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PR: Square Enix Allies DRAGON QUEST and IVALICE For North America

Cheerilee

Member
jaundicejuice said:
Wait, what? Are we talking spin-offs (like that Slime game--didn't that become Rocket Slime for the DS?) or were some of the earlier entries in the main series remade/re-released on the GBA in Japan?
Enix of America #1 started by releasing Dragon Warrior 1-4 on the NES. Then they relased all sorts of good games on the SNES, like Actraiser, Soul Blaser, Illusion of Gaia, The 7th Saga, Brainlord, Robotrek, Paladin's Quest, and Ogre Battle.

Then Enix of Japan shut them down for not making "Dragon Quest" amounts of money, and we missed out on games like Dragon Warrior 5&6, Star Ocean, and the Dragon Quest 1&2 and 3 SNES remakes.

Then Enix of America #2 was born, and they talked about how they wanted to rebuild the fanbase and regain our trust. They released Dragon Warrior Monsters 1 and 2 (with two versions of #2) for the GBC, as well as the GBC remakes of DW1&2 and 3. And Torneko: The Last Hope, and Valkyrie Profile for the PSone. Then they released Dragon Warrior 7 and Enix of Japan was openly upset that Enix of America #2 wasn't earning "Dragon Quest" amounts of money.

Then Enix merged with Square and shut down Enix of America #2, giving their job to Square of America, despite Square having just broken off ties with EA and having no infrastructure or accomplishments (with Final Fantasy's success being due primarily to Sony and EA). The Dragon Warrior 4 remake was cancelled, with a deliberate effort to blame it on Heartbeat, and not SquareEnix's lack of interest.

Since then, Square Enix has ignored the Dragon Quest Monsters 1&2 collection on the PSone, Slime Morimori and DQM: Caravan Heart on the GBA, the Fushigi no Dungeon starring DQ8's Yangus on the PSP, and the Dragon Quest 5 remake (of a main series game never seen in America) on the PS2. And for a while there it looked like they were going to ignore DQM Joker and DQ Swords.

What have they come out with? Star Ocean 3. Valkyrie Profile 2 and the PSP remake of #1. Drakengard 1&2. Their big "we love Dragon Quest" attempt in Dragon Quest 8, and Slime Morimori 2 (aka Rocket Slime).

The pattern of Dragon Quest releases is that Enix hates America, and the new SquareEnix of America is the closest reflection of Japan we've seen so far, unlike the earlier Enix's who actually had some pride in their work.
 
Wow, thanks for that rather in-depth response. I knew about the sketchy release history on consoles, but was questioning an earlier poster on unreleased GBA games. For a moment I thought there might've been Japanese only ports of main DQ games like there's been of the main FF's.
 
That would be pretty awesome if the main series got remade for the DS and actually released outside of Japan in its entirety. Those would be about some of the only remakes/ports I could get excited about.
 
MasterMFauli said:
YEAH, come to the west!

setiamb3.jpg

I dont think the artist drew his signature with white paint. o_O
 

Zoe

Member
ruby_onix said:
Then Enix of Japan shut them down for not making "Dragon Quest" amounts of money, and we missed out on games like Dragon Warrior 5&6, Star Ocean, and the Dragon Quest 1&2 and 3 SNES remakes.

And Terranigma, which was sent to PAL-land but not the US :(
 

jarrod

Banned
Finally... Sqeenix USA seems to be taking their sweet time with the Enix properties still though. I guess we'll see DQIX sometime in 2009 then. :/

I'm also a little surprised not to see any FFCC announcements? I thought for sure they'd be co-produced for closer western releases (given FFCC was far, far more successful in the west). No Wii releases in 2007 seems pretty short sighted too, especially with Last Remnant coming on the HD twins.
 

FoneBone

Member
ruby_onix said:
Then Enix merged with Square and shut down Enix of America #2, giving their job to Square of America, despite Square having just broken off ties with EA and having no infrastructure or accomplishments (with Final Fantasy's success being due primarily to Sony and EA). The Dragon Warrior 4 remake was cancelled, with a deliberate effort to blame it on Heartbeat, and not SquareEnix's lack of interest.

You have a point overall... but the localization of DQIV was axed well before the merger happened.
 

Zierath

Member
jarrod said:
Finally... Sqeenix USA seems to be taking their sweet time with the Enix properties still though. I guess we'll see DQIX sometime in 2009 then. :/

I'm also a little surprised not to see any FFCC announcements? I thought for sure they'd be co-produced for closer western releases (given FFCC was far, far more successful in the west). No Wii releases in 2007 seems pretty short sighted too, especially with Last Remnant coming on the HD twins.


I think Nintendo may be publishing the FFCC games in NA. Nintendo published the GC FFCC in NA so I wouldn't be surpised if they do the same for the newer titles.
 

jarrod

Banned
FoneBone said:
You have a point overall... but the localization of DQIV was axed well before the merger happened.
True... it likely had more to do with DW7 tanking than anything. Heartbeat made for a nice scapegoat though, given they ceased to exist by that point.


Zierath said:
I think Nintendo may be publishing the FFCC games in NA. Nintendo published the GC FFCC in NA so I wouldn't be surpised if they do the same for the newer titles.
Possible, though the original was published by Nintendo in all regions (being a Q-fund product). That's not really the case with the DS/Wii sequels.

With an August release for FFCC DS in Japan, I thought for sure we'd get it here by year's end. :/
 

Cheerilee

Member
jarrod said:
True... it likely had more to do with DW7 tanking than anything. Heartbeat made for a nice scapegoat though, given they ceased to exist by that point.
I kind of thought it was a combination.

Enix: (Hmm, those lazy Americans can't even sell a million of the greatest PSone game in history. We should fire them.)

Enix America: Here's the translated script for DQ4r!

Enix: (Yeah right, we're firing you bums in six months.) Oh sorry. No can do. Heartbeat just left on vacation. Try again in seven months.


Although on a random Googling, I found this 2004 interview with Justin Lucas, Enix of America's former Product Manager.

http://www.dqshrine.com/features/jlinterview1.htm
There has been some controversy with Dragon Warrior VII's sales figures due to a Yahoo! Japan article and the charts on The Magic Box. If Enix of Japan/America does not publicly release their sales figures, where do these numbers come from?

If you find the article on yahoo – it is credited to an unnamed source like a month or 2 after the US release and doesn’t factor in the upcoming holiday sales. What is funny though is the life this topic has taken on – hardly ever does a non-publicly traded company announce sales figures. Not once has any of the companies I have worked for publicly announced their sales figure’s. It seems like people want to pin the blame on some conspiracy of sales figures for DW VII leading to DW IV not coming to the US. Which could not be any FURTHER from the truth.

BTW, the Yahoo rumored numbers they're referring to apparently say DW7 sold 150,000 units, and an old NPD leaked number I got off GAF a while back says it did 177,000 LTD.

You knew this question was coming. Dragon Warrior IV. For those who still don't know, what happened, development-wise?

If you don’t know the story you must be living under a rock! Hahahah! I think from the time we announced the cancellation to the time of the merger the message board was FULL of posts calling us liars. If we wanted to lie, I am sure we could have come up with something much more creative than Heartbeat closing up shop wanting to move on. Ask any programmer of any programming language how interested they are in working on someone else’s code. That will give you an idea of what we went through to find a way for us to bring the title to the US.

Please explain to everyone why hiring new programmers wouldn't work.

As I mentioned working on someone else’s code – no matter what language is difficult, add in the fact that DW IV was IMMENSE- Nobody wanted to touch it, it was just too daunting a task – There would be nobody to ask how certain event scripts are handled – how anything is done within the code, Every programmer does tasks differently, and having anyone have to learn what does what on the fly would be daunting to say the least.
 
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