After playing some Dragon Quest Heroes in Square Enix’s E3 booth, I had the chance to speak with Ryota Aomi, the game’s producer. I asked him how Omega Force approached Dragon Quest Heroes compared to other Warriors titles they’ve worked on.
“Well, for example, with Hyrule Warriors, what we really set out to create was a Zelda game that was a Warriors game—one that really felt like it was close to the Warriors name,” he replied.
Aomi is talking about a decision made by Shigeru Miyamoto in which he “flipped the table,” insisting that Koei Tecmo producer Yosuke Hayashi make Hyrule Warriors a Warriors game with Zelda elements, instead of vice-versa.
“The way we thought about Dragon Quest Heroes was quite different. Rather than try to create a Warriors game that featured characters from another franchise, we wanted to create a Dragon Quest game that had become an action RPG,” Aomi said to Siliconera.
“So, in that sense, it’s an evolution of the Dragon Quest series and not necessarily a Warriors game. They may look very similar, but we feel that the core of the game is very different.”
Aomi made one final comment before closing the question: “People are always going to think that when Koei Tecmo makes a game like this, it’ll just be another Warriors game—that’s unavoidable. I just want to reiterate that it was not designed to be just another Warriors game.”
