Ys

It's just dumb, fun, and difficult.

The Ys series got a pretty big push in the PSP.

A bunch of Ys games just...

Being remade left and right for the console was just great.

Honestly, my favorite game was probably both Pursuit Force games.

I would love to see it.

If this is a franchise that's good, it introduces itself to new audiences and it finds new lease on life in the same way that the Ys franchise was absolutely dead until it got its PSP games.

And like, piece by piece it was able to scale up into the franchise Ys is today.

And similarly Dragon Quest kind of had a little bit of a lull and then kind of came back stronger than absolutely ever.

So...

We had Joel on the, the, the pod- the podcast many times and [laughs] we had a funny discussion.

He didn't like it when we were like, "Look at games like Ys for the Sega Master System."

You're right.

You're like, "There's been tons of Ys before." I'm like, "Yeah, that didn't age well." He's like, "What are you talking about?"

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

'Cause he, that was his thing.

I've got to collect some from the Digital Devil Saga, Megami Tensei series, and then Shin Megami Tensei after that, which then turns into Persona.

I got to get Ys.

I've got to get Legend of Heroes footage.

I got to get Tales of Fantasia.

Definitely not.

I think Falcom is pretty good in a lot of the recent Ys and Trails games.

You can tell where the budget goes to a really good voice cast, to really good character models.

The combat animations are incredible.

I

am too.

Even with the most recent Ys game, I'm like, okay, the environments all look a little bit simpler and less detailed because they're clearly focusing on the characters.

They look nice, but buildings and stuff is where I kind of notice that might be a texture thing on Switch 2.

to Super Nintendo chiptune badassness.

Or, like, Ys.

Like, Ys.

Like, because that's what the game needs to think of.

It needs to think of, like, the Ys games or the top-down, like, Zelda-like.

Like, you want to hear, like...

You know,

So, uh, I was wondering about the games that you worked on near the start of your career at Nihon Falcom.

Um, some games that should become absolutely legendary and hugely important in Japanese gaming, uh, including games such as, uh, Ys and, um, Dragon Slayer.

So I was just wondering, working at Nihon Falcom, did this teach you the fundamentals of video game music? Um, obviously, we mentioned yesterday you were a very accomplished musician already at that point, but did that help you transition into creating music for video games?

[speaking Japanese] So regarding my work on, uh, Nihon Falcom games like Ys and Dragon Slayer, so as I mentioned at my talk yesterday, my mother was a piano teacher, so I studied music from a very young age.

And it was actually before I joined Nihon Falcom that I actually learned how to become a game composer.

So I had a PC-88 at home, and just on my own, I studied, uh, programming.