I want you to do an exercise. I want you to
think far back to the first RPG you’ve ever
played and I want you to leave a comment on
what that game was and whether it was on a
console or a PC.
I’m going to guess that if your first title
was a JRPG, you played it on a console, but
if it was a Western RPG, you played it on
a computer. The reason for that being, before
2006, western RPGs were almost always exclusive
to PCs and before 2010 Japanese RPGs were
almost always exclusive to consoles and, but
have you ever wondered why that is?
It may be hard to believe now, considering
you can easily play games like the Witcher,
Fallout, Dragon Age or Skyrim on the PS4,
Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Or the fact
that I could go to steam right now and play
through dozens of JRPGs from popular series like Final Fantasy, Tales of, Hyperdimension Neptunia,
and many more. And perhaps even harder to
believe is the fact that if you ever find
yourself playing a JRPG on your computer,
you owe it all to Recettear, a game about
a little girl and her fairy running an item
shop for adventurers.
It may difficult to remember now, but there
was a time when Western RPGs and JRPG were
so distant platform-wise that most console
players had never played a Western RPG and
most PC gamers only knew the genre through
emulation. In fact, there was a time when
Western RPGs were simply known as Computer
RPGs.
Sure, some console owners might have played
titles like the original Diablo on the Playstation
or Deus Ex on the PS2, but let’s be honest
here, those were a tiny minority.
As you might expect, this sparked a ton of
debate. Go to any online gaming forums between
the early to mid 2000s and the Western RPG
vs JRPG debate was a common topic usually
filled with insults, non-sequiturs and memes meant to shame those who didn’t play the subgenre you did
*Sarcasm ensues*
Even gaming journalists would sink their teeth
into this discussion witch clickbait titles
like “10 ways to save JRPGs”, “JRPGs
need to evolve or die”, “Final Fantasy
isn’t dying, it’s already dead” among
others.
But all this just to say that these two sub-genres
were worlds apart. In platforms and fans,
nothing like what we have today.
But in the early 2000s this began to change.
Console gamers were slowly being introduced
to Western RPGs, and this revolution was largely
led by the Xbox brand.
The Original Xbox would launch in 2001 and
even though it was a console at heart, the
hardware itself was based on PCs of the time.
Thanks to that, the Xbox would be first console
to receive a healthy flow of Western RPGs with
titles like Star Wars: Knights of the Old
Republic 1 and 2, Jade Empire, Elder Scrolls:
Morrowind, Arx Fatalis, Deus Ex: Invisible
War and more.
This would introduce a portion of console
gamers to this sub-genre, but as you probably know,
the Xbox only accounted for 12% of all console
sales during its generation, so the floodgates
weren’t open or anything, but it did create
an opening.
Jump to the next generation however and that’s when everything changed. The Xbox 360 launched and came
out swinging and soon, titles like The Elder Scrolls:
Oblivion, Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Fallout
3 were all praised by the critics and loved
by console and PC gamers alike. Not only that,
but with their commercial success on the
Xbox 360, soon enough, all of these games
would also end up on the PS3 and from there
on, Western RPGs became a common sight on
console libraries.
But the reverse wasn’t happening with PC
gamers. PCs were simply not a platform where
you’d play Japanese RPGs. The Xbox 360 hardware
was essentially that of a PC, but even though
Microsoft’s console was getting games like
Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery,
Star Ocean 4, Eternal Sonata or Enchanted
Arms, the truth is, none of these games were
being ported to PC.
I should point out though that in Japan, JRPGs
were pretty common on computers like the MSX,
PC-88 and PC-98, but these platforms are not
what we think of as “PC Gaming”. Not to
mention they were exclusive to Japan
JRPGs would also be launched for Windows Operating
Systems in Japan, but they would not receive
a western launch at all. The most you could
hope for, was maybe a fan-made translation
which could be up to 50% complete if you were
lucky.
But if you were a western PC gamer, you’d
be hard pressed to find ANY JRPGs at all.
In fact, let’s count EVERY JRPG ever launched
in the west for PCs, between 1989, the year
in which Dragon Quest launched in America
and September 2010, the date in which Recettear
launched on Steam.
In 1989, Broderbund, the same publisher and
studio behind games like Lode Runner, Karateka,
Prince of Persia, Myst and The Last Express
would bring over the Ancient Land of Ys, Wibarm
and Psychic War: Cosmic Soldier, all of which
were developed in Japan but then ported over
to Ms-dos. As far as I know, none of these
were commercially successful as the their
JRPG line-up on PC ended with these 3 games
The following year in 1990, Sierra On-line
was next major publisher to throw their hat
into the ring with Sorcerian and Zelliard.
Up to this point, Sierra On-line was mostly
known for its adventure games like King’s
Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest and Quest
for Glory. And both Sorcerian and Zelliard
were brought over due to a trip the company’s
founder, Ken Williams took to Japan.
He was so impressed with the gaming scene
there that he signed up several publishing
deals, bringing not just these two games,
but also Thexder and Sylpheed.
Unfortunately, it seems Thexder was the only
profitable series as they also published its
sequel, Fire Hawk: Thexder The Second Contact
and the remake, Thexder 95. But as far as
JRPGs they quickly gave up after Sorcerian
and Zelliard.
we now jump 5 years to 1995 and SoftEgg a small gaming company that converted Princess Maker
2 to Ms-Dos and tried to find a publisher
for it, but as it turns out, the publisher
would end up going bankrupt and the game never
officially launched in the west. But as any
PC gamer will tell you, a near-complete copy
of the game was leaked the following year
and it was a huge underground hit within the
PC gaming community. Sadly, the western rights
to the game were now tangled in a confusing
web and it wasn’t until 2016 that the game
would finally receive an official western
release through Steam… though many would
argue the original Ms-Dos port is still the
definitive version.
Oddly enough, despite this being the first
case of a JRPG discovering a pretty big following
with the western PC gaming community, no one
ever attempted to port or bring any of the
Princess Maker sequels to either consoles
or PCs in the west…
We now jump to 1998 and 1999 with the PC ports
of Final Fantasy 7 and 8 respectively, both
brought over by Eidos, who would ironically,
end up being acquired by Square-Enix in 2009.
I’m not sure why they stopped at Final Fantasy
8, perhaps the games weren’t commercially
successful or Sony wanted to keep the series
exclusive to the Playstation, but either way,
it wouldn’t be until 2014 that a non-mmo
final fantasy game would be launched on PC.
From this point on, PC gamers would receive
Grandia 2 in 2002, Breath of Fire 4 in 2003
and finally, The Last Remnant in 2009. This
meant that between 1989 and 2010, the year
Recettear launched, PCs received a total of
10 JRPGs, which translates to one JRPG, every
2 years and considering half of this list
was from 1989 and 1990, it means PC gamers
in the 90s and 2000s would only receive a
single JRPG every 4 years.
Now granted, the PC also received titles like
Septerra Core, Silver and Sudeki, but these
were actually not developed in Japan. These
are western games that try to mimick the JRPG
formula, though once again, as far as I know,
none of these were commercial successes.
Especially Septerra Core and Silver who were
the only games to have been released by their
respective developers.
But why would this happen? Why would Japanese
developers ignore a platform as large and
established in the west as the PC? Well, I
have no definitive answer, but I believe it’s
a mix of past attempts being commercially unsucessful, especially when
compared to their console counterparts and
the fact Japanese developers at the time were
not comfortable with all the variety and combinations
of PC hardware. I mean, let’s not forget how
the original PC port of Resident Evil 4 didn’t
even have mouse controls, so you were forced
to play a third person shooter using a keyboard,
or how Dark Souls had several graphical and
optimizations issues which were fixed by
modders within a week.
But so, how does all of this relate to Recettear?
Simply put, Recettear was the first time a
JRPG became a critical and commercial hit
on PC, not only that, but this was the first
JRPG, developed in Japan and released in the
west exclusively for PCs.
This meant if you were a console gamer who
wanted to play Recettear, you’d have to
buy it on Steam. But considering how the game
itself was anything but demanding at the time
of release, even those with older computers
would likely play Recettear just fine.
Adittionally, Mainstream websites and magazines
were fawning over the game, Eurogamer for
example would score it a 9/10, calling it “one
of the best indie games to arrive this year”.
You’d also see a torrent of interviews with
either the developers, EasyGameStation, or
the publisher, Carpe Fulgur.
But more importantly, in terms of sales, Recettear
was a runaway success, surprising even the
publisher itself. In fact, according Carpe
Fulgur’s founder, on December 2010, just
3 months after Recettear’s launch, the game
had outsold even their most optimistic predictions
10 times over.
Recettear was a success, a big one Especially for PC JRPGs in 2010 And as the year drew to a close
their sales numbers reveal turned everyone’s heads, media, publishers and developers.
The game was topping Steam's sales charts, outselling even AAA titles
And this was it, this was the point when Japanese developers and publishers
realized that there was money to be had by porting
their games to PCs.
Try to think of any JRPG on steam, and I assure
you, they launched after Recettear took Steam
by storm.
and from there on every major JRPG publisher
joined the race. With Dark Souls and the Ys
series being the first titles to hit steam
in late 2011 and early 2012 all of which were
commercially successful endeavours. Most likely,
they more than surpassed Recettear’s sales,
but that’s not the point, the point is that
Recettear was the game that got the ball rolling.
And in the following years Steam would receive
the rest of the Ys series, the Final Fantasy
Series, , The Legend of Heroes series, Hyperdimension
Neptunia, and so much more.
So the next time you’re playing a JRPG on
your computer, take a brief moment and contemplate
that all of this was only possible because of a little
girl, her fairy and their small item shop
for adventurers
Hey everyone, thank you for watching St1ka’s
Retro Corner. If you enjoyed this video, be
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