Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters are available for preorder at Play-Asia

Good news, everyone! If you missed out on scoring a physical copy of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters back when Square Enix spectacularly mishandled the situation a while back, you’ve now got a second chance: popular retailer Play-Asia is listing Asia-English versions of the collection for Nintendo Switch and PS4, along with Chinese and Japanese versions.

At £65 plus tax and shipping (which comes out to about £85 in total if ordering from the UK) some will likely see this as a tad pricey, particularly compared to the discounted digital bundle (£55) available on Steam — though it’s worth bearing in mind that you do get six full-length RPGs for that price. Old ones, yes, but the Pixel Remaster versions do bring these games nicely up to date with new visuals and absolutely killer reorchestrated soundtracks. Plus they were all damn good games in the first place!

£65 is actually in line with the price Square Enix was charging for the “standard” edition of Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster when they announced it back in December of 2022. The difference here is that these Asian versions are actually available, rather than being quietly listed on Square Enix’s website and then selling out in a matter of minutes, leaving series fans having to decide if they could justify £250 for the Collector’s edition or if they were happy going without.

Square Enix’s handling of the original announcement caused a lot of anger among fans due to the more affordable standard edition being unavailable worldwide by the time most people had heard about it. The Collector’s edition is certainly nice, but £250 is a significant outlay, and one that a lot of folks weren’t willing to commit to. Hopefully this Asian release will quell at least some of that upset.

Because this is a noteworthy release worthy of celebration, regardless of its circumstances. Once these are broadly available, it will be possible to own and play physical copies of Final Fantasy I-XII (excluding the online-only XI, sadly) on a single modern platform, either Nintendo Switch or PlayStation 4.

And without compromise, either; outside of their ugly font choice (which we don’t yet know if Square Enix has fixed for the console ports — odds are they haven’t, but we’re open to being pleasantly surprised) the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters are excellent versions of these games, remarkably true to their original 8- and 16-bit incarnations but with a modernised twist.

The only downside for some longstanding Final Fantasy fans is that the Pixel Remasters are based on the original releases of the games, which means none of the extra content from later releases like the Game Boy Advance and Sony PSP versions is included. This is a particular shame in the case of Final Fantasy I and II, whose endgame dungeons and postgame scenarios offered a considerable amount of extra depth over the base game. But if you’re after a “pure” Final Fantasy experience with at least a cursory nod to modern sensibilities and presentation, the Pixel Remasters are hard to beat.

Interestingly, Play-Asia’s availability estimates for their versions of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters will, at the time of writing, actually have them in customers’ hands before Square Enix’s pre-orders. Square Enix lists a tentative release date of May 31, 2023 for both the Standard and Collector’s versions of the compilation, while Play-Asia currently expects to ship their copies out on April 20, 2023. That’ll be one last kick in the teeth for those who did manage to secure a pre-order through Square Enix’s online store!

Still, once those games are in people’s hands we can put all this ugliness behind us and get back to more important things, such as arguing about which Final Fantasy game is actually the best one, whether the White Mage in Final Fantasy I is a boy or a girl, whether or not it’s possible and/or morally acceptable to find dumpy little chibi pixel art people attractive and, by extension, which Final Fantasy waifu/husbando is best Final Fantasy waifu/husbando. You know, the finer things in life.

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Pete Davison

Pete is Rice Digital's editor, and a proud champion of any and all games involving pretty girls hanging out, saving the world or both. His first waifu was Rit from Rod Land.

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