Octopath Traveler is out now, and seemingly, it is making waves, with sellouts being reported in multiple places worldwide, and it having been the number one selling game in Japan and the UK in the week of its release. Reviews are positive, word of mouth even more so, and there seems to be a generally positive buzz around the game indicating that it will go on to become a success- just the latest in a long lie of JRPGs that did well this generation.
That said, those other JRPGs, like NieR, Xenoblade, or Persona, all share modern or post modern aesthetics, stories, and/or gameplay systems. Octopath is the first indication we have gotten that a pure, old school fantasy turn based JRPG could do well on consoles in years.
With this in mind, do you think its success bodes well for Dragon Quest 11, itself a turn based fantasy JRPG? I know it's on a different system (and surely Square Enix are kicking themselves right now at not having the Switch version ready to follow up on Octopath, it would have segued perfectly), but the PS4 also has a very strong audience for RPGs, and for Japanese games- if one exists on the Switch, which we now know it does, then surely it has to exist on the PS4 too, right?
So, what do you think? Do you think that Dragon Quest 11 has a chance to do well, in the wake of Octopath's breaking out? Do you think it will suffer from a more crowded release window? Do you think Square's apathetic marketing might do it in? (Octopath got an insane marketing push, but that came from Nintendo, who published the game in the west).
I love DQ, and DQ11 is one of my most anticipated games for the remainder of the year- until now, however, I had resigned myself to it barely making its presence felt on the market when it came out, its (by all accounts supremely high) quality be damned. Now, however, I feel like there may be a chance- do you agree?
