Why is Dragon Quest so Popular in Japan?
by Chris Photinopoulos
I just checked the sales charts on Dragon Quest V and only after 2 weeks it has sold over 1,000,000 copies. 
Still, almost no one in North America has any clue what Dragon Quest is all about… I have read a lot of reviews and articles that are confused about why Dragon Quest is such smash hit in Japan, but not in North America. Being a Dragon Quest FanBoy myself, I took a few moments to think about it.
Before I go on, I just want to give the visitors a quick run down of Dragon Quest. In 1989 a game called “Dragon Warrior” was released in North America. It was the first RPG to appear on a console gaming system. The game play was simple: you would explore the world in a top down view and battle monsters in a turn based environment. Try to imagine an electronic “Dungeons and Dragons” if you will. Instead of a typical Nintendo Game that would usually rely on dexterity and skill, Dragon Quest was more story driven and had a lot of text. In essence, it was your patience, rather than your skill, that would determine your success in the game. Aside from the game play, it was renowned for its music and classic ‘save the world’ storyline.
I am not a history expert but I do understand that the history of Japan and the history of the western world are very different. Japan was basically closed to the world until 1873, when the futile wars ended along with all the samurai. Prior to this period, medieval England existed, some time around the 15th century. Keep this in mind. North America was born sometime in the 18th Century and was founded partly by Western-European colonies. With those people came a history of medieval times. This inspired authors, writers and even game developers. People made games like “Ultima” and “Dungeons and Dragons.” Ten years after Japan had opened its doors to the west a man named “Yuuji Horii” designed a game inspired by the medieval time period. That game was Dragon Quest (aka “Dragon Warrior” in America). I can only imagine that it was the romanticism and medieval fiction that captured an audience in Japan, a country that had never seen anything like it before.
Of course everyone in North America was less than impressed. Anything that 
had a dungeon or a dragon in it was for Satanists and nerds. America also had its own fictional history with books like “Lord of the Rings” that would be the foundation for the science fiction fans of that time. Now think about Japan and the history of medieval fiction they must have. I’m going to guess not a lot especially in 1989. I am going to speculate that Dragon Quest was the start of a medieval fiction legacy that the Japanese will love forever and that North America will never truly understand.
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