Editing Yuji Horii (section)

===The Road to Dragon Quest===
In October of 1983, Enix sent Horii and Nakamura to [https://www.apple2history.org/appendix/ahb/ahb3/ Applefest]; a trade show hosted by Apple computers in San Fransisco that allowed attendees to sample new business software, see emerging computer architecture, and demo computer games being developed. It was here that Horii encountered his first RPGs--''[[Wikipedia:Ultima I|Ultima]]'' and ''[[Wikipedia:Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord|Wizardry]]''. Having never seen a game of this kind before, where success depended on strategy and thorough planning rather than quick reflexes, Horii became so enamored with the seemingly endless mysteries of the games that he purchased Apple II-compatible hardware immediately upon his return to Japan just to play them. 1983 would also see the launch of the {{Famicom}} hardware by Nintendo, marketed as a more affordable alternative to the traditional computer that was compatible with ports of the company's popular arcade games. Horii continued to work on traditional computers during the first few years of the Famicom's existence, but kept an eye on the rising star hardware nonetheless thanks to it's break out success.

Horii would commit to the Famicom on November 29 1985 by porting ''Portopia'' to the platform, aided Nakamura's personal studio [[Chunsoft]]. The Famicom version of the title marked the first time the two friends worked together on a commercial product, and the game immediately gained attention thanks to the machine's software library primarily being action titles. Notable is that the Famicom controller possessed only four buttons and necessitated the ditching the keyboard-based input structure of the original in favor of the intuitive [[Command Menu|command menu]] found in it's sequel, ''[[The Hokkaidō Serial Murder Case: The Okhotsk Disappearance]]'' (オホーツクに消ゆ), released earlier in 1984. Every action a player needed to make in the game was easily accessible from the command menu instead of being assigned to a specific keyboard key in a disjointed fashion, greatly streamlining the experience. The Famicom version of ''Portopia'' would eclipse the original computer version's sales figures by selling 600,000 copies in the first year and reaching 800,000 copies by 1989<ref>『89年版 ヒット商品「88」』講談社、1988年、31頁。NDLJP:11984310/18</ref>. 

With the success of the Famicom port of ''Portopia'', proving that a "slow game" can dominate the sales charts in an action game market, Horii and Nakamura agreed that the timing was right to begin development of the Famicom's first genuine RPG. After a lengthy process of convincing Enix supervisor Yukinobu Chida of the project's potential for success, the unnamed project was given the greenlight to begin development with Horii as sole scenario writer and Nakamura as lead programmer through Chunsoft. Instead of the common ''Wizardry'' clones that saturated the computer market in America, the two decided to combine the best aspects of both the aforementioned series and it's chief competitor ''Ultima'' and eliminate the largest design flaws of both in the process. To accomplish this it was decided to use the simple menu-driven command system of the Famicom Portopia, the first-person battle screen of ''Wizardry'', and the bird's-eye view map exploration of ''Ultima''. Development would officially begin in November of 1985 with a staff of five men.

As development on the unnamed RPG continued, Horii was working as a copywriter for a video game section within ''Weekly Shonen Jump'' magazine. This section, titled ''Famicom Shinken'' (ファミコン神拳) after the popular manga [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fist_of_the_North_Star Fist of the North Star], was edited by Horii's friend [[Kazuhiko Torishima]]. The two had bonded over games after being introduced by their mutual friend [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%95%E3%81%8F%E3%81%BE%E3%81%82%E3%81%8D%E3%82%89 Akira Sakuma] and previously wrote articles for [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%88%E5%88%8AOUT ''Monthly OUT''], which led to Torishima contracting Horii to write for ''Famicom Shinken''. As luck would have it, working with Torishima would catapult Horii's RPG project into becoming a cornerstone of Japanese culture in just a few short years: ''Famicom Shinken'' was facing fierce competition from the video game section of rival magazine [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoroCoro_Comic CoroCoro comics] and needed something to give ''Shonen Jump'' a sales advantage. After a period of brainstorming, Torishima concluded that the magazine's young readers would want to learn of how games are made and, having already known of Horii's passion project, convinced his superiors within upper management to dedicate page space to the title. 

As an extra incentive to sweeten the deal, Torishima used his authority as the editor of the ''Dragon Ball'' manga to assign [[Akira Toriyama]] to the project as the artist was under a very strict publishing contract that only allowed his work to be printed through Shueisha. This guaraunteed that ''Shonen Jump'' would have the best coverage of the game legally possible, and Horii suddenly found his RPG was getting attention via one of the most widely-circulating magazines in Japan in addition to being personally illustrated by one of the most popular artists in the world.

Coincidentally, acclaimed composer [[Kōichi Sugiyama]] had filled out a consumer response card packaged in the back of an Enix-published game called ''Kazuo Morita's Shogi'' (森田和郎の将棋), and was quickly approached by an Enix representative for the possibility of composing the music for the company. One of these games was Horii's RPG, now formally titled ''Dragon Quest'', on Chida's suggestion after being personally disappointed with the soundtrack composed by Chunsoft. With this, Horii found his game being carried forward by two luminaries of their respective fields.

After a rough development period and countless hours contemplating the feedback of Enix staff and playtesters, {{Dragon Quest}} was released on May 27th, 1986. Sales were slow at first, but strong word of mouth and a healthy advertising campaign in ''Shonen Jump'' magazine lead to a steady increase throughout the year, selling 1.5 million copies in total before production of the cartridge ceased in the early 90's. The title was an unprecedented sensation in Japan, leading to a cultural craze that lead to a boom of interest not only in RPG software, but tales of swords & sorcery, European myths and culture, and fantasy literature. For all this influence on his country's zeitgeist, Horii has remained a humble man, happy to give players new quests to venture out on as long as he can.