TITLE
How the greatest Japanese RPGs of the ‘90s came to the West
AUTHOR
Aidan Moher
PUBLICATION
The Washington Post’s Launcher
YEAR
2023
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
When Sony’s first PlayStation console hit living rooms in 1994, it ushered in new ways for video game developers to tell stories: dazzling 3D graphics, pristine 2D sprite work, CD audio and vast troves of storage space thanks to ditching cartridges in favor of CDs. Gaming visionaries like Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii used those tools to level up the epic tales that hooked millions of players around the world on a once-niche genre: Japanese role-playing games, or JRPGs. These games were written in Japanese, and their worldwide success hinged on ensuring their stories — from plot beats to side quests, inside jokes and menu text — were just as enjoyable for players outside of Japan.The PlayStation era also marked the genre’s move from niche to mainstream in the West thanks to the release of “Final Fantasy VII” in 1997, which sold over 3 million units in North America — far more than any other Japanese RPG at the time. Though many Western gamers are now familiar with Sakaguchi, Horii and other creative leads of these classic JRPGs, they’d never have experienced their work without the translators who revolutionized English games localization at the time.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Square Enix
GAMES MENTIONED
Dragon Quest
Vagrant Story
Xenogears
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Richard Honeywood
Yuji Horii
Alexander O. Smith
PLATFORMS MENTIONED
PlayStation
Super NES
TOPICS MENTIONED
Localization