I've seen this a few times in this thread and I just don't get it. You like it in an anime, and you like it in Chrono Trigger, but not DQ? It just doesn't make sense to me. Do you not like the monster designs either, or just the character designs?
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Square Enix On The Popularity Gap Between Final Fantasy And Dragon Quest In The West
- Thread starter Poetic.Injustice
- Start date
I've seen this a few times in this thread and I just don't get it. You like it in an anime, and you like it in Chrono Trigger, but not DQ? It just doesn't make sense to me. Do you not like the monster designs either, or just the character designs?
Square2015
Member
Yes, I have NPD data between '94 and '06, the earlier stuff is from various PRs and other data made public at one point or another. I used to scrounge the internets (including a lot of J sites) for any and all sales info.
Edit: 7th saga is a reverse projection from NPD data (after 93), so it could be off.
Pejo
Gold Member
I don't really understand it myself. That art style is just very recognizable, and to me that's the "DBZ artstyle". Anything else that uses it is just like a rip-off or out of place in my mind.
The monster designs seem very very very basic, which isn't always a bad thing, but it's too, I dunno, cutesy? Like the popular ones are the slime - which is totally cool and iconic. It's like Final Fantasy's Chocobos or something. But then you have those dudes made of bricks which look awful to my eyes, and the Dragonlord, designs like those. They look like they were designed for a saturday morning cartoon in the 90s.
To be fair, I think the Chrono Trigger thing would bother me too if the graphics were 3D remade in that style. The sprites don't really look anything like it in the actual game though, so it's fine.
I don't argue that it's kinda weird, but that's honestly what turns me off from DQ.
Cindi Mayweather
Member
Did my part. I have no idea if the people who won my contest ended up liking DQ7.
Cindi Mayweather
Member
Are you saying they should give up on the west?
Absolutely they should. Despite all the hubbub. All the hype. All the petitions. All the attention and publicity Nintendo tried to give DQVII and it sold 35,000 units its first month.
Dragon Quest VIII 3ds will be the final DQ I buy in English.
Rising_Hei
Member
To me the differente in popularity is because (apart from the reasons he stated and other user's reasons, see above):
Final Fantasy: progressive series that always tries new things.
Dragon Quest: Totally the opposite, relies on clasic gameplay that hardly changes and on classical storylines that are somewhat simple and conservative, but cute like many tales. Until not so long ago at least. And you can't sell this game to "western" kids because they are usually very demanding.
A more "progressive" way of thinking and playing will always be more popular on the west for reasons, imo; and the reason Final Fantasy got so big here is because it could be argued that this "progressiveness" made the series more ambitious and imaginative.
As an analogy, to me you could say that Dragon Quest is pretty much like what nintendo has always been towards its games, whereas Final Fantasy is what Sony is towards its games.
Final Fantasy: progressive series that always tries new things.
Dragon Quest: Totally the opposite, relies on clasic gameplay that hardly changes and on classical storylines that are somewhat simple and conservative, but cute like many tales. Until not so long ago at least. And you can't sell this game to "western" kids because they are usually very demanding.
A more "progressive" way of thinking and playing will always be more popular on the west for reasons, imo; and the reason Final Fantasy got so big here is because it could be argued that this "progressiveness" made the series more ambitious and imaginative.
As an analogy, to me you could say that Dragon Quest is pretty much like what nintendo has always been towards its games, whereas Final Fantasy is what Sony is towards its games.
Cindi Mayweather
Member
My take:
Final Fantasy - Stories about darkness that emphasize the goodness (or in this case light, literally) in life. Stories come across as deep with some macabre leanings but are generally (sans X) simplistic decidedly aimed at teenagers. They're games with dark settings that have a light hearted tone. Kefka kills people mindlessly but the game writes his dialogue as a bad, cheesy joke. Cloud has to save Tifa from a life of prostitution but not before dressing up as a woman. In X, it's even literal because Yuna is setting off to die and she wants the journey to be full of "laughter". Continuously changes gameplay, but while this can be a positive, it's also Final Fantasy's biggest weakness. Meaning, you can't really rely upon FF to be good because it's largely inconsistent. You might love the gameplay and tone of FFXII, but guess what, you're never going to get a follow up and they'll never bother to follow up on what made it popular. That kind of stuff burns, especially when you have sequels like XIII which downgrade the previous games accomplishments. FF games do not build upon each other gameplay-wise and this is why each game has its detractors and critics as well as fans and lovers.
Dragon Quest - Stories about goodness that emphasize the darkness in life. DQ is deceptively cute. The above poster clearly hasn't played too many DQ games. Dragon Quest stories have a cute exterior but tend to take a darker tone, whereas FF tends to have a more mature exterior are more lighthearted stories. Its gameplay, while mistakenly conservative builds upon each and every game in the series. While it's not trying out an endless tirade of new gameplay ideas, this means that DQ gets to work on perfecting a certain formula. FF's formula, while being perfected, has been dropped to become more contemporary and relevant each new entry. DQ has no such goals. What this means is that while you get one feature that's new to the series, the next game will likely have the same featured in a more evolved manner. Take the Alchemy Pot in DQVIII. It appeared in that game, but DQIX made it even better by making it instant and allowing you more customzation options tied to your vocation. Meanwhile FF had a fantastic idea in FFX-2's ATB battle system; it has since been left to dry. They made an amazing AI customization/strategy system in the gambit system that has gone to influence many other RPGs such as Dragon Age Origins, they've yet to bring it back and expand upon it. The result: when you play a DQ, you know what you're going to get. This is DQ's greatest asset, and also its curse. That said, despite accusations of being more conservative, DQ has been far more ambitious story-wise than FF.
The difference can even be seen in their names. Final Fantasy sound hopeful; Dragon Quest sounds like a journey - a journey of life with all the pits and falls that come that territory.
Both are great, but if I had to pick it'd be DQ and I grew up on FF (starting with VII as mentioned in the interview) and didn't play a DQ game until I was 20 years old (DQVIII). But he is right about nostalgia. I have far more nostalgia for FF than DQ and for that reason I have far more emotional attachment to the series.
Final Fantasy - Stories about darkness that emphasize the goodness (or in this case light, literally) in life. Stories come across as deep with some macabre leanings but are generally (sans X) simplistic decidedly aimed at teenagers. They're games with dark settings that have a light hearted tone. Kefka kills people mindlessly but the game writes his dialogue as a bad, cheesy joke. Cloud has to save Tifa from a life of prostitution but not before dressing up as a woman. In X, it's even literal because Yuna is setting off to die and she wants the journey to be full of "laughter". Continuously changes gameplay, but while this can be a positive, it's also Final Fantasy's biggest weakness. Meaning, you can't really rely upon FF to be good because it's largely inconsistent. You might love the gameplay and tone of FFXII, but guess what, you're never going to get a follow up and they'll never bother to follow up on what made it popular. That kind of stuff burns, especially when you have sequels like XIII which downgrade the previous games accomplishments. FF games do not build upon each other gameplay-wise and this is why each game has its detractors and critics as well as fans and lovers.
Dragon Quest - Stories about goodness that emphasize the darkness in life. DQ is deceptively cute. The above poster clearly hasn't played too many DQ games. Dragon Quest stories have a cute exterior but tend to take a darker tone, whereas FF tends to have a more mature exterior are more lighthearted stories. Its gameplay, while mistakenly conservative builds upon each and every game in the series. While it's not trying out an endless tirade of new gameplay ideas, this means that DQ gets to work on perfecting a certain formula. FF's formula, while being perfected, has been dropped to become more contemporary and relevant each new entry. DQ has no such goals. What this means is that while you get one feature that's new to the series, the next game will likely have the same featured in a more evolved manner. Take the Alchemy Pot in DQVIII. It appeared in that game, but DQIX made it even better by making it instant and allowing you more customzation options tied to your vocation. Meanwhile FF had a fantastic idea in FFX-2's ATB battle system; it has since been left to dry. They made an amazing AI customization/strategy system in the gambit system that has gone to influence many other RPGs such as Dragon Age Origins, they've yet to bring it back and expand upon it. The result: when you play a DQ, you know what you're going to get. This is DQ's greatest asset, and also its curse. That said, despite accusations of being more conservative, DQ has been far more ambitious story-wise than FF.
The difference can even be seen in their names. Final Fantasy sound hopeful; Dragon Quest sounds like a journey - a journey of life with all the pits and falls that come that territory.
Both are great, but if I had to pick it'd be DQ and I grew up on FF (starting with VII as mentioned in the interview) and didn't play a DQ game until I was 20 years old (DQVIII). But he is right about nostalgia. I have far more nostalgia for FF than DQ and for that reason I have far more emotional attachment to the series.
I remember arguing back in the day that I thought it would've been a good move for Dragon Quest 8 to be multiplatform, PS2/GameCube.
One factor in Final Fantasy's success is that they managed to establish themselves as the de-facto JRPG among PlayStation fans. Nintendo is/was prime territory for Dragon Quest to move in on, due to the Nintendo/Square rift.
Tales of Symphonia in 2004 is one of Namco's most successful attempts to break into the North American market (competing with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, also in 2004), because Nintendo fans were hungry for quality JRPGs but they didn't have access to very many of them on GameCube. Dragon Quest 8 in 2005 could've done very well on GameCube, and captured a lot of mindshare (not enough to satisfy Enix of Japan, but I doubt anything can).
The "blockbuster or bust" mentality really does hurt.
No idea. Dragon Quest sells fine in the West, in numbers in the same neighborhood as Tales and other JRPGs that don't suffer the same fan hand-wringing about their sales. It does fine.
Lightning Lord
Banned
I mean, I know we try to spin the 35k as bad but I went into stores after it first came out and couldn't find any copies. The game was also on backorder on Amazon for its first month... it seems to me that they did a small print run and they managed to sell through it pretty quick.
I could just be totally off base but given that SE repeatedly stated that the game wasn't supposed to get a western release, it isn't that unreasonable to think that they didn't have that much faith in DQVII to begin with.