Trails towards the future

Nihon Falcom celebrates 40 years by releasing a slew of JRPGs in English

Few developers boast a history like Nihon Falcom’s. Founded in 1981, it’s one of the oldest studios still making games. Known for JRPG series like Ys, Tokyo Xanadu, and The Legend Of Heroes, it has fostered a dedicated fanbase during that time, growing in the West in recent years. To celebrate four decades of making games, it’s announced four new translations via longtime publisher NIS America.

The games are: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Into Reverie, which continues the Trails series; the previously PSP-exclusive The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails; and both The Legend Of Heroes: Trails From Zero and The Legend Of Heroes: Trails To Azure, a duology of originally PSP-exclusive adventures. These JRPGs are all story-heavy, featuring lengthy scripts, which has made translating them into English a costly process, and therefore something of a risk. Despite that, fans have been eager to explore these Japanese-only titles for a while and soak in more of the universe, even if they are older releases.

“The Trails series has been gaining more recognition than ever before, and I think people are paying more attention to titles that have yet to be released,” says company president Toshihiro Kondo when we ask about bringing the older titles over. “Our fans are passionate, and have been asking for a while now that we do more on this front. I’m grateful to finally be able to respond to them.”

BUILDING A LEGACY