. 

 - Trails in the Sky the Third  (2007) - The final chapter of the Liberl arc, focusing on Kevin, an ally of Joshua and Estelle Bright. This game was even larger than Second chaper, so much so that Falcom considered splitting it into multiple games. Furthermore, Xseed reported that they might not have enough resources to handle the localization. In the end, Xseed did complete the localization, and it released for Steam inb 2017, with the PSP completely discontinued and Sony also dropping support for the PS Vita by then. 

 - Zero no Kiseki (Trails from Zero, 2011), Ao no Kiseki (Trails of Azure, 2011) Originally released for the PSP, these games comprise the Crossbell arc of the Trails series. Never localized in the US

 - Nayuta no Kiseki (2012) Japan-only, for PSP and later ported to PS4. Unlike the other games, this is an action RPG a la Ys rather than turn-based. Loosely related to the Trails series, it's set in a world called Lost Heaven. 

- Trails of Cold Steel series - The focus shifts to the Erebonian Empire. This saga follows Rean Schwarzer as he trains at the prestigious Thors Military Academy, and then becomes an instructor as the flames of civil war threaten to engulf the Empire, while learning about his own past and identity as a practitioner of the Eight Leaves One Blade school of swordsmanship. The Orbment system utilized by the game resembles a more sophisticated version of the Materia system from Final Fantasy VII.

For Trails of Cold Steel, Falcom shifted production to the PS3 and Vita, then later moved onto the PS4 and Switch as the former two systems faded, These games were the first Trails games to use 3-D rendered cel-shaded models instead of sprites as well as fully rotatable 3-D worlds.  The first two games were localized by Xseed, but after that, NIS America took over the localization, having also acquired the rights to localize Ys VIII and Ys IX. Unlike Xseed, NIS America also produced Switch versions of the Cold Steel games, since the Switch accounts for a fairly large share of NIS's revenue. However, Switch versions of the first two games are set to release starting this year, at least in Japan. The Cold Steel arc has been by far the most successful Legend of Heroes series in the US.

 - Trails of Cold Steel (2013) - Rean is a student at Thors Military Academy. In Thors, cadet units are divided between commoners and nobles, but Rean is assigned to Class VII, which comprises a mix of cadets of both noble and common birth, leading to conflict between its members. As leader of Class VII, Rean must guide his comrades to overcome their class differences. Localized in 2015 for PS3 and Vita, later ported to PS4, also available on Steam.

- Trails of Cold Steel II (2014) Originally for PS3 and Vita, later ported to Windows and PS4, with a Switch version forthcoming in Japan. Rean finds himself in his hometown, but is swept up in the Erebonian Civil War

- Trails of Cold Steel III (2017) Rean is now an instructor at Thors Military Academy, once again assigned to the Class VII, where he must meld a mix of nobility and commoners into a coherent fighting force. He runs into several of his old friends from past games and guide them through field exercises, similar to the ones he went through as a student. This was originally the finale of the Cold Steel trilogy, but Falcom decided they needed another game to complete the story. 

- Trails of Cold Steel IV (2018) - the conclusion of the Cold Steel arc where Rean not only learns of his own past, but is reunited with his classmates and students from Class VII, as well as heroes from the Liberl and Crossbell story arcs, including Joshua and Estelle Bright. The PS4 version was localized in 2020, the Switch version is coming in April, and a Steam/GOG version is also coming this year.

- Hajimari no Kiseki (2020) - A Japan-only game so far that acts as a epilogue to the Crossbell and  Erebonian arcs, as well as a third story, "The Miserable Sinners."

- Kuro no Kiseki (upcoming in 2021) - This game ostensibly is the start of a new arc involving the fourth major nation of Zemuria, the Calvard Republic. In development for PS4 and PS5.

Lord Monarch (1991)

This Japan-only game is a real-time strategy game where the object is to destroy the other player's kingdom. Originally for NEC PC-9801 and ported to Mega Drive, Famicom, and PlayStation. The Super Famicom version sported multiple themes besides the usual medieval theme including robots, ancient China, and even fast food. 

The Dragon Slayer series has a long, illustrious history that dates back before Dragon Quest and continues to this day, albeit with a somewhat spotty record of US releases. Regardless, the series ranks up with the RPG greats. Here's to more Dragon Slayer adventures, and hopefully in English.