Author: September
Translator: Hansuke
Editor: Lanju
At the shareholders' meeting last December, Falcom officially announced the next installment in the "Kiseki" series, "The Legend of Heroes: Kai No Kiseki -Farewell, O, Zemuria-", which is scheduled to be released at the end of September this year.
And today at the Taipei Game Show, President Toshihiro Kondo also announced the news of the PC version of the latest work in the "Ys" series, "Ys X Nordics" -- releasing on March 14th on Steam. in addition to Traditional Chinese, it will also include Simplified Chinese language, which is the first time in the series.
Prior to the live stage event, we were invited to have an interview with Falcom's President Toshihiro Kondo and Yuen-Yuen Chen, CEO of Clouded Leopard Entertainment, to talk about Falcom's new releases this year, as well on localization insights. Perhaps due to the overly obvious nature of the questions, the president also revealed some exciting information for the first time, which you can see in the section organized below. We didn't say anything besides the ones below, so you can imagine exactly what that means.
Reporter: We've noticed that in the recent years, Falcom games have been coming to PC more quickly. For example, the last time Ys IX came to Steam, it took two years, but this time Ys X only took half a year. How did this happen, and did you make any preparations for it?
Kondo: All we could do was to give the source code to Clouded Leopard as soon as possible so that they could do the porting.
Yuen-Yuen Chen: In fact, it is mainly the accumulation of experience. In 2019, "Ys IX" went on sale when Clouded Leopard as a company has just been established, we do not have too much experience related to transferred,etc, but in recent years through "Kuro No Kiseki" and other several other works to accumulate experience, as a company as of now we will be able to speed up the progress of the objective.
Reporter: Is it possible to simultaneously release Falcom's works along with the PC platforms?
Kondo: According to the current situation of the company, most of the ports will be handed over to external partners such as Clouded Leopard. It took two years for Ys IX and only half a year for Ys X, so I believe we'll be able to simultaneously them in the future.
Reporter: Is the next game of "Ys" in development yet? How long before we get to see it?
Kondo: We've already begun the initiation phase within the company for the next Ys title, but it may be a while before we actually start any sorts of development. Another thing I can say is that we have a few other "Ys" projects in the works right now, though they are not "new", they will be disclosed, revealed one at the time.
Translator Note: More ports will be revealed in a timely manner. Looking forward to these reveals.
Reporter: How did the Switch version of Ys X perfomed? After all, this is the first time the Ys series has debuted on the Switch platform.
Kondo: The simultaneous release was actually my personal decision as president, and we're very happy with the sales at this time. There are a lot of players who have only gotten into the series in the 10th entry, and there are even more new players than there were for Ys VIII. After all, this is a long-running series, and the fact that there are still plenty of new players out there to try it is a great encouragement to us.
Reporter: Falcom's new in-house engine has perfomed quite nicely on both Kuro No Kiseki and Ys X, will it continue to be used in later titles as well?
Kondo: I think we'll continue to use the engine.
Reporter: We saw a great deal of interesting but concerning information in Falcom's public slides at last year's shareholders' meeting, such as "unreleased PS4/PS5 ports" and the "Gagharv Trilogy Mobile", so when is this information going to be officially disclosed? Is there anything that can be revealed at this live event?
Kondo: I'd like to thank of my friends in the media for asking such specific questions. I'm going to have to keep it short and sweet right for this point, but there's nothing specific I can reveal at this time. First of all, for the "Unreleased PS4/PS5 Port", you can recall how players have been calling for it, so in terms of timing, we'll probably be able to reveal it within this year. As for the "Gagharv Trilogy Mobile", it was not developed by Falcom, but is an adaptation licensed to the other developer, but we did a lot of the art supervision and other work, so I'm sure a lot of "Gagharv" fans will be very happy. By the way, I'm a Gagharv fan myself.
Reporter: Besides Kiseki and Ys, is there any chance to see new titles from other IPs in recent years? For example, Zwei: The Arges Adventure, Tokyo Xanadu, or a brand new original IP.
Kondo: We are indeed working on new titles that are not based on these two IPs. Generally speaking, we announce some new developments at our annual shareholders' meeting in December, and we do reveal information about these new works depending at the time. We're planning to be release these projects this year, and we're planning on releasing some of the latest information in March.
Reporter: In recent years, there have been frequent "Re-Make" of classic works in the industry, what do you think of this situation, President Kondo?
Kondo: Remakes can be a great learning experience for the team, and some of our employees have mentioned that they would like to play a certain work on current platforms, etc. In fact, my very first idea at my job back then was to remake "The Legend of Heroes III: White Witch". At this stage, the company does have plans for a reboot and a remake, in addition to the Anniversary of the company's founding in March 9th of this year which it was mentioned at the shareholders' meeting, there is also some information that we hope to announce at some point this year.
Reporter: "Kuro no Kiseki" ended with two works. Is "Kai no Kiseki" will be positioned like "Hajimari No Kiseki" that acts like a summary of past/current events and a set up game for the new arc?
Kondo: It is positioned like "Hajimari No Kiseki," but with new story developments. Since "Kai no Kiseki" is meant to conclude the Republic Arc and also serves as the beginning of the climax of the entire "Kiseki" series, we decided on a new title after thinking about it for a while.
You may feel that the development of the story is similar to that of "Hajimari No Kiseki" in some aspects, such as the appearance of many familiar characters, but this work differs from "Hajimari No Kiseki" and returning characters appear at important points in the story.
After the development of "Kuro No Kiseki II" was completed, my instruction to the team was to cease the prolonging of the story and start moving toward its climax.
Reporter: 2024 is the 20th anniversary of the "Kiseki" series, will there be any more projects other than the upcoming "Kai No Kiseki"? If so, is it convenient to disclose some related information about them?
Kondo: There are indeed plans. Likewise, I did already mentioned about them earlier, but the company won't let me disclose it, so that's all I can say at the moment!
Reporter: For September of this year, the release timeframe of the Japanese version of "Kai No Kiseki, is the Asia version have a possibility to have a simultaneous launch with the Japanese version?
Kondo: Of course we want to have a simultaneous release. This time the script was written earlier compared to past titles, and the rest of the work is left up to Clouded Leopard.
Yuen-Yuen Chen: We did get a simultaneous release of Ys X last year, although I haven't seen the text of Kai no Kiseki as of yet and the amount of text will definitely be larger than that of Ys. We will certainly do our best to acheive the goal of a simultaneous release if possible.
Reporter: What information can you disclose about Kai no Kiseki as a work commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Kiseki series?
Kondo: First of all, many characters from previous Kiseki games will make their appearance. The game will start as the conclusion of the Republic of Calvard and it will be revolve around Van, but the flow of the game will be similar to that of Hajiamri No Kiseki, where one stage is at A and the next stage is at B. Class VII from Sen No Kiseki, a familiar organization you may know from across the series, and even the Church of the Gralsitter will appear in the game, which all of them will play a rather important aspect for the story.
Reporter: I am aware that many players of the Kiseki series have been fans for a long time, but is there anything in Kai no Kiseki that’s designed to attract new players?
Kondo: This time, we have prepared a feature called "Character Chronicles," which allows players to view a character's past story at anytime.
Reporter: If we look at the progression of the story, where is "Legend of Heroes" currently in the overall "Kiseki" series progress? Are we getting close to the end?
Kondo: Almost all the mysteries of the first two works of Republic Arc can be answered in "Kai no Kiseki". In addition, this story can also allow players to understand the entire continent of Zemuria. "Kiseki" will end one day. We always feel that this will be the case a long time ago, but after the release of "Kai no Kiseki", fans will have a feeling that "It is finally reaching to its end".
Reporter: In the past two years, "Kiseki"-related character figures have been released quite frequently, which seems to be quite different from the approach in the past few years, may I ask what is the reason for this? Can you tell us the required criteria for selecting characters for the figures?
Kondo: The figure select process was actually a proposal from an outside partner, such as Good Smile Company. They received a lot of feedback from players all over Asia, especially in China, and the selection of characters for act as figures was basically made possible by the support of the players. Some of the partners also have branches in Asia, and proposed the production after receiving calls from overseas such as Europe and the United States. Many years ago, when the partnership company first sent me samples of Rean and Black Rabbit, I just put them on top of my desk, but I didn't realize that there will be a lot of them enough to go around now.
Translator Note: There was samples of figures of Rean and Altina the Black Rabbit back then during a specific time period.
Reporter: Both Kiseki and Ys have grown into their own very large series over the years. Do you have any plans to completely remaster or in other terms remake past classics in the future?
Kondo: Honestly to speak about it, it depends on its popularity, development resources and overall cost. If it is a title IP worthy of being remade, we will try to make it happen, even if it costs a lot of manpower and development costs.
We do have plans to completely remake an old title, but we will let you know when it is appropriate to announce the title. Currently, the development team is actively working on a remake of the title, and we hope to complete Kai no Kiseki within expectations but as soon as possible so that we can devote ourselves to this remake. There are many employees within the company who love this specific title so much that most of them joined Falcom because of it.
Reporter: Many games on Steam now have a localization policy for Chinese players, so will Falcom consider releasing Simplified Chinese versions or even Chinese dubbing of its works in the future?
Yuen-Yuen Chen: We have received relevant, positive feedback, for example, we announced the simplified Chinese version of "Ys X". We will take it one step at a time and looking at the players feedback on the Simplified Chinese version of Ys X before we deciding on our next move.
Reporter: Finally, please say any remarks to Chinese players!
Kondo: I've said slightly too much today, which all of them today is actually unplanned. The next most important project is still "Kai No Kiseki", and we ask for the players' support. We also want to go beyond the foundation of our series "Ys" and "Kiseki" and challenge ourselves with these new works, and the team are actively trying to do so. After several years of accumulating more experience, we should have the opportunity to publish a new work this year, and we ask for your support, as it will give us even more motivation to do so.
Translator Note: Mark your calendars for the month of March, it will get real busy from there.
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