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You kids today don’t know how good you have it! Just about every esoteric Japanese game comes to America these days, but in my day if you got every other Final Fantasy games you were happy. IV was called II, VI was called III, and multi-million sellers like the two Dragon Quest games for the Super Famicom never left Japan. Over time that's been addressed as publisher Square-Enix released Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest remakes internationally. Soon an era endswhen the Dragon Quest VI DS remake, the last missing game in the both those series,hits theUS February 14.
Finishing a trio of remakes that began with Dragon Quest IV in 2008, Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation closes out the Zenithia trilogy, named so because all three feature the floating land of Zentih. Again you take up the mantle of a nameless hero out to save the world with his pals, and VI marked the return of Dragon Quest III’s deep character class system. Lastly, VI will feature the upgraded graphics and music that the last two DS remakes enjoyed.
A couple things worth noting: first off, the game is being published by Nintendo in America, who also published Dragon Quest IX earlier this year. Square-Enix had originally committed to publish the game but have now dropped out, perhaps due to the less than stellar US sales of IV and V. With the new publisher also comes with a new subtitle, as Realms of Reverie becomes Realms of Revelation. So perhaps America’s retro RPG gamers owe Nintendo some thanks, as we may never have seen the game otherwise.
Second, did you ever notice how similar the hero of Dragon Quest VI and Crono from Chrono Trigger look? Both came out in 1995, and it seems like their shared character designer and Dragon Ball mastermind Akira Toriyama was being less imaginative than usual.
Regardless, it’s very satisfying to see the game’s finally getting its English language release. Personally, I feared the game had been silently cancelled, as there had been no new info all year. Today’s confirmation that it not only still exists, but it has a rapidly approaching, concrete release date is the best pre-Christmas present I could receive, outside of a truckload of gold bullion.
Dec 20, 2010
