Dragon Quest 7 3DS remake may not be worth the cost for Square to translate

A 3DS remake of Dragon Quest 7 arrived in Japan in February of 2013. Fans in other regions have been waiting for news of a translation since then, but it sounds like publisher Square Enix is going to leave players waiting for the foreseeable future.

Speaking to Siliconera at the Penny Arcade Expo this weekend, Square Enix mobile producer Noriyoshi Fujimoto explained the problems with trying to bring the new version of Dragon Quest 7 over to English-speaking countries:

"In terms of [Dragon Quest 7], it has a lot of text to go through and translate, and we've received so many requests and so much positive feedback about the game, but unfortunately, we have to consider the cost and the manpower needed to handle the sheer load of text."

Dragon Quest 7 originally released on the PlayStation in 2000. It's notorious for being one of the largest and most text-heavy games in a series that's already well-known for having long, wordy releases. While the PlayStation version of Dragon Quest 7 did make it to the U.S. in 2001, Fujimoto says the 3DS version would require a full retranslation to stay consistent with changes in the Dragon Quest series since then.

"We really want to do it," Fujimoto said, "but right now, we need to hammer out what kind of resources we'd need to do it. We say this a lot, but, we can't seem to get to the point where it's justifiable."

While the 3DS remake may be a long ways off — or may never make it to our shores at all — a modern version of Dragon Quest 7 could still be coming later down the line on a slightly different portable platform. In our own interview with Fujimoto and executive producer Yuu Miyake, they expressed a commitment to bringing all of the main numbered Dragon Quest games out on mobile platforms, though they did admit that this entry will still be a problem on those platforms.