Nihon Falcom was founded by Masayuki Kato in 1981, and quickly became one of the most prominent and influential Japanese role-playing video game developers, alongside Enix and Square. They are credited with laying the foundations for the Japanese role-playinggame industry. Falcom's first role-playing game was Panorama Toh, released for the PC-8801 in 1983 and created by Yoshio Kiya, who would go on to create the Dragon Slayer and Brandish franchises. While its RPG elements were limited, lacking traditional statistical or leveling systems, the game featured real-time combat with a gun, bringing it close to the action RPG formula that Falcom would later be known for. Set on a desert island, the game's overworld is presented as a hex grid and featured a day-night cycle. There were also indigenous non-player characters who the player could choose to attack, have a conversation with, or give money for items, though NPCs could choose to run away with the money. In order to survive on the island, the player needs to find and consume rations, as every normal action consumes hit points. The island also has traps, which require calling for help and waiting for NPCs to help. The player could also be bit by snakes that poison and paralyze the player, requiring medicine to heal or calling for help from NPCs. Falcom eventually went on to create their flagship franchises, including the Dragon Slayer, The Legend of Heroes and Ys series. The original Dragon Slayer was responsible for setting the template for the action role-playinggame genre. had more than 400,000 copies sold, making it the best-selling PC game up until that time. While most of Falcom's games have been ported to various video game consoles of all generations, they have only developed a few non-PC video games themselves. The company's decision to develop mainly for PCs rather than consoles set them apart from their main rivals, Enix and Square, but limited the company's popularity in the Western world, thus limiting their growth potential in the 1990s. By the early 2010s, the Ys series was second only to the Final Fantasy series as the largest Japanese role-playing game franchise in terms of the overall number of game releases. Falcom was also a pioneer in video game music, with their early soundtracks mostly composed by chiptune musicians Yuzo Koshiro and Mieko Ishikawa. They were one of the first game companies to have their own named sound team dedicated to writing scores for their games, known as the :ja:Falcom Sound Team jdk|Falcom Sound Team jdk. Falcom's Ys soundtracks in particular are considered some of the most influential role-playing game scores of all time.
