and a demo will be available February 27th (I believe even if it’s the Japanese version, it still has the English language available in it). Game will be out April 9th.
Steam/Square-Enix PR:
Square Enix, Inc., the publisher of Square Enix® interactive entertainment products in North America (Square Enix), and Valve Corporation (Valve), a developer of leading-edge technologies and software, announced today an agreement to bring Square Enix titles to customers in North America via Steam®, Valve’s leading platform for digital content distribution and management.
Beginning April 9, THE LAST REMNANT will be available for purchase via Steam, which makes PC games available online to more than 15 million users worldwide. An action RPG from the makers of the FINAL FANTASY® series, THE LAST REMANT will be the first Square Enix game to utilize Steamworks and be distributed via Steam. Square Enix will continue to add to its roster of games on Steam, providing users with instant access - after purchase, they can download the game immediately and start playing. Pricing will be announced at a later date.
“We are excited to offer the millions of Steam customers online access to Square Enix titles beginning with our major action RPG, THE LAST REMNANT,” said John Yamamoto, president and chief executive officer of Square Enix Inc. and Square Enix Ltd. “Square Enix is committed to delivering the best quality titles to PC gamers and distribution on Steam is one of the many steps we are taking to increase accessibility for fans in North America and PAL territories.”
Once players have a Steam account, they can sign in from any PC to access their Steam-distributed Square Enix games. Because games are associated with their account and not their computer, players can get lost in the world of their favorite game anytime, anywhere.
“Square Enix is a fantastic addition to the Steam lineup,” said Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve. “We are thrilled that Square Enix chose to bring its diverse portfolio of titles to Steam and know that our customers will be ecstatic to hear this news.”
so buy it for the slim chance of also getting Star Ocean 4 and FFXIII on the PC…
Diverse portfolio? There aren’t all that many other S-E PC games, are there? FF7, 8 and 11 are all I can think of or find in a quick search. And I’m not sure that simply being on Steam will really draw that many more new people to FF11…
(Edit: Supposedly there was a DOS version of the original Dragon Warrior, but it might have only been released in Japan.)
It’s not the first time S-E has done something like this. In the early years of FFXI, they released a few iterations of the Vana’diel Bench program, so people could get a reasonable idea of how well the FFXI Windows client might run on their PCs.
Of course, only antediluvian PCs can’t run FFXI well now… :)
An opinion from what? The usual reviews, previews, and screenshots? I glanced at that and quickly realized I have no context since the last time I was into JRPGs was over 10 years ago.
I uh… enjoy Last Scenario and would love to play a standard SRPG on the PC. The press release says action-RPG, which has me even more confused. I guess I’ll have to play the demo.
IIRC, the biggest complaints about Last Remnant on the X360 (well, apart from “it’s just another Square RPG!” which either you’re into or you’re not) were technical issues: i.e., framerate drops, texture pop-in, etc. - the usual stuff you read about UE3 games (see also: Mass Effect). Presuming the PC version fixes those, at least on a good PC, then it’ll be a better Square RPG than it was.
EDIT: never heard of Last Scenario or Exit Fate before, so thanks for mentioning them.
