Dragon Quest 12 Is TOTALLY Different Now

追加: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]It finally has been revealed. Dragon Quest 12 has been revealed and it has been completely rebuilt.

[00:00:07]I'm Professor Noctis. I'm a scholar of religion and video games and if this is your first video with me, thanks for watching. I hope you'll subscribe and you'll stick around. Five years ago, Dragon Quest 12, The Flames of Fate, was announced as a new more mature entry in the franchise. Now, this was going to be a huge shift as Dragon Quest is always played pretty light-hearted with fun and wacky characters and a pretty Saturday morning cartoon style story. So, with this new direction for 12, there was a feeling that Dragon Quest was finally growing up with its fans. And then we had five years of silence, which in game development world rarely bodes well.

[00:00:45]But then today, in a Dragon [music] Quest Day 40th Anniversary live stream, we finally heard what was going on.

[00:00:51]Executive Producer Yosuke Saito and Game Designer Yuji Horii explained that there was a reshuffling of the team and a restart to development, which happens, sure. But it was the next line that really caught my interest. They said, "Work on the original version, Dragon Quest 12, The Flames of Fate, hit a lot of hurdles along the way. But as we kept talking with Mr. Horii and pinned down what a mainline Dragon Quest [music] game should look like, we decided to move things around and start from scratch. It was a major decision, but I believe it was the right one to ensure the next Dragon Quest game will be one that all of you fans of the series will really love." This sounds to me that the game they were making just wasn't what Dragon Quest games should look like. The trailer we were shown is undeniably Dragon Quest. It looks like the evolution of all of the games that have preceded it. But this Dragon Quest seems to lack [music] any of those mature elements that were publicized five years ago. Even though we never got a trailer or any specifics about what this story was going to be, we got a logo that was edgy, flame-ored, and now that logo is no more, and it's now adopted a more traditional, almost Final Fantasy-esque logo instead. Pretty traditional. Now, fortunately, we were never shown or told anything specifically about Flames of Fate, so we have nothing to compare it to, unlike say Final Fantasy versus 13, which infamously became Final Fantasy 15, which I loved and it earned me a doctorate, but a lot of people had a lot of problems with that. Looking at you, Night Sky Prince, uh my friend. That said, I do think that we might have some traces of whatever the former game was here in this trailer.

[00:02:37]So, let's take a look at what we did get in the Dragon Quest 12 Beyond Dreams trailer that we got today. First things first, we have a super expansive world that looks incredible. The art style is classic and inviting. Definitely looks like something I'm going to get lost in.

[00:02:52]I look at these locations here. It is so cool, and I can't wait to just run around [music] and stuff. You've got enemies on the world map just like we did in Dragon Quest 11. Um just some really cool stuff here. But, really the big reveal of this trailer and of this live stream is [music] the new hero and the cast. Right off the bat, we have a new hero with a pretty traditional look, albeit [music] with fades on the side and super edgy spiky hair in the middle.

[00:03:19]Honestly, if they were going for a modern haircut, I'm surprised they didn't go with the broccoli haircut that all of the the youths have these days, um made popular by The Summer I Turned Pretty, um but whatever. Anyway, um if we're going to talk about haircuts, we got to say this haircut, in my opinion, is way better, much improved over Dragon Quest 11. Uh no more center cut straight hair bob hero. Ugh, I I could not stand that. Gave that guy a helmet as quickly as I could. Anyway, there's more to To hero than meets the eye, though. Um this is a hero who they said in the live stream is beset by strange visions in their sleep. And if you look at the dark circles under his eyes, you can maybe guess he's plagued with something. Maybe he's a little sickly, or maybe he's just tired from whatever nightmares he's having. So, anyway, we'll get to that in a minute. Speaking of characters, the trailer introduced a couple of others. A pink-haired inventor girl [music] who seems to like gadgets feels very reminiscent of Luca from Chrono Trigger, maybe with Marle's spunk. She also has a robot and will utilize vehicles, maybe.

[00:04:24]So, seems cool and also seems a little technologically advanced for a Dragon Quest protagonist teammate. So, anyway, I'm interested in that.

[00:04:35]Finally, though, I really want to look into this green lizard guy. Or, as I would call him, dragon guy. Who looks awesome, but here's the thing. I'm not sure if he's a different character or if he's the hero. I mean, look at it. He has a super similar hairstyle to our protagonist. We could notice that fade and those spikes in the middle anywhere.

[00:04:55]He's got the same one long sleeve tattered shirt, which is definitely a choice unless that's just the style of all of the characters in this world. He has super similar armor and he has a pretty similar sword to the protagonist as well. So, the question is does the hero become the dragon at some point? Is he cursed to live as a dragon or like in this like second body sort of thing? Is this part of his nightmare that when he falls asleep he becomes a dragon in an alternate world, perhaps? [music] Do you actually become the evil that you fight against? After all, it is called Dragon Quest. So, what happens when the hero becomes that kind of villainous embodiment, right? I think it's going to be a story of a dual hero across two worlds, not unlike, say, Chrono Cross, if you remember that game. Or maybe even Versus XIII, where Noctis was in both uh his world and then a dream world. I It could be really interesting. So, maybe none of these ideas are wasted. Who knows? But, if this is the case, I think that it could lean into some of that darker storytelling that Dragon Quest 12 was originally going to have. I want you to imagine this. The hero becomes the dragon, [music] which is like the ultimate evil in this world. I think it could be an awesome story beat to explore how the hero is treated based on his appearance. And it really kind of begs the question, is he a hero because he looks the part or because he's actually heroic? So, there's going to be some things that kind of come to pass there. I think this is also why it's important later in the trailer when the dragon has this helmet that is able to kind of shield his identity or not. Is he trying to be treated as a hero even though he doesn't exactly look like a hero? He looks like a dragon villain, sort of thing. Anyway, I think it's a pretty cool idea, and it could lead to some really dark storytelling. I love that idea of like, if you do the same thing but you look different, how do people treat you? And there's a lot of things that we could certainly discuss there, certainly in real world relation as well. I think that could be really cool. So, those are some of the plot things. Now, there was one final thing that I saw come up in some of the comments. There was no battle shown. And from early interviews, [music] developers were talking about how this game was going to reinvent some of the battle systems. I've seen a few commenters saying this, afraid that they're moving to a more actiony style, citing the hero jumping off a cliff or visible enemies on the map. Um, I would doubt any of that to be the case. Dragon Quest 11 also had enemies on the world map, and it was turn-based. However, I could see the UI looking more like Dragon Quest 7 reimagined did. Not a bad thing in my opinion, and I think that they'll probably mix it up a [music] little bit, especially in light of Expedition 33's take on turn-based combat. I would be interested to see what Dragon Quest did with something like that, for example. Between technology and subversion of either a dragon ally or becoming a dragon yourself, I'm here for these new elements >> [music] >> because it's still giving Dragon Quest in the end. I know that fans and content creators are going to speculate on what Dragon Quest 12 Flames of Fate could have been. They might liken it to the gritty Dragon Quest version of Final Fantasy versus 13, in fact. But ultimately, the devs clearly felt like it wasn't true to Dragon Quest. And to be honest, I would have to agree with that. Dragon Quest has never really been about subverting tropes. I mean, if you've played the remakes and the HD-2D remakes and remasters, all that stuff, you know that these are pretty straightforward games. Dragon Quest has always played it safe in a pretty predictable way. But the surprise comes in the ways they inject creativity and suspense into that structure, rather than upending it all together. Besides, Square Enix already has one franchise that routinely reinvents itself. I'm not sure they need another. It's better for Dragon Quest to be the one that stays true to itself. But that's my thought.

[00:08:54]What do you think? Are you bummed we're not getting a gritty adult Dragon Quest?

[00:08:59]What do you think about the reveal? And do you think that the hero will become this dragon character? More importantly, what do you think the hero's hair?

[00:09:06]Right? That's what we're here for.

[00:09:08]We are all about the hairstyles.

[00:09:12]Anyway, let me know in the comments. If you like this video, be sure to check out one of my other videos. In fact, YouTube has hand-picked one of these to be your next watch. So, I bet you'll enjoy it, whatever you choose. Thanks for watching, until next time. Walk tall, my friends. We'll see you in class.