Surprise surprise. A Dragon Quest game has been released in Japan, and it has opened at number one on the sales charts. What else is new in the world?
The celebratory game this time around is the latest entry in the monster collecting spin-off series of Square Enix’s oldest active franchise. Dragon Quest Monsters 2: Iru and Luca’s Marvelous Mysterious Key has sold an impressive 443,656 over the course of its first week on the market, according to research firm Media Create.
Of course, this is peanuts compared to the numbers Pokemon and the main Dragon Quest series put up in Japan. The Dragon Quest VII remake that released for the Nintendo 3DS last year sold one million during its debut week alone.
American Dragon Quest fans will once again be left waiting to see if this is another one Square Enix will be localizing or leave to whither away in our memories. The teasing just never ceases with this series, does it? Dragon Quest Monsters 2 is a remake of the Game Boy Color game which was localized in America and released not too long after Pokemon blew up the world. No coincidence there, I think.
I would really like to play this game in English. The original 151 Pokemon aside, I’ve always preferred the adorable monsters that Dragon Ball artist Akira Toriyama has been able to pull from his brain for the Dragon Quest games.
Don’t get your hopes up for this one any time soon, though. Square Enix is probably going to be sitting on this one for a while, testing the waters with a possible release of Dragon Quest VII.
In other stats, the Nintendo 3DS sold 38,000 units across all available models, making it the king of the Japanese hardware scene once again. It should be worth noting that all the Dragon Quest games available on the Nintendo 3DS are remakes, and it does not yet have an original game to call its own. Very strange for a best selling device in Japan.
The second best selling game of the week was the debut of Puyo Puyo Tetris which sold 44,000 copies across the Nintendo 3DS and 16,000 on the PS Vita. The Wii U closed out the week with only 7,000 sold.
