Breakdown
- Dragon Quest 12 will honor the legacy of Akira Toriyama and Koichi Sugiyama
- Series creator Yuji Horii has apologized to fans for the lack of news, promising something is coming and will pay tribute to these legends
- It's not yet known if this will still be a more "mature" take on the series
There’s still a lot we don’t know about Square Enix’s Dragon Quest 12, but it looks like this new entry has plans to honor Akira Toriyama. None of this should surprise anyone since the Dragon Ball creator had been designing this series’ characters and monsters for every main entry.
On Twitter, series creator Yuji Horii apologized for the lack of news with this entry, but promised that Square Enix hasn’t forgotten about it. Horii says that he actually had a meeting about the game and promises to dedicate this new entry to Toriyama and Koichi Sugiyama.
It’s such a shame that Dragon Quest 12 will be coming out after these two legends have passed away, since they’ve been involved in every mainline entry. Sugiyama has worked on the iconic Dragon Quest music, including that legendary opening hymn that will be remembered decades from now. Toriyama doesn’t need a lengthy introduction, as he came up with the designs for every character in the game.
Gaming is going to pay tribute to Toriyama a lot, with Sand Land’s release already doing that a few months ago. Obviously, that won’t be the last of it, as we’ll inevitably get tributes in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and the next few Dragon Quest releases.
While we still don’t have any news on Dragon Quest 12, Square Enix did announce that Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D remake is coming to Switch, PS5, Xbox Series, and PC. At the least, fans will be getting more news on the franchise soon, with many of us hoping for something on this new entry.
Prior to the passing of Toriyama, Square Enix revealed that they wanted this 12th main entry to be a fairly dark game when compared to previous installments. Changes to the battle system were also promised, but we don’t know how much of that is going into effect now that Toriyama and Sugiyama have passed away.
Dragon Quest 12 won’t be coming out anytime soon. However, anyone who loves this series can pick up Dragon Quest 11 and play one of the best RPGs available on current-gen systems.