With the PSP market all but dead in every territory except for Japan, gamers in the West have sadly missed out on some of the system’s last great games. Due to low sales and high piracy, publishers are hesitant to bring over more recent PSP hits from Japan like Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, Phantasy Star Portable Infinity, and Valkyria Chonicles 3, all three of which garnered rave reviews upon their release in their home territory. Thankfully, Square-Enix hasn’t given up on Sony’s original gaming handheld yet, as the company has confimed that the latest Final Fantasy for PSP, Type 0, will indeed see an overseas release.
Final Fantasy Type-0 was recently released in Japan to solid reviews and steady sales, but while the game has enjoyed popularity in its home territory, its director, Hajima Tabata has stated from the beginning that the game was designed to appeal to Western gamers. While it retains the usual, spiky-haired teenagers and fashion-forward presentation that’s become synonymous with Final Fantasy, the game itself is an action-RPG rather than turn based, and allows players to customize their own team of up to 12 characters.
Square-Enix seemingly remains the only big publisher in the US who still sees the PSP as a viable platform, as this past year they released 3 games for the system (The 3rd Birthday, Final Fantasy IV, and Dissidia Duodecim,) none of which saw much in the way of popularity or sales, but apparently still managed to do well enough to justify Square giving the system one more shot with Type-o. It’ll be interesting to see if the game gets a UMD retail release, or if it’ll distributed digitally via the PS Store, a move that would allow it to be compatible with Sony’s upcoming (and probably more popular) PS Vita.
