Today in Japan, Square Enix held a Dragon Quest-themed press conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the series. It sucked.
Square Enix assembled the Japanese gaming press (Famitsu took the above photo) and streamed the whole thing online. People, obviously, had expectations. They were soon crushed.
At the start, Square Enix announced there wouldn’t be any new info about Dragon Quest XI made public today.
ドラクエ11の続報無し確定 pic.twitter.com/cAAaOzqqwv
— オタコム (@otakomu) January 13, 2016
The reaction on NicoNico varied between “Wha?” and “Whaaaaaaaaaaaa?” with the occasional “hahahahahahahahaha.”
Instead, we got a bunch of info about stuff that could easily be slipped out in press releases—i.e., stuff that doesn’t need a huge press conference with the expectations that a huge press conference has.
So…Square Enix did announce the demo date for Dragon Quest Builders (January 22, heh), that DQ is getting a real-life locked-room style escape game, a kiddy card battle arcade game, and Dragon Quest Heroes II’s release date, which is May 27 of this year. May 27 is also when the first Dragon Quest game went on sale in Japan.
I get that other stuff wasn't ready, BTW, but putting out DQ Heroes 2 ON the series birthday, is almost insulting, LOL
— John Ricciardi (@johntv) January 13, 2016
Universal Studios will be getting some sort of Dragon Quest collaboration. Further details will be announced at a later date.
Shrug.
Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii thought this would be a good time to share photos of his visit to Universal Studios Japan. Probably because he didn’t have much else to share.
[Images via Jin]
Other announcements included a temporary Dragon Quest museum opening in Shibuya until this fall. More details on this later. (Of course!)
Horii said said it would be great to release Dragon Quest XI, a game we got no new info about, sometime during the game’s 30th anniversary year, which runs from May 27, 2016 to May 27, 2017. Hopes are nice, I think.
And that’s about it!
Sigh.
How did all this go down?
ドラクエのニコ生アンケ pic.twitter.com/ZBnkpwdnKW
— オタコム (@otakomu) January 13, 2016
In the Nico Nico poll taken right after the event, 15.1 percent said the event was “not very good,” while 53.3 percent gave it the lowest rating possible, saying it “wasn’t good.” So, 68.4 percent of the viewers did not like the presentation (you typically do not see such negative numbers for these kind of events).
Fans and industry types took to Twitter:
Going back and deleting all the tweets that contained any semblance of hype for #dq30th
I am ashamed.
— Kyoufu (@Kyoufu2011) January 13, 2016
https://twitter.com/embed/status/687156405208506368
This is one of the worst show ever. XDDD #dq30th
— Astro Jerry (@zxcv11223300xi) January 13, 2016
https://twitter.com/embed/status/687156481104429056
there is no info for anything ever anymore
you're all dead
your families are laughing over your bodies#dq30th
— Elliot G (@RyougaSaotome) January 13, 2016
Was nice that they brought all these people together to look at Horii's vacation photos.
— Justin Epperson (@sprsk) January 13, 2016
Squenix streams #dq30th pic.twitter.com/y0QkHD6o7S
— NTDOJTSU (@Nintendojitsu) January 13, 2016
This sums up this event nicely #dq30th pic.twitter.com/CSCVU7ct2t
— 🎮mattmanver2🎮 (@Mattmanver2) January 13, 2016
https://twitter.com/embed/status/687157786514341888
Top image: Famitsu
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Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond.
