The battle system for this title is similar to chess where you sit down and think about your moves. How do you feel a battle system fits within the game? Could Trails in the Sky be as in-depth if it were an action RPG? And for the Septian Church, we based it on a typical Japanese impression of what the church represents, so I’m sure there are indeed some similarities to Catholicism. We also referenced the age of imperialism in Europe. Since Liberl Kingdom is located between two political superpowers, yet still maintains its independence, we actually based it on Thailand. So really, both sides of the coin are equally important in this game.ĭid Falcom use any historical references as inspiration for creating Zemuria? Was the Septian Church perhaps inspired by the Catholic Church? By doing so, it really makes the world come alive, and creates a setting that’s both fantastical and realistic in equal parts. Trails in the Sky is unique in the sense that we spent as much or perhaps even more time and effort working on character conversations and additional elements. Normally in Japanese RPGs, a lot of time and effort is spent on the main story. What did you like writing more: the main dialogue between the characters and the plot or all the additional text in the game, like the books and newspapers that defined the world the characters were in? For the world, we compiled one idea at a time, all the while setting things up to give players the feeling that something big was about to happen - a small kingdom sustaining independence while still operating as a monarchy, an era of industrial revolution and new energy sources, an “orbment” system that allows people to use magic, etc. For the characters, we wanted the main pair to contrast with each other, like light and dark, and build everything from there. Toshihiro Kondo, President: We created the characters and the world view simultaneously. Did you create the world to fit the characters, or the characters to fit the world? Or were both elements designed separately? Trails in the Sky has an amazing game world. While Trails in the Sky was the focus, we also talked about bringing PSP games from Japan overseas, Steam, and their upcoming NGP title. Since we know there are Falcom fans on Siliconera, we asked readers to submit development questions, which we brought straight to Kondo. This game is the first of three chapters and evolved into a RPG series all its own with Trails of Zero (Zero no Kiseki) and Trails of Blue (Ao no Kiseki) for PSP. We spoke with Toshihiro Kondo, President of Nihon Falcom, about The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.

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