Five Japanese Games We Want On PC
More and more Japanese publishers are realizing that there’s a massive audience waiting to play their games on PC.
Games like Metal Gear Rising, Dynasty Warriors, Binary Domain, Deadly Premonition, and even Dark Souls have found a welcome home on PC, and more recently Metal Gear Solid V and Valkyria Chronicles.
Some of the most imaginative, inventive, interesting, and downright insane games come from the shores of Japan. But there are loads more that haven’t made it yet. So here are some of the best games from the Land of the Rising Sun that we’d love to make their way onto Steam.
Number 1
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid V is coming to PC, which is great news, but for those unaware of the series’ nightmarishly complex narrative, Konami really would benefit from porting the HD Collection released on PS3 and 360 a couple of years ago. The highlight of the series is the relatively accessible prequel Metal Gear Solid 3, a Cold War-set military tale starring Big Boss, the ‘father’ (I won’t go into it) of iconic series protagonist Solid Snake.With innovative boss battles—including one extended sniper battle where your enemy can die of old age during the conflict—and the only story in the series that makes any kind of real-world sense, it transforms into a surprisingly perceptive attack on patriotism and has one of the best endings of any video game.
Plus, it has the series’ standard nuclear robots and reference-laden sense of humor. But the truth is, I could write 4000 words on why Metal Gear Solid deserves to be on PC. It’s Hideo Kojima’s greatest and most consistently inventive work, and I’d love to have it live forever in my Steam library alongside all the others. Make it happen, Konami.
Number 2
Soulcalibur 2
Fighting games are becoming more and more prominent on PC, notable series – from Street Fighter to Mortal Kombat – are now fully at home on the platform. So where’s Soulcalibur? It’s not just a great series, but a personal favorite of mine. In particular, Soulcalibur 2, which for reasons beyond understanding was the last to feature Versus Team Battle brilliant challenge between two teams of eight fighters. Let’s get it on PC, with some proper online support.
Number 3
Bayonetta
The creator of Devil May Cry returned to the 3D fighter genre he created in 2009 to show Capcom how it’s done. Bayonetta is a combo-heavy hack-and-slasher that relies on muscle memory, instinct and razor-sharp timing, and for the specific subset of players who can handle the level of challenge, there’s no better game in that space. The second one just appeared exclusively on Wii U, funded by Nintendo, so it’s unlikely to ever appear on PC—I’d just settle for the first one.
Number 4
Yakuza
Often unfairly written off as ‘Grand Theft Auto in Japan’ (it really isn’t), this crime epic is brilliantly funny and lets you smash bicycles over peoples’ heads. Explore the streets of Tokyo, beat people up, play darts, and, in Yakuza 3, run an orphanage. Yes, really. Binary Domain is by the same team and came to PC, so fingers crossed this makes it too.
Number 5
God Hand
One of the oddest and most underrated games I’ve ever played, God Hand reinvented brawlers by allowing players to build and customize their own combos—thing is, nobody noticed, it sold horribly and the studio that made God Hand (again, Clover, which later formed Platinum Games) was shut down upon its release.
Alongside this radical combat system was a bizarre, violent and often hilarious story that I really can’t justify in any way, so here’s the theme song. If Capcom ported the Resi remake across, I really think they should consider doing God Hand next—it may finally find the audience it deserves on Steam.