What if Dragon Warrior Had Been a Hit?

A brief history and subsequent fantasy of the English version of Dragon Quest that started it all... or tried to.

If you grew up in the days of the NES, what would you say if I brought up Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy?
"Dragon Warrior! Loved it! It introduced me to RPGs!"
"Oh, Dragon Warrior, yeah, I played that a little bit when I was a kid."
"Final Fantasy, hell yeah! I spent hours in front of that after school!"
If you associate more with the second or third thoughts, you're emblematic of the unfortunate history of Dragon Quest in America. It's OK; it's not your fault. Probably. What was meant to be Nintendo's grand introduction of RPGs to the NES audience didn't quite work out as expected, for a wide variety of reasons.
In Japan, Dragon Quest was and is a force to be reckoned with. But in some ways, it's also like ham at Christmas: it's always there, and people always buy it, but you look forward to it, too. The release of the first DQ in 1986 was smack dab in the middle of Japan's Famicom (NES) boom, but somehow, as much as or more than Mario, it became synonymous with Nintendo's system. In some ways, it was synonymous with all games: DQ showed up in the news frequently, and was otherwise referenced or parodied in comics and TV for years -- it was required playing, and every sequel was salivated over more than the last.
But in America, it didn't quite work out that way. Nintendo was planning to release an English version of Dragon Quest (renamed Dragon Warrior) as early as 1987, but Enix spent extra time improving the look of the original version, and had it ready to go in 1989. Even though Dragon Warrior looked nicer, it probably wasn't nice enough. The NES, coming two years after the Famicom, had seen more high-quality games in a fraction of the time, and the Legend of Zelda games had become evergreen hits.
But let's take a moment to imagine. Let's say that Nintendo did everything right; that Dragon Warrior became as popular as Dragon Quest did, or at least respectably similar. What if it became as much of a touchstone of gaming history?

To help this fantasy along, let's look more closely at Japan for inspiration. As mentioned, Dragon Quest became a big deal after the first game was released. Dragon Quest II and especially III eclipsed the original in sales and mindshare, all but chiseling its place in game culture (and eventually spurred Enix to release sequels on weekends instead of weekdays so kids would stay in school). It was undoubtedly part of pop culture, and it wasn't uncommon to hear of parents playing Dragon Quest when their kids weren't. America had its own fervor over NES games in 1988 when Super Mario Bros. 2 and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link became highly sought-after items that Christmas, and again, the first Zelda was a consistent seller and a frequent topic on Nintendo's call-in hint line. But most kids on this side of the globe considered themselves lucky if their parents even considered playing a game; it was enough of a challenge getting the kids to stop playing.
Meanwhile, role-playing video games were known to be created in America, and at the beginning of the '80s, no less. Computers had seen reams of RPGs made for them in the years leading up to the NES, and their depth of gameplay led them to be considered thoughtful games for thoughtful people -- grown-ups, essentially. While other people who weren't familiar with computer RPGs took to console RPGs just as well, the fact remained that America already had a precedent, whereas Japan was just getting into the thick of things, with the genre given a kick in the pants by a kids' console.