Highlights
- Dragon Quest's new game, Infinity Strash: DRAGON Quest The Adventure of Dai, marks a full-circle moment for the beloved spinoff sub-franchise, returning to its original medium after various adaptations.
- Adventure of Dai began as a manga that expanded on the world and characters of the Dragon Quest games, offering a unique shonen-style adventure story that built hype for the game installments.
- The upcoming game stays true to the manga's story and features fast-paced, 3-dimensional combat with unique playable characters and complex dynamics. Its aesthetics align with the previous versions of the sub-franchise, showcasing the lovably-goofy Dragon Quest feel.
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With the upcoming release of Dragon Quest’s new game, Infinity Strash: DRAGON Quest The Adventure of Dai next month, the iconic Dragon Quest franchise is going into an ambitious new direction with its most beloved spinoff sub-franchise. While Dai has appeared in various other games and even a mobile RPG that ran from 2021 to 2023, this full-scale AAA-quality game is something of a full-circle for the series.
Starting originally as a manga adapted from the larger lore of the Dragon Quest game series, The Adventure of Dai grew through several incarnations before ultimately returning to the medium that it was originally adapted from. In advance of the upcoming game, the history of this iconic sub-franchise is well-worth revisiting.
The Adventure of Dai: The Original Manga
With the first Dragon Quest game coming out on the Nintendo Entertainment System in Japan in 1986, the RPG quickly became a smash-hit in Japan, spawning several sequels in a quick period of time. By 1988, Dragon Quest II and III had already come out, and hype was building for the fourth installment. Given that these games were still being created on the relatively limited technology of the NES and Famicom, a deeper examination of the game’s world and characters would be best served on another medium. And with the major synergy of different pop-culture media in Japan, a manga was a smart choice both to expand on the game’s world and to keep interest strong between Dragon Quest III and IV.
The story of Adventure of Dai is set around its titular main character, Dai, learning to become a hero in the footsteps of Avan, a hero of old who sacrificed himself to temporarily stop the encroaching Demon King. The shonen-style adventure story was uniquely independent of other aspects of the mainline Dragon Quest games, yet enriched much of the worldbuilding in a way that continued to build hype for the series’ forthcoming game installments. In 2021, the manga got a new North American localization by Viz Media.
The Anime Adaptation(s) of the Manga
The first anime adaptation of Adventure of Dai was released in 1991, produced by Toei Animation, releasing 46 episodes across 1991 and 1992. Taking a deliberate pacing, the episode count for this first season goes through the first ten volumes of the manga. Interestingly for fans of the mainline Dragon Quest series, the ending theme is a rendition of Koichi Sugiyama’s song “My Road, My Journey,” its melody originally featured in the soundtrack of Dragon Quest II.
In 2020, Toei released a reboot series of the anime, which lasted for 100 episodes from 2020 to 2022. A more direct adaptation with a larger episode order, this new series covered the entire Adventure of Dai manga. This modern series uses a mix of 2D animation with CGI-augmented action sequences, and it’s available to stream in North America on Crunchyroll.
From Game, to Manga, to Anime, Back to Game
At a private press event at Anime Expo earlier this month, Square Enix treated a select handful of employees to a firsthand look at what to expect from the upcoming game. Officially titled Infinity Strash: DRAGON QUEST The Adventure of Dai, the game is very in-tune with various aspects of the manga’s story. In fact, various elements of the manga are directly utilized as asset inspiration for the game.
On a pure gameplay level, the game’s combat is shown to be fast-paced and 3-dimensional, somewhat akin to a soulslike but very focused on PVE Arena combat. Different disciples of the hero Avan are utilized as different playable characters, and their unique elemental abilities are designed in a way to create complex combat dynamics and scenarios. On an aesthetic level, the game’s 3D is very much at home with the aesthetics of the subfranchise’s previous incarnation, and the enemy and monster designs are very much at home with the sort of lovably-goofyDragon Quest/Final Fantasy feel that Square Enix is known for.
While transmedia storytelling and multimedia adaptations are quintessential for many Japanese franchises, The Adventure of Dai is a fascinating case of a story being adapted from a video game, finding its own voice, and then coming back to finally become a major game in its own right. The quest for Dai to finally get this major new piece is, certainly, an adventure all its own.
Infinity Strash DRAGON QUEST: The Adventure of Dai goes on sale on September 28, 2023, on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.