[TGS 2023] Infinity Strash – Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai Producer Takumi Kasai Talks About Staying Faithful To The Source Material In Interview

During our time at Tokyo Game Show 2023, we sat down with Infinity Strash – Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai Producer Takumi Kasai in an interview, prior to the game’s release.

Source Materials

The first question we asked Kasai was that considering how The Adventure of Dai has a rich history in both anime and manga, how would the game capture the essence of the source material, while offering a unique gaming experience for veteran fans.

Kasai replied by saying that the storyline of the game will be the same as it is with the anime. With the game, they’ll be using characters from The Adventures of Dai where they had a tough fight with the enemies, which is part of the attraction of this new game.

Delaying The Initial Release Date

Infinity Strash – Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai was initially planned to be released in 2021. We asked Kasai how much has the game evolved since then.

He mentioned that the graphics of the game had evolved quite considerably as they’ve put in a lot of time polishing that front. Other features that the team had put time into were the 3D cutscenes as well as game balancing.

Temple of Recollection

One of the unique features in Infinity Strash is the Temple of Recollection, which is a randomised dungeon with progressing floors. We asked Kasai if players would have to start off from scratch again if they complete the Temple of Recollection and decide to go back to it.

“Once you start the Temple of Recollection, you can go back and get things that you retrieve things again, things that you passed by already, and you could get those things to reinforce your characters, make your character grow stronger. And what you collect can also be used in story mode as well.” said Kasai.

Conceptualisation Of The Temple of Recollection

Another question we asked in regards to the Temple of Reollection was what had been the level design or conceptualisation idea behind said feature.

Kasai mentioned that the concept they had in mind with the Temple of Recollection was an infinite mode that players could play on forever, while also throwing in some element of surprise for players to enjoy.

Turn Based vs Action Oriented

The main Dragon Quest titles had majority been turn-based focused, as compared to Infinity Strash which is more action oriented. We asked Kasai was this something that the team had decided early on.

“It’s as you say, we wanted to make it an action game from the time that we started developing this game. And that’s more faithful to the nature of the game. And we want something that’s more lively in the battle scene, because that’s how it is in Dai’s Adventure as well.” said Kasai.

He mentioned that they thought players would want to be more involved when fighting against enemies but also still stay faithful to the Dragon Quest namesake.

Original Story

Considering how Infinity Strash will have its story be based on the anime, we asked Kasai if the game would include a new story.

“It’s not quite a new story, but we have a sub quest that was weaved into the story and Dai’s adventure. The story is so developed that it’s hard to insert things into it, but we try to still insert things as an anecdote. And what we did is for the temple of recollection was try to inject original elements and stuff like that.” said Kasai.

Action Sequences Cutscenes 

When it comes to blending all these action sequences with the anime cutscenes, we asked Kasai whether if there was a design philosophy behind it.

With the Adventures of Dai, Kasai mentioned there was various ideas where you had to come together to defeat the enemy. That was what they decided to do in the system so that players could feel the build up of defeating the enemy when playing the game.

The Meaning of Strash

One of the questions we got to ask Kasai was what does Strash mean and whether it had a meaning behind it.

To which Kasai mentioned that the term Strash had originated by Riku Sanjo, the original creator of The Adventures of Dai manga. From a fan book of The Adventures of Dai, it’s said that the world Strash derived from a combination of Strike and Flash.

Adapting From The Source Materials

The final question we asked Kasai was whether there were any unique challenges or opportunities in adapting the stories from the anime series into a video game, especially in terms of capturing the essence of the source material.

“Of course we wanted to recreate the story faithfully but if you try to do that, the game tempo is not great. So what we had to do is, we had to cut certain parts of the story, create like a digest version of the story but of course with permission from Shueisha, the publication house and we have to re-edit the story so that it fits the game and I am a big fan of the Adventures of Dai, so I don’t wanna do that but you have to weigh the pros and cons and design as such.” said Kasai.

We would like to thank Takumi Kasai for taking the time to answer our questions. We also had the opportunity to try out a hands on preview of Infinity Strash – Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, you can check out our thoughts here.

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