Nintendo and Square Enix held a little press conference last night to talk about the biggest JRPG franchise in Japan: Dragon Quest.While the series remains relatively niche abroad, Dragon Quest is more or less the definitive RPG for Japan. Probably 90% of the entire country has bought and played at least one Dragon Quest game, and I'd be very surprised to meet anyone under the age of 80 who hasn't heard of it. Scratch that. Make it 90.
So, Dragon Quest IX. It's been a while coming (understatement alert!), but Square Enix finally got around to throwing down a solid release date: March 28, 2009. As an interesting aside, you'll note if you look on a calendar that March 28, 2009 is a Saturday. Most - nay, nearly all - games come out on Thursdays in Japan. Dragon Quest is special. Why? Because if it was on a weekday, most of the country's workforce would skip the office that day to pick up their copy. I'm not even slightly joking.
However, the Dragon Quest fun doesn't stop there. During the event, series creator Yuuji Horii slipped up to proclaim the following:
"...Well, it might be time to start polishing up the concept for the next new thing. Since this one (referring to DQIX) was on a portable, the next one on something like the Wii would be nice... Wait, am I allowed to say that?"
Horii continued that the now enigmatic Dragon Quest X is indeed in development, but said that any further details are "a secret."
While not a 100% 'DQX on Wii' confirmation, its about as close as you can get.
(Quotes taken from the Famitsu report and translated from the original Japanese by yours truly.)
So that's a bit of megaton - for Japan at least. What are your thoughts on the matter?
UPDATE: Here, have a trailer for Dragon Quest IX. You may think you've seen this one before, but it's totally different because it has the new release date written at the end. Like I said: Totally different.
