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Despite writing one of the best JRPGs of all time, Chrono Trigger writer Masato Kato admits he used to "hate video games" before Dragon Quest came into his life.
Dragon Quest's popularity in Japan cannot be overstated – it's so popular, there's an urban legend the series released games on Saturday because a Japanese law mandated it after many fans skipped school or work to play it (turns out, it was actually just the developers who chose to create the "law").
Even the recent Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake did better "than initially assumed," with its Switch and PS5 versions taking the top two best-sold entry spots in Japanese gaming charts during its release week, with 641,195 and 180,575 copies sold respectively (for context, third place sold 32,762 copies).
As it turns out, Dragon Quest is also responsible for one of the biggest names in RPGs getting into games. Xenogears and Final Fantasy 11 writer Masato Kato spoke with Denfaminicogamer (translated by Automaton) and recounted his earlier years and influences. After not mentioning any games in his influences, he responded when pressed that, "Not only did I not play games at all, but I actually hated them."
"There were quite a few people who played games at my university, but… I basically just hated doing what everyone else was doing," he said, adding that, "if I’m going to spend two hours playing a game, I can't help but think about how many books I could read in that same amount of time. I was aware that games had their own value, but for me, reading was the top priority."
That all changed when Kato saw his sister playing Dragon Quest: "RPGs were completely different. In an RPG, the player becomes the protagonist and can live through the story themselves," he says.
He also acknowledges that games like Dragon Quest do have pre-set stories, but "the player can move around freely, choose to fight, run away, stay at an inn, and experience the story of saving the world. That concept really stunned me."
From there, Kato joined Tecmo before making his way to Squaresoft. where he would go on to write Chrono Trigger, alongside two of Dragon Quest's three creators, Yuji Horii and Akira Toriyama – as well as work on the likes of Final Fantasy 7, Xenogears and Chrono Cross.
