After four years console-exclusive, Final Fantasy XIII and its two sequels are making their way to PC, and at budget pricing to boot.
Other than RPG Maker titles the western market really doesn’t see a lot of JRPG love on the PC. Square Enix has been working to fix that the last few years, with ports/re-releases of several of their classic Final Fantasy games on the platform, and now in a somewhat surprising move, the company is doing the same with the most recent single-player games, namely the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy.
Lauded for its incredible graphics at the time of release, Final Fantasy XIII is something of a divisive title in the Final Fantasy series. While the first game’s overall reception was positive from the largely JRPG-starved audience of the time, and its existence as the first cross-platform non-MMO Final Fantasy game since VII made for an interesting change of pace, many long-time fans of the series criticized the game for its simplified gameplay elements and what many considered one of the weaker stories and casts in the series. Despite these issues, the game managed to carry two direct sequels, one of them another JRPG while the last entry in the trilogy, Lightning Returns, is more of a Kingdom Hearts-styled action RPG, both of which received average to middling reviews.
Little is currently known about what exactly PC ports of the games will entail. Given their origins as console exclusives, it will be interesting to see whether Square Enix goes the lazy route, eliminating the visual customization options most PC gamers crave, or if they take the time to make the ports high-quality conversions. Looking at the pre-order page for the first release on Steam shows quite low entry requirements to play (as is to be expected of a four year old title,) but with Square Enix’s mixed history concerning port quality it will be interesting to see how the graphics for the games fare in the conversion.
Final Fantasy XIII is available for pre-order now, with the game officially releasing on October 9th 2014. The game will be available for only $15.99 on release day, but for the moment those who pre-order can get the game for only $14.39.
Does this bode well for other classic Final Fantasy titles seeing release on the PC as well? With Square Enix’s history of re-releases, revamps, and series milking, only time will tell if we will be so lucky.