Give Dragon Quest a chance
October 7, 2008 9:29 am Games
The recent Nintendo DS remake of Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen has sold millions of copies in Japan.
In the US, I’ll be surprised if it breaks 50,000.
Why such a low estimate? The primary reason is that Dragon Quest IV is steeped in old-school Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) tradition: it’s a long, grinding quest, enemy encounters are randomized, and the battles are turn-based. There’s plenty of great story and character development, but the random encounters and turn-based battles alone will turn off a majority of American RPG fans. This is because gamers over here these days don’t want “true” RPGs; they want action-RPGs. In fact, more action and less RPG is generally the order of the day.
That’s not to say that there aren’t any phenomenal Western-developed RPGs, as it were; there’s plenty of them, actually. But this arrogant disdain for JRPGs based on two core gameplay concepts is ridiculous. (It may be part of the growing backlash against Japanese-developed games we’ve been seeing amongst the American gaming populace lately due to the rise of Western talent and consoles, but that’s a topic for another day.) It’s a shame to see that a great game like Dragon Quest IV will likely get the shaft due to gamer ignorance. We can only hope it won’t scuttle Square Enix‘s plans to also release the Dragon Quest V and Dragon Quest VI remakes stateside.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:42 PM
I think a big reason it won’t sell well is because it isn’t advertised. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one commercial for a Dragon Quest game, period.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with disliking random battles, that was my one big complaint with RPGs growing up and I think that’s one of the reasons people loved Chrono Trigger so much. They just get annoying after a while, especially when you’re logging in 40+ hours into a game.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:01 PM
Re: kaneda33
Perhaps, but Chrono Trigger‘s popularity was overwhelmingly due to its perfect narrative and the “total package,” as it were. (Lex Luger did not make a cameo in that game.) If a game’s got a solid plot and gameplay system, then random battles won’t get boring no matter how long the game is (e.g., Dragon Quest VIII). I’d venture to say that a majority of action-RPGs can be just as boring, due to the fact that the enemy encounters and battle systems are too simplified.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:26 PM
It took me a minute to get that Lex Luger joke…pretty good.
Typically though from what I’ve seen in the past decade is that the random battles haven’t been upgraded that much, gameplay wise. In that sense I think they’d get boring pretty fast, because the game play is similar to what you’ve already experienced. I haven’t played DQ8, so I wouldn’t know how different the battles are in that game. For me though they didn’t bore me in the past.
My complaint with them wasn’t that they were boring, but that they got annoying. I’d like to have some choice when I want to fight enemies or not. That is probably what I liked most about FF12. If I saw a T-Rex in a desert and didn’t want to get my ass kicked, I could run away from him. The concept is really helpful when it comes to save states too, you could run away from every enemy on your way there.
I would argue that random battles are a simplification in and of themselves.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:36 PM
It’s not a simplification; they were around first, because that’s all the old systems could handle! Deliberately including them now might be understandably archaic by some standards, but certainly not simplified. And in Dragon Quest‘s case, it’s required, as that’s the foundation the game’s built upon; they were going to change things with DQIX, but the fanbase cried foul, forcing Squeenix to change it back to the tried-and-true system.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:21 PM
I meant the concept itself is simple…how have they changed it? Ultima has been around forever…and they got rid of random battles pretty damn fast.
Did the fan base really erupt when they said they were going to get rid of random battles?
October 8th, 2008 at 4:24 PM
Indeed they did. Originally, DQIX was going to have a realtime battle system, complete with multiplayer capability. The DQ faithful (at least in Japan) were not pleased.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:25 PM
Do you have an article that states that?
October 8th, 2008 at 4:45 PM
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/48660
It was also reported on the Retronauts podcast a while back, if I remember correctly.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:04 PM
“As reason for the delay, the company issued the usual statement about needing extra time to make a game that will better satisfy players.”
Doesn’t say if that’s about random battles or not…therefore I’m assuming that they were working to increase the amount of boobage in the game to better satisfy players.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:50 PM
It’s Dragon Quest, not DOA.