Blaugust Post #21

Grandia 2 came out on PC this week. The publisher is GungHo, better known for Puzzle & Dragons (I have no idea how they got the license). From all reports the quality of the port is passable, but I’m really kind of excited by what this represents. It’s the most recent example of a Japanese publisher digging out of their back catalog and putting games on the PC. I’m not sure which company started this (although I suspect Square’s desire to get all versions of Final Fantasy on everything helped), but it’s becoming a lot more common, and it’s a chance for people like myself to check out classics that were missed.

I was always told that PC games aren’t big in japan, except for Visual Novels. Consoles have traditionally been the place for JRPGs especially, except for the brief experiment Square tried with FF7 and FF8. The next example I can find is Square again, as they released The Last Remnant on Steam in 2009. This was the first game I encountered that fought very hard against being controlled with a mouse and keyboard, and so I didn’t play much of it (I still haven’t finished it). With a controller, I know people who prefer that version over the original (which was released for the XBox 360, a console I did not own until years later). Capcom noticed the PC Market a year later; Namco got in on the game in 2012. The Carpe Fulgur games (Recettear, Chantelise) opened up the doors for Japanese indies to see western release.

The funny part about that is that visual novels are starting to come over too. Our Game of the Month for Aggrochat is Hatoful Boyfriend, and there are lots of others on Steam at the moment. The world is flat indeed.