Wii MMO Dragon Quest X Online coming to Japan in August
Nearly four years after it was originally announced, Square Enix has confirmed Dragon Quest X: The Five Awakening Races will release for the Wii on August 2.
The title takes place in the world of Astoltia, which contains six continents to explore. Players will start the game as a human, then become one of five races after a certain point in the story. The additional races are Ogre, Elf, Dwarf, Puklipo, and Weddie.
It’s not surprising that with the Wii’s limited capacity, Dragon Quest X requires players to have 16GB of external memory. Square Enix also plans to charge a subscription fee of $12 per month after the first 20 days of free play. Time vouchers are available in larger lengths for bulk discounts, with a maximum of 90 days for about $36. Dragon Quest X itself will be sold for 6908 yen, or about $86. An additional Limited Edition bundle throws in a 16GB USB stick for $25 more (a bit of a rip-off, unless it’s shaped like a Slime.)
A release date for North America and Europe has not yet been given, nor has Square Enix confirmed that the title would ship outside of Japan.
The ambitious title comes an an awkward time for the Wii, as Nintendo will likely be giving the launch details of its successor, the Wii U, at E3 in June. The Wii U will be backwards compatible and allow players to interact with people playing the game on the Wii, but if the Wii U manages to mark a significant upgrade in graphical details, dropping upwards of $100 on Dragon Quest X might not be worthwhile. Rather, Dragon Quest X pitches itself at an odd market- people who don’t want to pay for the next console, but plan to get months and months more of use out of the Wii.
