Steam

On Re-Releases

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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.

On Re-Releases

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.

On Re-Releases

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.

On Comic Market

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Blaugust Post #13

Starting today (August 14), the 88th semi-annual Comiket starts in Tokyo. This event, held twice a year in August and December, is one of the major times that Japanese indie games release, and this one looks to be no different. Edelweiss (The developers of Astebreed) put together a trailer of all of the games at this summer’s Comiket; it’s over an hour long. Astebreed itself came out at Comiket 83, about 3 years ago.

Japanese media has a bit of a different relationship with fan works than American media tends to, with games and other media based on preexisting characters existing in a sort of “official unofficial” state. I mention this because the start of that video is about 15 minutes of games using the characters from the Touhou series, itself an example of a Doujin title. The “team” behind the Touhou series, Team Shanghai Alice, is really just one person. The next main game in that series is also coming out at Comiket.

On Comic Market
To go along with this, Steam is having a sale this week on a variety of games out of Comiket in years past. It’s also worth mentioning that Playism tends to pick these up earlier, and is even responsible for bringing some of them to Steam. It’s currently the only place you can pick up an actual Touhou game without importing (it’s still in Japanese). Prior to digital distribution, there was almost no way for most of the games shown to cross the Pacific, as actual physical CDs are sold at Comiket. Mostly this has meant piracy is the only way people get to play, but I’m hoping the modern internet can change that. After all, more people are lazy than cheap.