Nintendo 3DS

[Tanooki]

Yeah maybe that's it. The game is an odd mix of throwing you to the wolves and a good bit of reminders and handholding with all the queues and popups about stuff that needs to or should be done since it has a complex system.

[Tanooki]

Stumbled across Fire Emblem Awakening for $20 earlier today. I had it originally when it came out, never had the time so I ended up selling it to break even sealed quite awhile back. I have to say I've only done the two prologue type stages, but it seems fun, and that casual idea where you can save anytime and not permanently lose people makes playing it a more approachable thing with my time windows I can play.

Mind you I'm doing Xenoblade so this should get a little interesting trying to even attempt o manage that around that (and my gameboy.) I haven't been on here all day, was doing Xenoblade a few hours ago for a few hours until it ran my battery down yet again into a flash.

[ninjainspandex]

So did anyone hear that the masterpiece that is Dragon Quest 8 is being ported to 3DS? Probably shouldn't get my hopes up for a US release after the lack of DQ7 localization

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/13/ ... ntendo-3ds

[Exhuminator]

So did anyone hear that the masterpiece that is Dragon Quest 8 is being ported to 3DS? Probably shouldn't get my hopes up for a US release after the lack of DQ7 localization

Yeah don't get your hopes up.

At least you know that DQ8 on 3DS is just a port of the PS2 version. So you're not missing out on much except the portability aspect.

Whereas when DQ7 made it to 3DS, the game was completely remade with far better graphics and refined plot pacing. In that aspect us not getting 3DS DQ7 was a lot more of a slap in the face.

[Tanooki]

They're both a slap in the face, remake or straight port really doesn't matter. I would have bought it. I've got Tales of the Abyss which was a 3D ugprade of the old PS2 title and it was quite fun. I really don't get S-E's logic at times on not releasing stuff outside of their when the games have a history of doing decent sales. We're still being hung up over the Bravely Default sequel and the original sold nicely.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I actually kind of agree with Tanooki. The Dragon Quest remakes all sold remarkably well on the original DS with a global sales of over 1 million each. That is pretty good! I think that Dragon Quest VII may really be more about the cost of localization with such a massive game, but still is a game that is high in demand here in the states. Still have my copy on the Playstation though, so I don't mind.

[Exhuminator]

I don't know if it's SE or Nintendo that's causing issues in releasing DQ games since Dragon Quest IX came out. The game sold very well outside Japan from what I've read. But Nintendo was the publisher for IX in the USA, not SE. So do we take it that neither Nintendo or SE themselves think publishing other DQ games released since IX are worth the hassle to publish outside Japan? That's two different publishers that have the ability to publish this series stateside, yet do not do so. I really don't know what's going on with the franchise outside Japan or who's responsible for this atrocity.

[Cronozilla]

Some thoughts.

I would imagine it's entirely on Square's side of the court. Most foreign publishers who have publishing arms in other countries don't publish something themselves because they don't think they'll make the profit margin they want.

It would be my guess that Square isn't interested in supporting Dragon Quest in North America because it won't reach NA Final Fantasy numbers. And it would appear they gave up on it quite a while ago.

Square only published 6 Dragon Quest games in NA (post Enix merger), of those 6, only 1 was a new main line game (VIII). Two were remakes (one of which never came out here, V), and the other three were side franchise games (Joker, Rocket Slime, and Swords).

The sequels to all of those that had sequels (Dragon Quest IX, Joker 2, Dragon Quest VI), they were all published by Nintendo.

This would lead me to believe that square wasn't happy with the numbers on DQ4, 5, Monsters, Swords, and Rocket Slime and only the most successful saw sequel releases, and they got another company to do the production and promotion of those sequels. Chances are the deal was only for those three releases (All of which happened to be Nintendo DS games) and since DQX, Square hasn't been interested in even translating and adapting the titles for a NA release.

There's been ten DQ releases since Joker 2, only the most recent two are slated for NA release. Thetarhythm and the new Heroes. One is related to Thetarhythm Final Fantasy which did well here, and the other is a Dynasty Warriors mash up like Hyrule Warriors that also did quite well here.

They're just following up titles that they like the numbers of. I don't think they like the numbers of Dragon Quest it self, or RPGs in North America.

[Exhuminator]

@Cronozilla

It's refreshing to see someone back up their opinion with facts and actual research, I appreciate the effort you put into that reply. Very professional post. Overall I agree that it's likely SE holding DQ back more so than Nintendo.

At the same time, I think if Nintendo wanted DQ7 out on 3DS in the USA, they could certainly make it happen. I understand the game has a gargantuan amount of text to localize, but the text has been localized before with the PS1 release. I would think Nintendo's Treehouse would only need to take that localization and spiff it up a bit to make it work for the 3DS release.

Either way both parties are undervaluing the profit they could make by releasing DQ7 stateside. I read the high sales of Bravely Default in western markets were unexpected and impressed Nintendo and opened the eyes of SE. I was hoping that would be a harbinger of future localizations. Alas.

[MrPopo]

At the same time, I think if Nintendo wanted DQ7 out on 3DS in the USA, they could certainly make it happen. I understand the game has a gargantuan amount of text to localize, but the text has been localized before with the PS1 release. I would think Nintendo's Treehouse would only need to take that localization and spiff it up a bit to make it work for the 3DS release.

Assuming that the base game didn't have major script changes, even if they took the original translation it's a lot of work to insert all that text. It's very doubtful that the game was programmed with localization in mind, so inserting the text isn't just a matter of dropping a new giant file of strings with reference ids. So there is a very real cost to localizing DQ7 that might outweigh the expected sales (not to mention when it was an active game Nintendo was in the middle of several red quarters).