Last week Square Enix announced that the first eight Dragon Quest titles, as well as a Dragon Quest Monsters spinoff, would be hitting mobile devices in Japan. There has been no confirmation of a Western release just yet, but the folks at Famitsu have captured footage of the Japanese version of Dragon Quest VIII running on a smartphone. Check it out.
The first thing I noticed upon watching this video is that Dragon Quest VIII appears to have been designed to be fully played in portrait mode. I initially kind of groaned about that, as it just didn’t seem right, but the more I think about it the more I like it. I love games that can be easily played with one hand, but for the most part those types of games are quick little arcade-style experiences designed to kill just a few minutes at a time. If I can rock a full-blown RPG with one hand while keeping my other hand free to do any number of awesome things, well, that’s a win in my book.
Our fingers are still crossed for a Western release of these Dragon Quest titles, and they’re starting to cramp up to be honest, so hopefully Square Enix can hurry up and make with some sort of official confirmation soon.
