Why did Final Fantasy become so popular and DragWarr Didnt?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Dragon Warrior I mean obviously, since I ran out of space...

Both games where released around the same time on the original NES, both had relatively good musical scores that became more and more epic with each game. Both games also had numerous sequels, in the case of DW the first three actually being part of a single continuous story line.

In Japan DW has become massively popular with at this point, far more sequels then indeed Final Fantasy. So the question is, what was it about the two games, at least in America, that got FF to be so popular, but DW to be largely forgotten?

[DaveJB]

Dragon Quest actually was more popular than Final Fantasy in the states, back in the NES era. However, Square stole the march when it came to transitioning to the SNES, and they had also withheld the fatally flawed second game and the quirky and overly hard third one from an American release. Enix on the other hand released all their NES games in the States and kept faith with the system for a bit longer - there's nothing really wrong with that in principle, but it made their series look samey and outdated to customers, and so the Final Fantasy series became the more popular one starting with IV.

[Vendetta]

Final Fantasy was significantly better developed and more complex than the original Dragon Quest.

Dragon Quest was a relatively straight Ultima clone, single man party, FPV battles, etc. Whereas Final Fantasy already included many of the advancements of Dragon Quest 2, but also had extra animation in battles and better overland graphics.

Quite simply, Final Fantasy made a better first impression, and it built on that better because the first SNES version came out that much faster, since FFII in the US (actually IV) came out in 1991 alongside Dragon Quest III on the NES, whereas the first SNES Dragon Quest outing in the US wasn't until the year after.

[Stargate Nerd]

Final Fantasy 7 really put FF over the top in the West imo. With its then somewhat fancy graphics and "cool" sci fi story. Dragon Warrior 7 looked barely better than an SNES RPG and came out towards the end of the PS1's life.

[Vendetta]

Final Fantasy 7 really put FF over the top in the West imo. With its then somewhat fancy graphics and "cool" sci fi story. Dragon Warrior 7 looked barely better than an SNES RPG and came out towards the end of the PS1's life.

That was four games down the line for the US though, and the sales of Final Fantasy games had already proven significantly stronger than those of Dragon Quest there.

Final Fantasy 7 was monumentally important sales-wise, and was the final nail in the coffin of the Saturn (look at the historical sales data for Japan, the Saturn and PS1 were neck and neck until the exact week Final Fantasy 7 was announced as a Playstation game, shocking everyone who assumed it would stay with Nintendo, at which point the Saturn died almost overnight and the PS1's sales hit the stratosphere.)

But Dragon Quest was stillborn in the US, it didn't really get anywhere until DQ8, and even then it wasn't news, wheras Final Fantasy XIII was delayed in Japan specifically so that it didn't suffer sales cannibalisation from DQ9.