Dragon Quest (universe)

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Dragon Quest (universe)
Developer(s)	Square Enix Chunsoft Heartbeat ArtePiazza Level-5
Publisher(s)	Square Enix (formerly Enix) Nintendo (International releases only)
Genre(s)	Role-playing game
Console/platform of origin	Nintendo Entertainment System
First installment	Dragon Quest (1986)
Latest installment	Dragon Quest Builders 2 (2018)
Article on Dragon Quest Wiki	Dragon Quest (universe)

Dragon Quest (ドラゴンクエスト, Dragon Quest) is a series of role-playing games originally published by Enix, now Square Enix. The original success story of Japanese RPGs, (successful to the point of being a pop culture phenomenon in Japan) the series laid the foundations that would define the genre for generations to come, directly inspiring monumental titles including Final Fantasy, EarthBound, Pokémon, Megami Tensei, and by proxy, Persona.

Description

In 1982 Enix sponsored a video game programming contest in Japan which would brought much of the Dragon Quest team together, including creator Yuji Horii. The prize was a trip to the United States and a visit to AppleFest '83 in San Francisco, where Horii discovered the Wizardry series of American role-playing games. The contest winners Koichi Nakamura and Yukinobu Chida, together with Horii, released the Enix NES game The Portopia Serial Murder Case. Music composer Koichi Sugiyama, known for composing jingles and pop songs, was impressed with the group's work and sent a postcard to Enix praising the software. Enix asked him to compose music for some of its games. The group then decided to make a role-playing video game that combined elements from the American RPGs Wizardry and Ultima. The two computer RPG series were popular among computer hobbyists in Japan, but were deemed too difficult and convoluted for the average player to enjoy. Horii desired to introduce the concept of RPGs to the wider Japanese video game audience, streamlining the experience to its most pure form. He chose the Famicom because, unlike arcade games, players would not have to worry about spending more money if they got a "game over", and could continue playing from a save point.

Famed mangaka Akira Toriyama, of Dragon Ball fame, was commissioned to illustrate the characters and monsters. Horii used the full-screen map of Ultima and the battle and statistics-oriented Wizardry screens to create the gameplay of Dragon Quest. To make the game more accessible than the usual computer RPG of the time, Dragon Quest was designed to be more streamlined and fast-paced, with a greater focus on exploration, combat, and storytelling. When Horii first created Dragon Quest many people doubted that a fantasy series with swords and dungeons, instead of science fiction elements, would become popular in Japan; however, an overnight sensation thanks to advertising in Toriyama's Weekly Shonen Jump publisher led to Dragon Quest become an outstanding sensation that took the Japanese media by storm and opened the door for non-action games on Nintendo's 8-bit hardware and the industry as a whole. Since then Horii has been the games' scenario director.

Dragon Quest was not released outside of Japan until 1989, when Nintendo released it in North America as Dragon Warrior, the first NES RPG to be released in that region; this version features improved graphics and battery-backed game-saving to replace the password system of the original version. In late 1990, Nintendo Power magazine gave free copies of the game to subscribers; this move proved highly successful, as it attracted thousands of subscriptions and ensured the success of the series in the West.

For Dragon Quest II, the developers wanted to make this sequel more complex than the original, so they gave it a party system with the player controlling three characters, another idea inspired by Wizardry; this would go on to become a standard gameplay element in the Dragon Quest series.

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In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Characters

• 72. Hero: As part of Challenger Pack #2, multiple protagonists from across the Dragon Quest series join the roster as costumes of each other, each one under the generic title of "Hero". Eleven from Dragon Quest XI is the default, while Erdrick from Dragon Quest III, Solo from Dragon Quest IV, and Eight from Dragon Quest VIII appear as alternate costumes.

Stages

• A stage that appears to be based off of Yggdrasil's Altar from Dragon Quest XI appears in the Hero's debut trailer. The stage takes place on a platform hovering above the surface, and seems to be flying around Erdrea, the geographical setting of Dragon Quest XI.

Music

• Dragon Quest Overture: A recurring track through the series. This version is taken directly from Dragon Quest XI.
• Adventure: The overworld theme of Dragon Quest III.

Trivia

• This is the second character-based third-party universe from Square Enix, the first being Final Fantasy.
• Dragon Quest, EarthBound, Final Fantasy, and Persona are the only universes without playable characters from the first installment in their series in Super Smash Bros.
  • Notably, all 4 of these series are RPGs.
• Characters from Dragon Quest previously crossed over with characters from Mario in Itadaki Street DS and Fortune Street for Wii.
  • The Dragon Quest enemy Slime also appeared in Mario Sports Mix as a playable character.
• The series was originally released as Dragon Warrior in the North American market, due to the regional trademark on "Dragon Quest" being held by board game manufacturer TSR.
• Dragon Quest is the fourth third-party series to debut on a Nintendo console; the others are Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, and Banjo-Kazooie.
  • All of these series debuted on NES except for Banjo-Kazooie, which debuted on Nintendo 64.
• Dragon Quest is the only series to have a unique logo for Korean and both Chinese languages on the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate website.