Final Fantasy is Square Enix’s flagship, whereas Dragon Quest is an also-ran. One Square Enix staffer has a few theories as to why.
Dragon Quest govt producer Yu Miyake has made some fascinating and unusually crucial feedback on how the franchise has been dealt with traditionally, which is way much less widespread within the west than stablemate Final Fantasy regardless of having fun with comparable ranges of affection at dwelling in Japan.
In an EDGE interview reported by Nintendo Everything, Miyake mentioned Square Enix has put quite a lot of thought into why one fantasy RPG sequence is so widespread within the west and the opposite isn’t.
“One conclusion that we’ve reached is that it’s a question of historical timing,” he mentioned.
“When the Famicom got here out, Dragon Quest was the important thing sport everybody was enjoying. But when the PlayStation got here out, Final Fantasy 7 was the sport that everybody was enjoying. So the supply of nostalgia is completely different for each teams: in Japan it’s Dragon Quest whereas abroad it’s Final Fantasy.
“The fact is that if we’d put quite a lot of effort into localising Dragon Quest on the time, we in all probability wouldn’t be dealing with this difficulty right now. I in all probability shouldn’t be saying this, however we form of tousled in that regard.”
The “we” right here is Enix, which merged with Square (or Squaresoft, as we knew it within the west) in 2003, bringing Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy into the identical household. Prior to this merger, Enix was fairly relaxed about localisation, specializing in the home market. Classic Dragon Quest video games are finest remembered by NES followers as “Dragon Warrior”, which doesn’t assist the model’s recognition right now.
After the 2 publishers merged, Square Enix “put a lot of effort” into Dragon Quest eight, Miyake mentioned, together with contemplating how one can attraction to avid gamers exterior of Japan.
“We used a lot more regional voice acting, for example. We put a lot of thought into the menu design,” he mentioned.
“But we didn’t want to give up the core element that made the game Dragon Quest. The game did have some modest sales overseas, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the level of Final Fantasy sales.”
Miyake additionally instructed Dragon Quest’s traditional anime visible model is seen as infantile by westerners, despite the fact that the content material could also be fairly mature.
But curiosity is on the rise, he added, and Square Enix is working onerous to advertise Dragon Quest Builders and Dragon Quest Heroes within the west “in order to soften up the ground for Dragon Quest 11”.
Dragon Quest 11 is predicted on 3DS, PS4 and Switch, by the way in which. There’s some fascinating dialogue via the hyperlink above on why the sequence has jumped platforms from dwelling console to moveable to MMO – after which to no matter this new one is.
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