Older Dragon Quest Games Coming To PlayStation 4 And 3DS In Japan

It was a busy day of Dragon Quest announcements in Japan over the past 24 hours, coming off of Dragon Quest XI's recent sales numbers of just over three million copies sold. But they were announcements that fans ate up, including the return of the Dragon Quest Builders franchise (coming to Switch as well!), along with three long-lost classics that will get a second chance at life on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo 3DS…in Japan, at least.

Square Enix has announced that both Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest II will be released digitally in Japan for both PlayStation 4 and Nintendo 3DS on August 10th, going for a very reasonable 600 yen and 850 yen, respectively. Dragon Quest III will follow in late August for 1,500 yen.

The announcement was made in conjunction with the Dragon Quest Summer Festival 2017, which is currently taking place in Tokyo. Obviously, fans are excited, as they'll be able to play the original Dragon Quest games, getting the humble origins of the series while still enjoying the heck out of Dragon Quest XI.

And there's a bonus for those who bought the latest game. Those that get through Dragon Quest XI that beat the game can get the original Dragon Quest for free. All they have to do is enter a specific "Spell of Restoration" (which you can read more about here) and the game will be all yours. It looks like it works that way with both PlayStation 4 and 3DS, so if you imported Dragon Quest XI, have a field day.

Square Enix hasn't made mention of a U.S. release for these games, as it's no doubt already hard at work with a U.S. translation of Dragon Quest XI. However, we do know the publisher loves its re-releases, as indicated by the previous debut of Kingdom Hearts 1.5/2.5 and Kingdom Hearts 2.8 on the U.S. market a few months ago, building more hype for the forthcoming Kingdom Hearts III. So it's probably likely that we'll see these games alongside the finished Dragon Quest XI once it's ready to go sometime next year. Fingers crossed!