Why didn't Dragon Quest take off in the west with Dragon Quest 11?

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Another way to ask this question is, "Why is Dragon Quest 11 so popular in Japan?"  If you look at it that way, then I think the answers become more obvious:

1. Most importantly is lineage.  It's a sequel to a franchise that is already huge.  The game pretty much sells itself, because it has been one of their biggest gaming franchises since the NES days.  To Japan, Dragon Quest is at least as big as Mario.  It's kind of like asking "why does Mario sell" or "why does GTA sell?"  Once a franchise gets that popular, it will just sell.

So, that begs the question, "how did Dragon Quest get big"?

2.  The first one on NES was Japan's first real RPG with any decent quality to it.  Meanwhile in the west we had CRPG's like Ultima which were a lot more sophisticated than Dragon Quest.  Also D&D was a lot more popular in the US in the 80s, and Dragon Quest seemed more dumbed down than either Ultima or D&D.  In contrast, Final Fantasy 1, while still a niche title, was better received than DQ1 because you could make your own party of classes which were very similar to D&D classes.

3. Dragon Quest has always had it's art done by Akira Toriyama (in all or in part).  While almost no one knows that name in the West, he has always been extremely popular comic book artist in Japan.  (He, for example, created Dragonball.)  Imagine if one of the best action games on the NES was an Avengers game written and drawn by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.  That would have been friggin' awesome right?  Now imagine they continued to make these games every generation in the same style only bigger and better.  It would just continue to be huge forever.  Well Japan basically did get the equivalent of a high quality Lee/Kirby game and it was Dragon Quest.

4. Name recognition and continuity.  Everyone in Japan knows what Dragon Quest is.  I say this mostly, because Dragon Quest has poor name recognition and continuity in the West.  I really loved the first two "Dragon Warrior" games on the NES.  Then the next one I play is actually "Dragon Quest" 8.  I am actually a fan of the series and I had to skip 6 games.  "Dragon Warrior" 3 and 4 were NES games released after the SNES launch, so they weren't on my radar.  DQ 5 and 6 didn't even get a current gen release outside of Japan.  DQ 7 wasn't on my radar either, because I didn't realize it was the same as "Dragon Warrior".  By the time DQ 8 came out I was on the internet enough to know that this was the same series, so I played it.  Then DQ 9 was on the DS, so I skipped it.  While DS was the most popular platform in Japan, the West still prefers home consoles.  DQ 10?  It's a MMO that is available in Japan only.  DQ 11, I plan to play when it comes on the Switch.  But out of the first 10 games, I managed to only play 3, and I consider myself a fan of the series.  Really Square has almost made it as hard as possible for someone to get into this series outside of Japan.

And last, but not least

5.  Marketing.  Since Square knows that a Dragon Quest game is basically like printing money in Japan, they always market the hell out of it and the launch becomes a huge event.  Outside of Japan the game is barely marketed at all.


Put all of that together and you can see why Dragon Quest would be much, much more popular in Japan than in the West.  

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 23 January 2019