Young gamers in Japan may not be forming the same attachment to Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest because modern dev cycles are as long as their childhood, users theorize by Carlos "Zoto" Zotomayor for Automaton1

The headline sort of tells the whole story. It is an interesting theory from the Japanese community and one that I see reflected a bit here in North America as well.

Me: “Dragon Quest has been getting a lot of attention lately with all the remakes. It may be overtaking Final Fantasy in terms of popularity. Come to think of it, which franchise does the younger crowd prefer, Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy? I’ll ask them.”

Youngster A: “Pokémon.”

Youngster B: “Pokémon.”

Youngster C: “Pokémon.”

Youngster D: “Pokémon. I’ve never played Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy.”

Me: “…”

Consistency is (Nido)king. I see tons of Nintendo and Pokémon fans lament the re-release of games like FireRed and LeafGreen or remakes like Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but you can almost always count on a Pokémon title being released during the year. Combine that with all the multimedia and the sheer cross compatibility with carrying these Pokémon forward, it's no wonder the kids connect to Pokémon over other Japanese RPG titans.

An example I have seen in my life was one day working on the production team at my church and all the younger lads were talking about the new Halo remake and stating it'd be their first time with the series. What. Their worlds certainly didn't stop when Marathon came out last month. They likely kept playing Fortnite and Clash Royale.

Footnotes

  1. What on earth is this headline? Goodness gracious. ↩