Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball and character designer of the Dragon Quest series since its first title, wanted to share a few words with the fans of this popular series of role-playing games to talk about his work in it.
“It was very easy to convince me to take on the job of character designer for Dragon Quest,” said Toriyama. “What the heck is a role-playing game?, I thought. That was the sort of time it was.”
“if I had known that it would still be going on after 30 years, I don’t think I would have taken the job! Honestly, if I had known how long it would last, I would have politely declined.”
“I’m not good at doing the same thing over and over again. Designing characters for Dragon Quest is fun but difficult work.”
“Nowadays, there are a lot of people working on the series, and all of the ones responsible for designing characters are good and serious people, so I don’t have to do as many designs. I’m personally not terribly interested in designing wholesome characters, so I don’t have many variations to offer.”
“Also, because the series is a fantasy, there is a certain established time period and setting that you can’t remove for your design work. Every time we return to that period, it gets harder and harder, and it becomes a situation where we have to use every trick in the book.”
“But don’t worry. I’ve undertaken this work with the full principle of my being, and so this time with Dragon Quest XI, I’m also endeavoring to design with all of my might. It will be a little while still before it’s ready to be released into the world, But please look forward to it.”
Dragon Quest XI will be released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo 3DS. The latter two will be different, although nothing is known for the Switch. Its premiere is scheduled for this year in Japan, although, unfortunately, it has not yet been confirmed that it will reach Europe.
