 Welcome back folks, recently a lot of people have been asking me questions about a certain Dragon Quest character, the main hero Dragon Quest III. This has a lot to do with data mining in the new Super Smash Bros. game, indicating that it might be a playable character, and for a Dragon Quest fan following this niche franchise for years that doesn't get much recognition, this is some pretty big news. A lot of people have only played the newer Dragon Quest games and don't know much about Airdrick. I may not be an expert on the Super Smash Bros. series, I mean I do play it right now and then on my 3DS, but if there's one thing I am an expert on, it's the Dragon Quest franchise, so for today's video I will be explaining who Airdrick is and why he deserves to be in Smash Bros. If Super Smash Bros. is really a game that honors the legacy of Nintendo and notable franchises on Nintendo consoles, then Dragon Quest without a doubt deserves representation, probably more than a lot of characters in the game already. You see, Dragon Quest is not just a game in Japan, it is THE game in Japan. Airdrick was first mentioned by name in a video game as early as 1986 when the first Dragon Quest original came out on the Famicom. This is the same year that the Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Castlevania all released. Airdrick would later make his first playable appearance in Dragon Quest's prequel, Dragon Quest 3, released in 1988, which would still make him one of the oldest characters in the game if he were to get in. Dragon Quest 3 in particular is a very, very special game in Japan. The game sold over 1 million units in Japan on the first day alone, with massive lines forming around game shops and countless amounts of kids skipping school to buy it, which would notoriously lead to Dragon Quest games only releasing on weekends from then onwards. In Japan, the games are an even bigger success. These people are upset because even after waiting all night, they were unable to get their kids a new version of a game called Dragon Quest. Currently, Dragon Quest 3 is one of the best selling NES titles of all time, along with the likes of popular games like Zelda and Mario. It's really that big. Additionally, it is so big that in the book Power Up by Chris Kohler, all about the Japanese gaming industry, he refers to Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii as the Steven Spielberg of video games, with celebrity status even above the likes of Shigeru Miyamoto. Do you know how your mom calls everything a Nintendo even if it is one? Well Japanese parents usually refer to video games in general as Doraku. They just call every video game Dragon Quest out of habit because of how big it is over there. Additionally, the game Dragon Quest 3 was released many times over, remade on the Super Famicom, the Game Boyz, Smartphones, the 3DS, and PS4. Since the French has its creation, Nintendo even opted to publish the games themselves in western territories, so they've had direct involvement with the series in the past. Erdrick as a Smash Bros character makes more sense to me than a character like Solid Snake for example. Yeah, there was a Metal Gear game on NES, but nobody cares about that game. His franchise jumped ship to PlayStation and never looked back. Meanwhile, Dragon Quest has always been at home on Nintendo consoles. Even games that were exclusive to PlayStation eventually made their way back to Nintendo. You can currently play every single mainline Dragon Quest game from 1 to 11 on the 3DS which is really amazing. When Nintendo localized the original Dragon Quest as Dragon Warrior in North America, they went as far as to give away copies for free with a subscription Nintendo Power just to promote the game. After that, they actively promoted the series over the years. This is a Nintendo Power poster promoting the Game Boy Color version of Dragon Quest 3 and it features Erdrick prominently on the cover. When Dragon Quest 9 was released, Nintendo was publishing it in western territories and they put a lot of work into promoting it. Dragon Quest 9 from Square Enix debuted in Japan exclusively on Nintendo DS. It's become a phenomenon, selling 4.2 million copies there. Hori-san and Ichimura-san have been kind enough to spend some time with me for this installment of Iwata Asks. Dragon Quest 9, the overseas release edition. Yes. Thank you for doing this. It's our pleasure. They brought Yuji Hori all the way to the Nintendo Store in Manhattan for an autographing session and they even had a bunch of commercials with Seth Green in them for some reason. So not only is Nintendo had an active role in promoting Dragon Quest over the years, but the franchise is so popular that it tops the charts in Japan and is a common household name over there. It's an iconic franchise that is also one of the finest NES titles available. Dragon Quest 3 has such great source material they would be working with that Erdrick would honestly be a really cool character. Here's a little bit about him that you should know. To start off, Erdrick is not the actual name of a character. In Dragon Quest Lore, Erdrick is the title given to a hero who saves the world from some threat, so there are actually multiple characters in the Dragon Quest franchise named Erdrick. However, when people mention Erdrick, they usually mean the main protagonist of Dragon Quest 3. You see, the original 3 Dragon Quest games are known as the Erdrick Trilogy. The first Dragon Quest game sees a protagonist known as the descendant of Erdrick, following in his ancestors footsteps to defeat his old foe, the Dragon Lord. And Dragon Quest 2 has you play as the 3 descendants of the first protagonist who are also descendants of Erdrick as a result. Both of these games, especially the original, treats Erdrick as a legendary icon who once saved the world and the characters in the game expect great things out of his descendants. You constantly hear about Erdrick throughout the game with legends about him hailing from the heavens. In Dragon Quest 3, you finally play as Erdrick and you learn how he gained the title. Dragon Quest 3 is a very highly influential Japanese role-playing game. It is one of the earliest examples of an open world game. You can quite literally go anywhere in the game world you want as long as you can reach it. The game emphasizes exploration and travel. You can venture across the sea, trek across deserts, search tombs for treasure and solve mysteries by talking to townspeople. It is beyond ambitious for its time. It even has a job system that allows you to mix and match to combine different aspects of jobs with each other. And this game predates Final Fantasy 3 by two whole years. Dragon Quest 3 is the game that did the job system first. The game just keeps throwing curveballs at you every step of the way and I really do like it a lot. Erdrick as a character also has an awesome iconic design. He wields a legendary weapon known as a Sword of Light, which has been passed down by various heroes throughout time and it has a mysterious past. Guess what else? The Sword of Light made its debut in 1986, five years before the Master Sword first appears and the Legend of Zelda linked to the past. So it's actually even older than the Master Sword and it just looks so cool. The heroes of Dragon Quest also have a variety of abilities. They can use various weapons including boomerangs, swords, knives and even magic. In conclusion, Erdrick is a very influential and iconic Nintendo character and I'm just amazed that after all these years he has never been included in Super Smash Bros. and Square Enix instead provided Cloud who was more of a Playstation character to be honest. Needless to say I'd be very happy if Erdrick got announced for Smash Bros. soon as it has been overdue for a long time. I hope you guys enjoyed the video. I wanted to thank you guys for so much for helping me get to 500 subscribers recently. No joke, it really means a lot to me that so many people enjoyed my videos and I never expected to get here that fast. So once again thanks for all your support everyone and I hope to continue making more videos for you soon. See you next time.