‘Make some noise’: Vanillaware reportedly wants more of its games on PC, but it’s up to the publishers

I try not to think too hard about console exclusives. What I don’t know can’t hurt me, and all the cool games hidden away on whatever the hell a “PlayStation” is can’t tempt me into buying one if I don’t know they exist. Vanillaware games, though, have historically been too cool to ignore.

It was nice to see a Steam page surface for the studio’s newest game, the side-scrolling ARPG Muramasa: Revenant Blades, but there’s still a legendary back catalog stranded on out-of-season consoles and emulators. It turns out the studio’s founder, George Kamitani, “totally wants to” bring those other games to PC, as games journalist James Mielke said on Bluesky.

“It’s up to the publisher to finance the ports,” Mielke relayed the word from Kamitani. “So if you want 13 Sentinels, Dragon’s Crown, Unicorn Overlord, Odin Sphere etc. on PC, make some noise.” When a reply on that thread mentioned “earlier reports” saying Kamitani refused to port Vanillaware games to PC previously, Mielke replied “the reports were wrong.”

All sorts of games have niche fanbases that want them ported to PC, but Vanillaware’s catalog seems full of especially strong candidates. It’d be nice to play Dragon’s Crown, a spiritual successor to Capcom’s D&D beat ’em ups with added RPG elements, during the genre’s new golden age.

The underloved controller-friendly RTS Grimgrimoire might be an even better fit on PC than it ever was on PlayStation or Switch, given that strategy games have historically been a bigger hit with keyboard enjoyers.

Regardless, none of these games are coming to PC without the right publisher’s go-ahead, so take to the streets and make your voices heard. Failing that, just post “Odin Sphere PC when” on your social media app of choice.