The 3DS remakes of Dragon Quest VII and VIII will be coming to North America sometime in 2016.
While gamers in North America would develop a taste for JRPGs like Final Fantasy, other pillars of the subgenre have often struggled outside of Japan. Dragon Quest for instance, despite being the granddaddy of JRPGs in general, has never really established itself as well as its developers and publishers would like. The franchise, in turn, has often had an inconsistent release record in this region. A number of games have never come this way and, realistically, probably never will. That being the case, a recent announcement from Nintendo should make more than a few Dragon Quest fans happy in the coming year.
Speaking last night during its latest online Nintendo Direct event, company representatives revealed that the 3DS re-releases of Dragon Quest VII and VIII will both be coming to North America next year. “The line-up of RPGs on Nintendo 3DS continues to grow with classic games Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past and Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King,” said Nintendo in a press release following the Direct event. “Both remastered titles are coming in 2016.”
While this announcement doesn’t include any specific release dates for the games, we’re willing to bet that fans will just be excited for them to be coming to this region at all. Despite receiving fairly positive reviews, the DS remakes of Dragon Quest IV, V and VI weren’t exactly hits in North America. Their disappointing sales left Square Enix, perhaps understandably, apprehensive about investing in localization efforts for future re-releases from the series. Who knows? Maybe the success of traditionally styled JRPGs like Bravely Default convinced the publisher to give Dragon Quest another chance. Whatever inspired this decision, we’re not complaining.
