When it comes to the big genres in video games, you can not only name what franchises truly dominate the genre, but also what the differences are between them. Sure, one might be bigger than the other in terms of sales or number of titles, but more often than not, each has something special that helps it stand out over the competition. In the case of RPGs, most would say that Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are the “top dogs,” especially in recent years via the Square Enix remakes that have been really well-received.
Enter Yuji Horii, who is the man who helped make Dragon Quest what it is today and knows quite a bit about the Final Fantasy franchise, too. In a chat with Game Informer, he noted that the true difference between the RPG series isn’t their mechanics or even the visuals…it’s the main characters:
“In the Final Fantasy titles, they speak a lot. Whereas for Dragon Quest, the key objective for [the games], or the experience it offers for the player, is that the player becomes the protagonist themselves. In Final Fantasy, you kind of observe the protagonist, but you’re not necessarily becoming the protagonist in the games.”
He’s got a point. In most of the games that Yuji worked on, the hero was simply known as “The Luminary,” or “Hero,” but in the other franchise, you have legendary names like Cloud Strife, Noctis, Squall, Tidus, Lightning, and more that people connected with and resonated with.
Source: Game Informer
