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Falcom RPGs | Dragon Slayer, Xanadu, Ys, The Legend of Heroes, Brandish - Discussion Thread

Louis_Cypher

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Jan 1, 2016
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I am not very experienced with their games beyond Ys and Trails of Cold Steel, but I like Falcom's work as a company. They seem to have an aesthetic and gameplay sensibility that is closer to Western RPGs, probably due to their PC developer heritage. They were one of the very first JRPG companies, and are important to the history of the genre in Japan. Dragon Slayer was a cultural phenomenon there.



Question: How does the Dragon Slayer / Xanadu / The Legend of Heroes series fit together?

This is something I could research myself but there is probably an expert here on the Codex. Do the various Dragon Slayer derived series actually take place in the same world? Like say is Dragon Slayer / Xanadu set in the distant past of the Trails in the Sky / Trails of Cold Steel world? Did they instead become separate things of their own after a certain release, like Megami Tensei / Persona? Is Xanadu now it's own universe too?
Some kind of timeline or explaination of how these different worlds fit together would be cool, and I'm sure other people would benefit from it being archived here too. I'm guessing The Legend of Heroes is it's own thing now, but I don't understand Dragon Slayer and Xanadu's relationship that well either. You have things like Tokyo Xanadu, that seem to be unrelated at all.

Recommendations: Similar games, with more grounded fantasy aesthetics?

I came across Record of Lodoss War: Advent of Cardice for the Dreamcast:



This isn't a Falcom game, but looks very unique for a JRPG. I don't always like the anime aesthetic, if it is too immature especially. I like the anime art of the 1980s as it was more naturalistic (think Ninja Scroll, Ghost in the Shell). So if anyone has recommendations for RPGs that look more naturalistic, or play differently to the norm (no long drawn out turn based exchanges), perhaps being high lethality, or having no battle transitions, or playing like a Western console ARPG, please add or recommend them.

If these games exist, there must be a bigger pool of them in Japan. I don't mean just any ARPG, but those sharing traits with Ys or Xanadu Next or Record of Lodoss War. High lethality, so one enemy isn't hit for minutes on end, but dies fast. Something where there are blobs on an overworld, screen change and a battle transition like Tails of Vesperia would not count.
 

Ysaye

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Question: Do the Dragon Slayer / Xanadu / The Legend of Heroes link?
Mainly only in name, most of the games are in different universes most of the time however there are two series under the title of The Legend of Heroes that have their own worlds that have multiple games set in them. These are:

Gagharv Trilogy
  • A Tear of Vermillion
  • Song of the Ocean
  • Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch

Trails / Kiseki Series - these games being to date (Expected to be about 4-5 more games to go to finish the story):
  • Trails in the Sky First Chapter,
  • Trails in the Sky Second Chapter,
  • Trails in the Sky the Third,
  • Trails of Zero,
  • Trails of Azure,
  • Trails of Cold Steel 1
  • Trails of Cold Steel 2
  • Trails of Cold Steel 3
  • Trails of Cold Steel 4
  • Trails of Reverie
  • Kuro No Kiseki (english name still to be determined)
  • Trails of Nayuta (This is still debatable as to whether this is part of the series because it is not set in the same world but......)

Question Recommendations:

You said you liked Dungeon Crawlers in the other thread - well:



Which is a remake of an older Falcom game by the same name.

Another famous series in Sorcerian which is a side scrolling roleplaying games with scenarios.



Lastly another famous falcom game which was more focussed on strategy is Vantage Masters - this game appears as a (revised down) mini game in Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4.

 

Nutmeg

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Ghost in the Shel
The animes were 90s, not 80s. Shirow GitS (89) has a different aesthetic. Better, IMO too. I'm a big fan of his earlier Appleseed.

but those sharing traits with Ys
I'm surprised you like Ys if you don't like anime style much. Ys was one of the earliest Japanese fantasy rpgs to feature graphics made to appeal to otakus instead of westaboos. Earlier efforts from non-Falcom JPC devs were more westaboo. Even your average final fantasy has less anime aesthetics.

Xanadu Next
The original Xanadu plays much better than Xanadu Next, IMO. Although admittedly I only put about 10 hours into both. I played the Saturn Falcom classics version of the original Xanadu.

Some kind of timeline or explaination of how these different worlds fit together would be cool
They don't. Only the Legend of Heroes and Ys series have some kind of continuity and a lot of it is retconned. The early 80s and 90s stuff is every game for itself.
 

Nutmeg

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. So if anyone has recommendations for RPGs that look more naturalistic, or play differently to the norm (no long drawn out turn based exchanges), perhaps being high lethality, or having no battle transitions, or playing like a Western console ARPG, please add or recommend them.
80s Falcom really split up into 3 different companies. Falcom itself, Quintet and Ancient. Quintet had most of the members behind the orignal Ys duology, while Ancient got legendrary composer Yuzo Koshiro. Falcom itself wasn't left with anyone from the Ys 1 and 2 teams AFAIK.

Ancient developed a couple of ARPGs: Beyond Oasis and Legend of Oasis.



Quintet developed a bunch. The most westaboo probably being Actraiser 2, with its 7 cardinal sins theme:



The first Actraiser and Terranigma are not so bad either.

Quintet changed its name and became known as Shade, and they developed Brightis, considered by some (including myself) to be a proto-Souls. Hard to find good videos of this one, sorry:

 

Nutmeg

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It's not just Falcom btw, a lot of JPC devs from the 80s ended up doing console and arcade games in the 90s, eventually fading from the industry.

For example Technosoft split into itself, Arsys and CAP.

Technosoft themselves took their JPC strategy classic Herzog and created Herzog Zwei for the Megadrive, which would be their platform of choice for the next 7 years.

CAP would end up making some of the best action games of the 16-bit era (Winds of Thunder, Hagane, Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire) and the Saturn classic Bulk Slash.

Arsys would end up being a pioneer of real time 3D technology. They made Wibarm and Star Cruiser for JPCs before renaming themselves to Polyphony Digital and focusing on the PS1 where they made Omega Boost and then got stuck making Gran Turismo.

I can talk about this to no end but I'll save it unless anyone has some specific questions.

But point is, there's no JPC dev from the 80s that continued being a PC dev long into the 90s and into the 00s. PC gaming was taken over by hentai studios sometime in the mid 90s and remained that way till the 2010s. The exceptions are Falcom and Koei, but as explained the Falcom that made Ys 1 and 2 doesn't exist after 1990.
 

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