Dragon Quest Celebration

[sin2beta]

Happy Console Gamer recently did a video for Dragon Quest. I've always know this series as being insanely popular in Japan, but forgotten in the States. At least until recently. although it still is no where near Final Fantasy levels. The video got me thinking. Why do you think this series never did well. Nintendo promoted it. They even gave the game away for free. But it seems like, even at the time, Final Fantasy was still number 1.

The only thing I could think of is that the US had a bigger split between computer and console players. Most of the potential Dragon Warrior fans were on the Amiga or DOS? But this doesn't explain why Final Fantasy did better. Although, they did not release FF 2 or 3 here, so maybe it really did not do as well as I remember...

I have several fond memories of the game. It was the first RPG I ever played. And although I'm not a big RPG fan. 8-bit RPGs have a special place in my heart. And this game is second only to Phantasy Star. I have not played any Dragon Warrior/Quest after the first one though.

Anyways, any thoughts about the series? Any diehard fans who make giant slimes out of bean bags?

[soera]

Who would be crazy enough to make a slime beanbag?

Here is my take on the FF vs DQ? Nes - FF, DW 1-4 ... after that, it was all FF for a while. Any chance that DQ would have had to keep fans was mostly lost at that point. Then comes the playstation. FF 7, 8, and 9 were all released before DQ VII. Any left over fans were probably done by this time. The gap was simply too big to keep mid level fans interested.

[haloofthesun]

From my personal experience, back in the day FF didn't really start getting any attention much more than DQ until 3(6) was released, but it also didn't help that there were no DQ games released on SNES in the U.S. When 7 came out, it was FF all the way.

[sin2beta]

I bet that's true. I don't actually remember much of Final Fantasy before 7. I imagine Square won a bunch of fans during the SNES era as well. I do remember Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG being big things back in the day. I could see the huge power gap happening then.

[scott]

For me, I knew much more about Dragon Warrior than I did about Final Fantasy. Dragon Warrior 1 was my 1st RPG experience also, and I loved it.

Honestly, I never even heard of Final Fantasy until I saw my cousin playing Final Fantasy II on SNES. And then I played Final Fantasy III and fell in love. By the time Final Fantasy VII came around I was deep in Square's corner. ha

[soera]

For me, I knew much more about Dragon Warrior than I did about Final Fantasy. Dragon Warrior 1 was my 1st RPG experience also, and I loved it.

Honestly, I never even heard of Final Fantasy until I saw my cousin playing Final Fantasy II on SNES. And then I played Final Fantasy III and fell in love. By the time Final Fantasy VII came around I was deep in Square's corner. ha

Yep, this is about the scenario I was talking about. The time between DWIV and DQVII was known as the Dark age for DQ. It really was the point in which the series was all but destroyed in the US.

[scott]

Honestly, even when I saw DW7 and DQ8 I was kinda "meh, Dragon Quest".

Tho now I've rediscovered DQ and love it again.

[varkias]

IMO I think DQ never did as well here in the US is because until the last couple games the player characters had very little to no personality.  The DQ formula has never changed and graphics always seem to come last compared to story and character development (although the monster animations are freakin amazing).  I love that this series has not changed much over the years but you have to admit DQ isn't for everyone.  Super grindy, hard bosses and extremely time consuming.  I really enjoy relaxing at the end of the day to some DQ.  I'm currently playing through DQVIII again right now, and am working toward a mint complete set of the games.  Now I need to watch this vid, thanks for the post sin2beta!