


DRAGON WARRIOR VII SERIES
Nintendo and Enix had localized all four NES entries, but the series underwent a major conceptual shift when it moved to Super NES.
DRAGON WARRIOR VII MP3 DOWNLOAD
Libsyn (1:39:53, 70.8 MB) | MP3 Download | SoundCloudĮven more crucially, though, Americans lacked some very important context for Dragon Quest VII. But its delay was far more crushing in the U.S., where it appeared about a week before the bleeding-edge Metal Gear Solid 2 and barely two months before Final Fantasy X. It launched in both Japan and America after the PlayStation 2 had launched in each respective region. It featured 16-bit sprites on primitive 3D backgrounds, included some of the worst CG cutscenes ever committed to a black disc, and generally felt like a relic. DQVII, on the other hand, showed up as PlayStation began to wane, and it felt like a game you would have seen in the console's first year of life.

FFVII showed up right as PlayStation hit critical mass, and it felt absolutely cutting-edge. Remember, this was back when console generations topped out at five years rather than spanning almost an entire decade, so there literally was a generational difference between the two games. The American version hit more than a year after that. Enix promised a PlayStation Dragon Quest early in 1997 and delivered it. localization hitting about six months after that. Square promised a PlayStation Final Fantasy at the beginning of 1996 and delivered one to their Japanese fans a year later, with the U.S. Where DQVII differed from FFVII, of course, was in the time delay between announcement and release. Enix announced the game in 1996 as a Nintendo 64DD release, but a few months later changed course with the news that DQVII, like Final Fantasy VII, would appear on PlayStation. Heck, the game's existence came about at a leisurely pace, marking the end of Dragon Quest as a frequent and regular video game fixture to one whose entries appear at sparse intervals.

which probably has a lot to do with its unpopularity here.īack when it was called Dragon Warrior VII, Dragon Quest VII sat at odds with what American console gamers had come to expect from their RPGs, emphasizing narrative immersion over flashiness and thrills. And this truly is a game that demands players take it at a different pace than usual. Not only does the remake overhaul the PlayStation original's most reviled features - notably its graphics and its pacing - but its new home platform should allow Americans to better soak in its qualities. Hopefully that will change with the arrival of the game's 3DS remake here in the U.S. when it launched here in 2001 - it's by far the most reviled game in the entire franchise among Americans. The best-selling Dragon Quest game in Japan, it didn't just flatline in the U.S. If there's any one single Dragon Quest entry that totally embodies this divide, it's Dragon Quest VII. Dragon Quest is the very definition of "big in Japan," even in the country's post-console-gaming days, and the very definition of niche in America. but in America and Europe, its few successes have been hard-fought and terribly fleeting.īlame it on the long delay for localization back with the original NES game, or on Americans' insufficient love of the whimsical art of Akira Toriyama, or just on plain ol' persnicketiness. After all these years, the series remains one of Japan's favorites. Explore more episodes in our podcast archive.ĭragon Quest has always been one of the great divides between east and west.
