What Happened to Dragon Quest Outside Japan?

It hasn’t been that long since the era when we felt we could count on steady localizations for Dragon Quest games, though it feels like it. Square Enix apparently threw in the towel after Dragon Quest V on DS didn’t perform to their expectations, which likely occurred because they released it too soon after IV in America. It was nice that Nintendo was there to pick up their slack after grabbing and publishing Dragon Quest IX in western territories. After its superlative sales, they had no problem bringing Dragon Quest VI and, eventually, Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 to the markets.

Sadly, it’s the two latter games that were the turning point for the franchise in the west, and it wasn’t a positive one. No one should have expected DQVI to sell as well as IX. The title may have been new to us (the original SNES game never left Japan), but it used the 2D art style that originated in Dragon Quest VII on PSOne, and looked old fashioned compared to the comparatively-newfangled 3D style IX adopted. Nintendo didn’t advertise it as heavily either, though they did enough to let consumers know it was out there. No, it was Joker 2 that received the stealth release treatment. That was already a tough sell thanks to (1) people who didn’t like Joker, (2) the fact that they used the original version as a base for localization instead of the enhanced “Professional” one, and (3) it was a DS game in late 2011.

The series’ nonexistence outside Japan has made for a depressing time for nearly two-and-a-half years. Few were expecting to see MMORPG Dragon Quest X over here, thanks to it being old fashioned compared to the MMO standards westerners have due to other games in the genre. It also would have been a huge resource drain for Nintendo and Square Enix to maintain online servers and updates for a venture that may not have been profitable. No one expected Dragon Quest Monsters: Battle Road Victory for Wii, either. Heck, I’m willing to bet a lot of fans forgot it existed. At least the pretty CG intro movie is worth checking out.

But many of us did expect some of the 3DS games that hit Japan to eventually hit western territories, and that, tragically, that’s not happening. Thus far, Japan has received three DQ games for the system, and a fourth one is on the way Thursday. Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime 3 (or Pirate Slime) had the lowest chance of making its way outside the country, due to mostly resembling its DS predecessor (i.e. it’s 2D). It also wasn’t very popular, despite it brimming with personality. Remake Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry’s Wonderland 3D not making it also isn’t that much of a surprise, given how the Joker games apparently sold. It also resembled a DS game that was shifted to 3DS mid-development. The second remake releasing in two days, Dragon Quest Monsters 2: Iru and Luca’s Marvelous Mysterious Key, doesn’t look much better. Neither of these titles are likely to come over at this point.

It is a surprise to see that the Dragon Quest VII remake apparently isn’t coming over, either. It’s the kind of RPG that would sell outside Japan, even in this dark and dreary time for dedicated handhelds. It looks pretty enough, and its word-of-mouth is good enough that fans of Japanese RPGs on handhelds would take notice. It’s been just about a year since it released in Japan, and we’ve heard nothing about a localization. It’s possible Nintendo found that translating and localizing the piles upon piles of text it contains a daunting task (it’s the longest game in the series), and felt it wasn’t worth spending money on the resources that would require.

I’ll admit there’s an optimistic part of me that refuses to give up on DQVII for 3DS yet. I’m still hoping that Nintendo will announce it one day soon, and perhaps they’re waiting until after Bravely Default releases in America this Friday. The chances of that aren’t high, though.

None of the above text is saying Dragon Quest’s time in the sunshine is done outside Japan. No, we’ll see in the near future that it’s still very much alive, perhaps not in a way you’d prefer.

We’ve received plenty of evidence that the mobile phone versions of the Dragon Quest games are coming west; in fact, this info is in badly-kept secret territory. First, English files (and other languages) were found in the code of Dragon Quest VIII for iOS after it released in Japan. Following this, both Dragon Quest I & II for iOS were rated by the ESRB, meaning they might be coming soon. Keep in mind DQII on iOS isn’t available in Japan yet, either, but it could show up any week now. That they’re on the same listing means they might be packaged together outside Japan.

The biggest downside here isn’t that they’re on phones and tablets, which is a personal preference. The problem is the ports aren’t much better than the Final Fantasy VI one Square Enix threw together and released on Android a few weeks ago. The port of DQI is based on the old feature phone version that released in Japan years ago. But instead of giving it proper care, they simply took that low resolution version and stretched it improperly for the larger dimensions phones can handle these days. The results aren’t the worst they could have been, but still, put a little polish into a port of a game from one of your biggest franchises. And poor DQVIII deserves better than a port that can only be played in portrait mode, and runs at a worse framerate than the PS2 version despite being on more powerful hardware.

Getting the mobile versions is OK, but having some of the 3DS games really wouldn’t hurt — especially in DQVII’s case. It appears Square Enix will be announcing Dragon Quest XI in the near future, and we know it won’t be a mobile game. Given how the previous new games have done outside Japan, this might be the only one that makes it over on a dedicated system — which has a 99.9% chance of being 3DS. Hey, something is better than nothing, right?