Below are Major Spoilers for Dragon Quest IX on DS

When I was playing Dragon Quest IX, all any of my friends and I would talk about is the coolest fucking lore of that game. We’d talk about the free Dark Queen DLC and how it seemed to imply that Stella was an amnesiac Stellestria and noted how Stella and the Evil King, who was Stellestria’s husband, never meet in the main plot of the game or even see each other. We would talk about the tragedy of Corvus, the extra dungeon lore about the Grand Architect Zenos, and how the villain basically won and the Hero was left cleaning up the mess. There were plot holes that we’d discuss or try to justify because we loved the Dragon Quest series overall. We’d compare how the towns in Dragon Quest basically had the most cynical people, whereas by striking contrast most townspeople in a Final Fantasy game were polite albeit bland, unlike in a Dragon Quest game. The towns always felt alive and lived in within a Dragon Quest game, with every minutiae of detail carefully crafted. I honestly don’t know how many hours I’d just discuss the worldbuilding and plot points of that game with multiple friends who all had their own interpretations on the story and some were less forgiving than me on the plot holes since it wasn’t typical of a Dragon Quest game to have any of them.

Flashforward to Square Enix hiring “sensitivity readers” from Canada and all my excitement for Dragon Quest III HD-2D vanished, I don’t think any of my friends have actually bought it or pay attention to Dragon Quest anymore, or try to suggest it to other friends. I put in on a far lower list of interested purchases. The reason is… I had to explain to two of my close Black friends why the Troll lips were censored, because they genuinely didn’t get it and had never once perceived the troll designs of Dragon Quest to be indicative of Black people. One of these close friends was a lifelong Dragon Quest fan whose played multiple versions of the older games because he genuinely loves them. Literally no one in their right mind would or could reasonably ever believe that the troll artwork by Akira Toriyama represented Black people. That has just never been true at all. It was one of the most awkward conversations for both myself and both of them respectively. I literally went from talking about the coolest dark lore of Dragon Quest IX for close to two years with one of these friends, alongside the various sidequests and comparisons to older Dragon Quest games like Dragon Quest 7, to just feeling awkward about ever talking about Dragon Quest at all. Neither of us are excited or interested in buying the future games, because explaining the troll lips censorship was so awkward and both of them must’ve felt humiliated when I had to explain why it was censored. We went from talking about worldbuilding, lore, gameplay, and the amazing stories by Yuji Horii . . . to just feeling completely awkward to even be touching these games anymore or have anything to do with them. I’m being completely serious. These are events that actually happened in my life, because of the censorship of Dragon Quest by sensitivity readers that Square Enix hired.

I’ve emailed Square Enix in their private message system on their website, I’ve criticized the changes on other social media platforms, and it seems to me that specifically White people don’t care how awkward they’ve made this for others, because they actually think criticizing this is trying to hide some nefarious racism or some incoherent nonsense that they’re trying to rationalize. Square Enix doesn’t care to revert these changes and would rather pat themselves on the back for the appearance of fighting racism rather than actually listening to rational arguments from their own fans. I love Dragon Quest, so do most of my close friends, and honestly, I’d hate to drop the series completely. So, the only compromise that I can make for this is to wait it out until there are USED copies and to buy strictly USED physical copies so that Square Enix doesn’t make any profit off of me. I’m now encouraging other friends to do the same, so Square Enix makes less money. And, if they choose to make games digital only, then I guess that’s that and I won’t be buying any future Dragon Quest games ever again.

The changes from Sweet Baby Inc still pervade the Dragon Quest series, regardless of if Square Enix even still hires them, and I just never ever want to support that with any money. I’ll still buy other Square Enix games that don’t have censorship, because I’m hoping a carrot-and-stick philosophy where I do spend money on games that aren’t censored will encourage less censorship, but Dragon Quest III-2DHD, the game most notorious for the Sweet Baby Inc changes, still sold well because at the end of the day, these are amazingly crafted games. But, why did they hire these charlatans whose job it is to make-up racism where none existed? Like, what the fuck are they even doing with their lives? Does censoring fiction stop the killing of Black people from street violence in the US? Does censoring criticism of Islam stop the genocide of Gaza by Israel? Does adding Type A / Type B and replacing Gender Options stop Transgender killings in US streets? Does censoring all implied or explicitly mentioned comments on child rape in FF15 stop the rape of children in Churches or change the US Supreme Court ruling of Oliphant vs Suquamish 1978 which has given Carte blanche access to White Sex Offenders to rape and kill Native Americans for over 40 years in the United States? With all due respect to “sensitivity readers” – you’re genuinely just human trash and you don’t help anyone except yourselves to a quick paycheck, while gloating to yourselves about how much of a good person you supposedly are.