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Dragon Quest - Like a Dargon

The vast majority of what Square-Enix does these days are remakes. I hope they have a plan for DQ other than “remake everything”, but I don’t have much faith in the company.
 
Bongo said:
So I find myself speculating about what the business strategy is with the Dragon Quest series these days.

Dragon Quest XII was announced kind of a long-ass time ago, and there's been no news. I think that they have probably stepped back to retool development since Akira Toriyama's death. The project there now isn't just to make another Dragon Quest game, but to contribute to establishing what Dragon Quest will become in the future, after Yuji Horii dies too. And the remakes of III, I, II, and VII are also part of that movement.
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I agree with you. Seems readily evident that they've been trying to figure out what the best road to take is and whether they can find a team that delivers on those esoteric elements which resonate with their Japanese audience.

When I was going over my thoughts on the 1&2 remake in it's own thread I feel like I come across pretty grumpy about the game, despite me quite enjoying it and finding the new monsters and the scroll system a lot of fun. My complaints were more to do with the direction or, what I feel like is a missed opportunity for a new direction.

I worry that the series is going to become even more 'rote' than it already is out of a fear of losing the magic. Something as simple as expanded dialogue choices I can't see as anything but a net positive and a way to further involve players in the story, but to have options and have even the least story agency is not going to be seen as "Dragon Quest." We can probably expect baby steps.
 
The 40th anniversary announcement aired today.


Development on Dragon Quest XII was completely restarted since the initial announcement five years ago, and now has the subtitle "Beyond Dreams." They showed the design of the main character and a few others, and a little footage. No release date.

The next Dragon Quest Monsters game will apparently start kid versions of Bianca and Nera from Dragon Quest V. Expected to be released before DQXII, but also no date, and no footage either.

Separately, outside of that stream, they announced the Switch 2 version of Dragon Quest XI S. It's a separate product, rather than an upgrade from the Switch 1 version, and has no content changes. Retails at $40, the same as the non-sale price of the PC version. I don't see a reason to double dip.

No other news, but hope springs eternal.
 
Bongo said:
Development on Dragon Quest XII was completely restarted since the initial announcement five years ago, and now has the subtitle "Beyond Dreams." They showed the design of the main character and a few others, and a little footage. No release date.
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Restarted? See you 2031, I guess.
 
Not sure I love that MC character design, but I'm guessing that's intentional with the story elements - kind of a sleepless, beleaguered by dreams look.

Indeed, though, if they restarted it's gonna be a while before we see it. At least it seems like we're not going grimdark, so small blessings.
 
Well, this new DQ12 certainly looks neat. I'm usually a "GIVE ME A DATE!" kinda person but I'm okay without one for this. I'm still nibbling my way through DQ7 Reimagined - I like it but it doesn't feel like DQ, not quite - and I'm thinking about another jaunt through Builders 2.
 
I'm relieved they abandoned the GRIM N GRITTY or whatever "darker" tone they originally boasted Flames of Fate was going to have. I was unpleasantly imagining we'd end up with something along the lines of FFXVI. At the heart of DQ is its adventurous whimsy, and I'm much more looking forward to Beyond Dreams now that it looks to be tonally in line with the rest of the series.

I'd be super interested to learn how far along in development Flames of Fate got, and what ultimately made them decide to scrap it and start over, but I suppose we'll probably never know.
 
They should make it canonical that this new protagonist clawed his way out of whatever grimdark hellscape was in development and landed in happy slime DQ world. He's got the look for it, IMO, and then they'd get to leverage a lot of what they'd already ideated and/or built.
 
Vaeran said:
I'd be super interested to learn how far along in development Flames of Fate got, and what ultimately made them decide to scrap it and start over, but I suppose we'll probably never know.
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Very good chance they were deviating well outside traditional DQ gameplay. SE gets super skittish about that in the mainline.
 
I never thought they'd actually go FF16-dark for Flames of Fate. I thought maybe they'd make something more serious in tone but I didn't suspect they'd actually attempt to channel Game of Thrones or whatever. In any case, ghost of game and doesn't matter. This new DQ12 looks quite nice, after I'd had more time to go over the trailer.

I got strange Chrono Trigger-ish vibes from the trailer. Maybe it's just the girl character and I'm just getting flashes of Lucca. But also the "dragon" character - who seems to just be the main character, and also why is he kinda dressed like Cloud lulz - giving me reminders of Frog, and the robot we see for a second or two and Robo, etc.
 
JBear said:
They should make it canonical that this new protagonist clawed his way out of whatever grimdark hellscape was in development and landed in happy slime DQ world. He's got the look for it, IMO, and then they'd get to leverage a lot of what they'd already ideated and/or built.
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I love this, actually. Brilliant.
 
I predict that the main character is on some Zhuangzi shit and he's the same character as the lizardman in the trailer.
 
I got more of a Sand Land vibe than a Dragon Quest one out of that trailer. Already way more advanced technology than I’m used to seeing in a DQ game. The new main character also reminds of DMC Reboot Dante.

I am happy that this game still exists and isn’t still following FF16 in going for a “mature” theme.
 
R.R. Bigman said:
I got more of a Sand Land vibe than a Dragon Quest one out of that trailer. Already way more advanced technology than I’m used to seeing in a DQ game.
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It's not the first time that Dragon Quest has had robots (Killing machines debuted back in 2, there was a prominent robot apocalypse episode in 7) but you definitely don't usually see them in a more heroic context.

Anyway, glad to see more Toriyama tech in DraQue. That and lizard boy are already helping this one have its own identity.
 
I thought it was pretty clear that the MC and the lizard guy are the same guy, yeah. I mean, they're definitely rocking the exact same (bad) haircut.
 
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