Dragon Quest IX Confirmed?
In this report from Japan, it appears that an unofficial confirmation of Dragon Quest IX's development has come from an unlikely source. Tim Rogers explores the relevance of the series to the Japanese market.
ImageOn August 11th, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra held a concert entitled "The World of Dragon Quest." The concert was conducted by Dragon Quest music composer Koichi Sugiyama. The songs performed had been selected from the first eight games of the series via a survey conducted months earlier. On the 19th, Mr. Sugiyama will conduct the Aichi Symphony Orchestra in a "Dragon Quest I-VIII Best Selection" concert in Nagoya.
This is the 20th time these concerts have been held, since 1986, the year the first Dragon Quest was released.
In an interview before the concert on the 11th, Sugiyama mentioned how delighted he is that people have loved his music since the Famicom era, and how flattered he is with the orchestra members' apprecation of the games. Yet he also slipped out some juicy information: "[Series producer] Yuji Horii is really busy at the moment on Dragon Quest IX, and I'm really looking forward to what kind of game he's making this time, as a gamer." Perhaps Mr. Sugiyama was not authorized to say this; he is, however, 75 years old, so let's cut him a break.
Dengeki Online is reporting this as rock-solid confirmation that a ninth Dragon Quest title is in the works. I wouldn't doubt it. Dragon Quest is the biggest game series in Japan; it is a cultural status symbol, enchanting adults, children, men and women. Dragon Quest VIII saw the series moving into gorgeous 3D in a way that actually enhanced the feel of exploring a world. IX will almost definitely be in 3D as well, perhaps with a few of the tiny problems of Dragon Quest VIII ironed out.
Horii was one of the first game designers Nintendo president Satoru Iwata approached with the prototype Wii controller. Horii contributed a video interview to Nintendo's Tokyo Game Show 2005 Wii press conference. In it, he talked about making games accessible to a greater market, and cutting to the essence of "fun."
At E3, it was announced that Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors (a game in which the player waves the Wii wand like a sword), will go on sale alongside the system at launch. The game is seemingly very similar in structure to Dragon Quest Kenshin, a standalone game of baffling depth, which consisted of a light-detecting sword that plugged into a television's AV ports.
Dragon Quest IX for Wii?
It's seriously possible that the new Dragon Quest game will be for the Nintendo Wii. Satoru Iwata seems to be taking all the right steps in creating his own new field of entertainment; that he befriended Yuji Horii more than just deeply enough to get him to tape a video soundbite for a press conference is highly possible.
If the next Dragon Quest game were to be announced for Wii at Tokyo Game Show, the news would be staggeringly huge.
Interestingly, it would also pit Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest against one another for the first time in a very long time. Even since before Square and Enix merged, even when, in the minds of the fans of their two great series, they were "rivals," there has always been a gentlemanly agreement between the companies, by which they don't release major titles too closely to one another. When Square said they'd wait for Dragon Quest VII to release before releasing Final Fantasy VII, they were politely told to go ahead. By the time Dragon Quest VII came out, Square was releasing Final Fantasy IX, and had announced Final Fantasies X and XI.
When Final Fantasy XII and Dragon Quest VIII were in simultaneous production, Enix told Square to go ahead and release Final Fantasy XII first. The game ended up delayed for two years, during which Dragon Quest VIII was released. Now, in 2006, Final Fantasy is still synonymous with big pop songs, flash, and bang (and sometimes fizzle, as in the case of the movies and the casual fans' attitude toward XI), and Dragon Quest is the very symbol of classical music, clean-hearted adventure, and wholesome family entertainment. We've slogged through long years and many online battles between Japanese fans of both series, in which Dragon Quest was sworn to be more "hardcore" and Final Fantasy was said to be "for girls," or how Dragon Quest was "for kids" and Final Fantasy was very nearly high art, though I think they've reached the light at the end of the tunnel and can see that videogames, in general, tend to be kind of ridiculous. The two series are now, perhaps, free to be clearly judged on a case-by-case basis.
If Dragon Quest IX is on the Wii, however, it will mark the first time in, well, history that the two series' major titles appeared on different platforms. Final Fantasy XIII has already been announced (as TWO games) for the PlayStation 3. An announcement that Dragon Quest IX is for Wii will tear fans of both series in half. It will force them to ask, which one do you love more?
Quelle: next-gen.biz