The History of Dragon Quest, As Told By Creator Yuji Horii

“I was actually pretty confident it was going to be a hit.”

That is the answer Yuji Horii, the creator of Dragon Quest, who has been involved in every mainline game since its inception in the 1980s, gives when I ask about the moment he realized Dragon Quest was going to be something big. It isn’t arrogance – no, it’s a reserved, almost stoic, confidence that exudes from the quiet 71-year-old Horii as he sits in Square Enix’s Shibuya office in Tokyo, Japan.

He’s surrounded by a few “props,” which are plushies of slimes and other monsters from the Dragon Quest series, and a large TV behind him showcases the key art for Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. That’s the game my colleague Alex Van Aken and I are visiting Japan for; its art graces the cover of this issue and is the centerpiece of the cover story that follows these pages. And as excited as I am about that game, I leave Japan just as, if not more, thrilled about my interview with Horii and Takeshi Ichikawa, the producer for Reimagined, seated beside the legendary creator of this famed series. Fortunately for this retrospective you’re reading now, the gravity of such an interview – 90 minutes with the man who created Dragon Quest and continues to work on it to this day – didn’t hit until afterwards.