Random Roar: Dragon Quest Fans Deserve Better

 

The year was 2005.  A handheld war had just begun between Nintendo and Sony, with Sony once again betting big on disc media like it did in the main console war and Nintendo instead focusing on innovation and gimmicks.  UbiSoft became an early adopter of the Nintendo DS by announcing a brand new game in the Lunar series.  Lunar: Genesis was to be the first new game in the series in nine years, arguably not that long a gap by today’s standards, but nine years used to be considered a lengthy pause for a video game series.

UbiSoft went all out on the marketing of this game, even going so far as to partner with fan site LunarNET in a clever bit of fan engagement: the site hosted a poll to determine what the English name of the game should be.  I guess “Lunar: Genesis” wasn’t going to work in North America for some reason.

When Lunar: Dragon Song was released in North America, fans were rightly bewildered.  The game betrayed the legacy of the series and was considered exceedingly terrible, and yet a review posted on RPGFan ended with these words:

“I will leave readers with this one piece of awkward advice: if you’re a fan of the series, go out and buy or rent it anyway. Play the game. See for yourself what it’s like. Why? Because, even though this game was trash, if it gets enough support, then there may be hope for a real Lunar 3 in the future. In Japan, a Lunar side-story was once released called “Magic School Lunar” (a remake of the Game Gear title “Walking School Lunar.”) The game was terrible, and I’m sure that this is the title that marked the end for a totally new Lunar title for the last decade. I don’t want to wait another ten years to play another Lunar “gaiden” that turns out to be hastily made. I want Lunar 3, I want it on a next-gen console, and I want it to be amazing. If we support Game Arts, there is still the smallest chance that it could happen; and I’m still holding on to that hope. Though Jian didn’t teach me how to have this sort of hope, Hiro and Lucia (of Eternal Blue) did, and I’ll do whatever it takes as a Lunar Fan to see it happen. Please join me. Play Lunar: Dragon Song despite its shoddiness and join me in the quest to see Lunar continue.” –Patrick Gann

This kind of mentality has persisted among fans of games that have historically not reached the same level of success as giants like Final Fantasy.  (Even then, we have missed out on a few Final Fantasy games, but the last really notable one that I can think of, Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, was because the technology simply wasn’t available in North America yet and Square-Enix couldn’t be bothered to port it to something that was.)  The thought is that if we just support a game enough, even if it’s not what we hoped for, we’ll eventually get something that we do want and will hopefully enjoy.

The sad truth about the game industry is that they do most definitely look to past performance in order to determine future success.  When Nintendo initially refused to bring Xenoblade Chronicles over to North America, they were having internal discussions about whether or not it would be profitable to release the game in English.  Eventually, after frustrating fans of RPGs for more than a year, the game finally released in North America, followed by two other games which were heavily requested by Operation Rainfall.

It’s too bad we can’t sit in on these internal meetings so that we’d have a better idea of the localization status of games we’ve been waiting for.  Otherwise, we’re stuck parroting the idea that as long as we keep supporting X and Y games, we’ll get Z and A games later on down the line.

No RPG series has been so sporadically released outside of Japan as much as Dragon Quest has.  Fans are sadly used to the notion that not every game is going to arrive on our shores, and yet they’re hopeful that if they just keep supporting every title enough, they’ll never miss another Dragon Quest game again.  The trouble is, there are a couple reasons this is not true.

For one thing, it seems to take a long time to localize these games.  In a recent Random Roar, I discussed the reasons that a Dragon Quest localization might take longer than other games.  To summarize: Japanese puns won’t work in English and brand new puns will need to be written, representing different accents in English can also be quite the chore, and this is on top of the sheer amount of text present in a Dragon Quest game.  For another, if a game is released near the end of life of a device like Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 was, we’re simply never going to see a release for the game outside of Japan, since the idea is that no one will want games on this old system when a brand new system is out.  Never mind that the PlayStation 2 disproved this for nearly the entire lifetime of the PlayStation 3.

When a Dragon Quest game does come out, the mentality is to support it and show Square-Enix that the series is definitely profitable outside of Japan.  It’ll never reach the same popularity as Final Fantasy does, as even games with mixed reviews like Final Fantasy XV sell millions of copies, but there’s always the hope that the series will sell enough that the company will keep localizing the games.

That said, the Definitive Edition of Dragon Quest XI, which is being launched as a separate game completely and not a major content patch to the existing game, really feels like Square-Enix is taking the piss.  The PlayStation 4 version is going to contain features that the original version on the console did not have, but which other versions that appeared elsewhere did.  Naturally, although fans are pissed that they bought the game already and are going to have to buy it again if they want those missing features, many are resigned to the notion that they’re going to want to buy it if they want to make sure they don’t miss out on brand new titles in the future.

As far as I can tell, this is the first time a modern Dragon Quest game is being given this kind of special edition treatment, but it’s nothing new in the game industry.  Many companies will release improved editions of their games soon after they were initially released, and Square-Enix themselves have been doing it ever since they were Squaresoft releasing International Versions of their Final Fantasy games and Final Mix versions of Kingdom Hearts.  You can also find multiple versions of the first several Dragon Quest games on the Famicom and Super Famicom, published by Enix.  This is also, as far as I can tell, the first time that North America is receiving an “improved” version of a Square-Enix game this soon after the original release, although we did receive the GBA and DS versions of Final Fantasy IV within three years of each other.

As much as I’d like to believe that buying Dragon Quest XI all over again is going to help us finally get Dragon Quest X, I feel like asking, how much more are we supposed to do?  Does Square-Enix really intend to release the MMO outside of Japan and even if they do, am I really arguing for adding another monthly subscription fee to my credit card?  If they really intended to release the game, they probably should’ve done it by now.  The PlayStation 4 version was the best possibility for bringing the game to North America, given the Windows version had been available for years at that point without a localization announcement, but it’s been three years since and not even the version on a Sony console has arrived on our shores.

And even if I do buy the Definitive Edition of Dragon Quest XI, many players of the original report spending over a hundred hours doing everything and earning the Platinum Trophy on PSN.  The new edition has a separate trophy list to earn.  Am I really supposed to spend more than a hundred hours playing the Definitive Edition so soon after playing the original?  It doesn’t matter how good a game something is, you’re still going to want to take a bit of a break when you finish it.

If this is the new normal for Square-Enix’s flagship titles in North America, it’s going to make it hard for fans to decide if they want to buy an overly hyped game when it comes out or if they should just wait a couple years for a better version while they try to dodge spoilers.  That said, Kingdom Hearts III didn’t have a Final Mix version, but that’s not to say that future games won’t, and International Versions have largely been phased out of Final Fantasy after the twelfth game (although they released one for Final Fantasy XIII that contained no differences from the North American version of the game, so it doesn’t count).  However, the historical precedent is there, and companies like Atlus are keeping the practice alive in the meantime within its Shin Megami Tensei franchise.

Am I really supposed to buy a second version of a hundred hour game so soon after the first?

 

 

The Dragon Quest IV Retrospective is re-scheduled for September 2