After several months of near silence regarding the Nihon-Falcom classics’s release on the platform, Mastiff has announced that the title will pierce the heavens that are the Steam store-front starting on March 30th. This newly enhanced release of the original PC version of the game will feature widescreen support, controller support, and steamworks integration along with trading cards and cloud save support. Compared to the games previous western release on the PSP, this version will run at 60 fps.
Gurumin started its life as an action platformer in late 2004, where it was originally a PC exclusive. The west never got this version of the title; though eventually a PSP port was developed and quickly localized for a western release. This version of the title went on to achieve relative critical acclaim, credited for its fantastic soundtrack and gameplay. Although Mastiff has published many titles on consoles in the past, including Gurumin's original western release on the PSP, this is the first PC release for the company and the publishing house had to look towards Steam Greenlight in order to get the game on Steam.
Perhaps infamously, Gurumin also was one of the most famous examples of a game using free keys as a means to game Greenlight votes - a practice that Valve has recently denounced. Furthermore, if the developers intend to keep to their promise of handing out codes for everyone within the (now closed) Gurumin Steam Group, then they will have to give away over 10k keys for free - perhaps greatly limiting the potential for the game's success on the platform. Previous Nihon-Falcom titles published by XSEED Games have seen great success on Steam, and it was recently confirmed that some of their titles have numbers sold in the 6 digits, but whether or not Gurumin can see similar success is to be determined.
For what it's worth - I remember playing Gurumin's PSP port back in the day, and I can confirm that the game does have both a rocking soundtrack and fantastic gameplay. We'll have a review for the title following the games' launch.
