Dragon Quest Megoothread

[solnK!]

Alright so going from the top here's the noteworthy things IMO:

1: Development completely started over "from scratch" with a "team reshuffle".
This must have been either part of or very close to when the previous Producer, Yu Miyake (DQ Exec Producer since 06, Prod Staffer on DQ5, Chief Prod on DQ8 ((coincidentally two of the best ones in the entire series))) stepped down in April 2024 and definitely part of new CEO Takashi Kiryu (CEO as of 2023)'s restructuring plan to revers 'flagging sales' of the company's AAA products. He also promises a leaner development cycle and "aggressive use of AI" to investors so- we know where his interests lie.
So two years ago roughly the game was restarted from 0. I wonder if that's completely true and I'll explain why I have those doubts later.

Yosuke Saito, the guy in the video, has taken over as Exec Producer. He has previously Exec Prod on the NiER games, DQX, and the HD2D Remakes. Actually watching the gameplay footage I did kind of get a NiER Automata feel from the jumping and running. At first I thought "Dragon's Dogma?" but now NiER makes sense.

2. "Flames of Fate hit a lot of hurdles along the way."
I wonder specifically what these were. From what I can find, remote work due to COVID19 was one but in an interview in 2023 Horii says that he liked using Zoom since he has trouble with names and faces and the cameras being labeled on screen was nice.
Maybe Remote Workers were harder to force into Japan's overbearing and destructive overtime culture? Could one of the "hurdles" be that if someone was working from home you couldn't coerce them into working 18 hour days seven days a week?
However what would be an issue with an "adult targeted" Dragon Quest game? It's not like the previous ones were made for children, they never were kids games. Kids could just play them too. They had adult themes such as loss of loved ones and revenge. Perhaps FoF was just too mired in a mood and tone reflective of the pandemic's effect, or maybe there was heavy emphasis on something only mature players would really absorb like war or governance.

3. "DQ12 will come with Toriyama's characters and Sugiyama's music."
This is why I'm skeptic on how 'from scratch' the game was restarted from. Toriyama passed away a month before the restart of development, and Sugiyama three years before that. How could this game be using their work unless it retained it from the original development cycle? Even Horii himself said following Toriyama's death that he's worried about the next game's development without them.

So either Saito is exaggerating when he says 'from scratch' and they carried forward at least the character designs and score from FoF into BD, or they reached into those men's backlog of unused work and pulled from there, or Horii is not being completely truthful in his statement and the game will contain a combination of Toriyama and Sugiyama and new artists making him technically honest.
OR my worst case idea, Horii has gone alone with CEO Kiryu's open arms for AI and they've synthesized character artwork and music imitating these men's work and I fucking hate that idea.

4. "An evolution" with "plenty of things you've never seen in a DQ game before."
I have a feeling this is going to be an Action RPG. It's gonna have overworld real time menu combat like Final Fantasies or at least DQX I bet.

Well I'm wary of the development. Hopefully it's an upward movement for the game and players but I have doubts. Maybe future development updates will re-excite me and instill some trust in the process.
I don't really care for a new Monsters but good for those fans. I still haven't played any of the old ones enough so I have plenty to work through.
Instead I really wish we could get X offline and localized. It's insane to me nearly 15 years later they still haven't packaged that game for normal singleplayer or in English.


That's the Armor/Bird equivalent of the Broccoli. Has that hairstyle trend even infiltrated the Japanese?
View attachment 190461

Frankly, I think it looks like a create-a-character. This design has zero personality. I felt the same way about the Protag in XI too honestly. DQ hasn't had a good Protag since VIII.

Yeah, when they said that about Toriyama and Sugiyama, I was hoping for the worst with some AI bs, hope it's just recycling old works and modernizing them for this new game but I doubt that's the case.

 

[Bakuma1997]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2059469690205032791

Such a shame Akira isn't here to see that celebration to his second most known work, he would be proud

 

[Slayzer Hiryu]

I didn't know Yosuke Saito was Executive Director of the series since 24', now i like the Nier games, but why they choose a guy he worked only on action RPGs? i'm kinda worried now.

Post automatically merged: May 30, 2026

¡¡Que pasada!! So cool!! is that yours??

 

[ThunderBoy]

¡¡Que pasada!! So cool!! is that yours??

No, no es mia la foto

 

[dr grim]

went back from japan, it's good to see that dragon quest is still strong there with a lot of merch and representation.. even got to a dragon quest café, it was really nice !

 

[MondayAtTheBeach]

Been playing Dragon Quest VIII on my 3DS while on the bus for University, what a lovely game! I'm 20 hours in (Currently grinding Angelo for Level 30 to unlock multi-heal and fight Dhoulmagus) and having an extremely good time! I'm planning on playing the Zenithian Trilogy (IV, V & VI on DS) after finishing this one.

Spoiler

PS: Currently having an internal battle over if Jessica or Medea is Best Girl, i think Jessica is awesome but Medea is so cute when she turns into a human. My current consensus is Medea but i definitely would go drink with Jessica.

 

[PupinDaTurd]

I hate romance in games and find it embarrassing to engage in, but for DQ8 I think the default and only choice in the PS2 original was Medea, so it's the only romance with substance in the narrative. Her conversations with you at the Spring and in your dreams are quite obvious with her feelings for you and your determination to undo the curse on the woman you love makes for a way better Hero than a loyal subject breaking the curse for his grumpy old Master.

Jessica was a strong platonic friend with her own life and goals and I think that's a better character than 'alternate waifu choice but with bigger tits".

 

[Eric555]

Is it true that DQ VII is one of the longest RPG's ever made?

I think it's the longest DQ rpg if you look at the main story for that game.
If you really like to know how long a game takes to complete, there's a website 'https://howlongtobeat.com/' that gives you an indication.

 

[Ikagura]

Is it true that DQ VII is one of the longest RPG's ever made?

Any WRPG like Bethesda's or any MMO are de facto longer because of the metric ton of content they have.

But maybe side quests and procedurally generated caves and chests is probably cheating.