For those who don’t know, Dragon Quest isn’t just another RPG series in the gaming space. For many, it’s the first major RPG franchise in gaming history. Created by Yuji Horii, it helped set the tone for many RPGs to come, including helping create the franchise that would become the backbone of its current publisher, Square Enix. Recently, the third game in the franchise got an HD-2D remake, and it was confirmed via Twitter that the game had sold over two million copies after being released last month. That’s absolutely cause for celebration. Yet, Yuji Horii popped in to note something a little different.
In his quoted tweet, he had a request for those who bought the game:
“It seems that so many people are playing it, and I couldn’t be happier. The game is much easier to play, so if you’ve already completed it, please lend the software to people who have never played Dragon Quest before, or to small children, and teach them how to play.”
Isn’t that a nice thing to request? And you can see why he wants the younger generation or non-RPG fans to try it out because he knows that this version of the game won’t be the hardest to complete and that you won’t need to do the “RPG grind” at times just to get through certain boss fights. Square Enix has been doing a thing where it’s embracing turn-based RPGs at times while also trying to embrace more free-flow fighting styles to appeal to more modern gamers. It’s a difficult balance to be sure, but it’s one that is interesting to see unfold.
Sticking with the new remake, it’s important to note that another part of the 2 million sold reveal is that just about a million of those copies were sold in Japan, and over 950K of those million from Japan were physical copies of the game! They were selling out so fast that people had to wait for restocks to happen so they could get their copies!
What this shows is that the franchise still has a big following in Japan, and gamers there go crazy for the series. That’s good news for Square Enix, as the company has two more HD-2D titles from this series coming out to complete the “trilogy” that the third game “started” oh so long ago. That means, should the quality hold, Square Enix can bank on players buying these titles upon release.
And, hopefully, small children will buy it too.
