On the Deluge of Japanese Games Coming to PC

Growing up, I always leaned more toward what Japanese companies were releasing when it came to video games. Being about 10 when the NES came along, it was just the right age where I would be hit by one game after the next that wound up creating an affinity in me for the stuff coming out of that part of the world. Whether it was big series like Super Mario Brothers, Castlevania, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Contra, or just one-offs like Faxanadu (yes, I know it's part of a much larger series), Excitebike, or Blades of Steel, I was hooked. It just continued from one generation to the next as I migrated to the SNES and Genesis, the PlayStation and Saturn, and then the PS2 and DS.

However, when the PS3 came along, something unfortunate happened. The amount of games coming out of the region slowed down, and Japanese publishers started to hit a real funk. Interests were shifting in the West and a new generation of gamers were hungry for Gears of War, CoD, Battlefield, and the like. Sales were dropping and Japanese developers were not necessarily porting games to overseas markets with the same zeal as before. Moreover, with the rise of mobile gaming, especially in their home region, a number of them were shifting their focus to that sphere instead. So, for people like myself, options were feeling somewhat limited. It wasn't so bad for people who enjoy handheld gaming. The DS and 3DS as well as the PSP then Vita have seen a number of very good Japanese developed games come to their libraries over the years, but when you compare it to the heyday of the early 2000s, it's still not as vast.

Lately, though, with the swelling number of games that have been showing up on PC from Japanese developers and the constant uptick in announcements for more games to come, it feels like things are slowly starting to change. Sure, a considerable number of these are ports, especially stuff from the Vita and PS3, but we're also seeing it as a target platform for new releases with increasing regularity. Bandai Namco have been pumping out stuff on the PC for a while now with Dark Souls, Naruto games, and the Tales series leading the charge. Square-Enix has been porting more and more of their stuff to the platform. NIS America, XSEED, Idea Factory, Capcom, and legions of others are also bringing their games to PC.

It's feeling like a resurgence to the West to some extent as many of these games start to see a wider audience. Some of the PS3 and PS4 stuff would already get into quite a few people's hands, but with them coming to PC that's an even broader base who can and will plunk down their money on these games. Vita ports in particular are able to reap far better sales in the West by going this route because as snazzy as the handheld is, it just didn't catch on in this part of the world. Moreover, these games have the benefit of becoming relevant and easily accessible across multiple generations. They aren't shackled to a specific console, leaving fans at the mercy of publishers as to whether or not they'll add backward compatibility support for these games in future systems. Given the quite niche nature of some of these games, it can go either way in that regard.

So, it is nice that we're seeing more and more of these games come to PC and between announcements, leaks, and reliable rumors it looks like this trend will only increase in the future. However, even now, a few years after this whole practice started, we're still seeing a number of quick, down and dirty ports. A lot of companies are pretty much dumping their games on Steam without really giving them much polish. Koei Tecmo is particularly bad for this with a lot of half-assed ports of their games. Namco Bandai are still sketchy in this regard with fans like Durante often being the ones to enhance their games, getting resolution and the like up to spec for what PC gamers expect. Then there are are a number of others that could have used some tweaking before coming to Steam. A couple of examples would be Neptunia and Fairy Fencer F. I've been playing these lately, and they work fine, but they are both games that took the express train from Vita Land. Their keyboard and mouse controls feel barebones and the games handle much better with a traditional controller. Moreover, they have issues with the visuals, especially during cut scenes, that, while not overwhelming, are still noticeable enough to make me think, "Ah!" when they happen.

I'm really hoping that at some point Japanese publishers will start addressing things like this, and put a little more TLC into their PC versions. By the looks of things, I get the feeling that this will happen later rather than sooner as there are quite a few more ports coming down the pipe in the next few months that sound like quick conversions of older games. I'd love to be proven wrong, but will take a wait and see attitude for the time being.

There are a few occasions in recent months that are giving me some hope that this is slowly starting to change. The best example of this is Capcom's PC port of Dragon's Dogma. This is a game that really went above and beyond when doing this. It has a ton of graphic setting options (including an FOV slider which isn't all that necessary in third person games, but the gesture is appreciated nonetheless), giving us something that can run in very high resolutions and at 60FPS for those who want to push the game that hard. The game was ranking high on the Steam charts when it came out, so here's hoping that it does well and turns some heads not only at Capcom but also at other companies, encouraging them to take the next step and not only bring their games to the PC but also improve them for the platform.

In the end, it's great to see this shift from Japan where publishers were traditionally hesitant to put their games on PC. Now it looks like they're finally seeing that there is a demand for their games on the platform. Usually when something like Valkyrie Chronicles, Neptunia, or the like goes on sale, they see a big jump in the charts. Stuff like Tales of Zestria and Dragon's Dogma both had a fairly hefty contingent of folks who pre-ordered it. The demand is definitely there for more games from the region. It would just be nice if we could get a bit more polish and the technical options for them that most native PC games get. Hopefully, with time we'll see improvement on that front.

Spike Chunsoft Planning More PC Ports: Speculation Time!

The other day word got out that Danganronpa would be coming to PC via Steam in February and people were rather taken aback / pleasantly surprised by the news. It's a well-regarded visual novel that is a cross between Battle Royale and Phoenix Wright where students are trapped in their high school and the only way to escape is to kill one of their classmates and get away with it. First debuting on the Vita, the series has quite the cult following now, so this port is happy news indeed.

Now, word is getting out that the game's developer, Spike Chunsoft, are planning to bring more of their games to PC. The question, though, is which ones because they have a lot of them and many are quite good.

I suspect most folks will be clamoring for Zero Escape since that's the company's other big series. These had people trapped in a facility trying to escape as well, with a pronounced split between the visual novel and adventure elements of the games. If these games do come to PC, one of the questions on a lot of people's minds will be whether the 999 port is of the DS or iOS version of the game. If it's the latter, I can see some people having mixed feelings about it, but this is all idle speculation at this point.

After this, it's a hodgepodge of titles that seem plausible for release on Steam given that they mostly had Vita versions and that platform has been seeing a lot of PC ports over the last year or so. Games of this ilk that could come over include Exist Archive, a JRPG with some rather charming art, Shiren the Wanderer 5, which would make a lot of sense given how popular rogue-likes are these days, and the two Conception games.

It's really starting to look like Japanese developers are throwing the doors wide open for getting their games on Steam with all of these announcements of late, and now Spike Chunsoft expressing enthusiasm for it. My gut tells me that Zero Escape will be the other series that they focus on bringing over, but it's tough to say for certain given some of the very unexpected PC ports we've been getting. I'm not complaining, though, as I love these sorts of games. The more Japanese games we get on Steam, the better.