Meta:Dragon Quest Mystery Dungeon
Dragon Quest Mystery Dungeon began with 
Torneko's Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon
, the first entry into the Mystery Dungeon franchise and the first to use a crossover with another series, being the Dragon Quest franchise. The titles are primarily centered around Torneko, the merchant first met in Dragon Quest Ⅳ: Chapters of the Chosen.
The Mystery Dungeon series first began with the Torneko's Great Adventure trilogy, a spin-off of Dragon Quest Ⅳ: Chapters of the Chosen, known as Dragon Warrior Ⅳ in North America. Torneko would later appear as a cameo in the spin-off and prequel of Dragon Quest Ⅷ: Journey of the Cursed King, Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mysterious Dungeon, which marks the first and so far only Dragon Quest Mystery Dungeon game where the main character isn't Torneko, as Yangus, as a kid, is the protagonist instead.
About
After the launch of the Super Famicom and finishing development for Dragon Quest V, the company ceased working on the Dragon Quest series and began working on the Mystery Dungeon series.[1] The series was based on the 1980's game Rogue, which has spawned its own genre called roguelike.[1] For a week Koichi Nakamura, founder of Chunsoft and co-creator of the Dragon Quest series, played Rogue at the recommendation of a colleague, Seiichiro Nagahata, trying to understand the game's appeal, and concluded the high degree of challenge made the game very rewarding. While working on a roguelike game for the Super Famicom, the team decided to use characters from a recognizable franchise in Japan. Koichi Nakamura has asked Yuji Horii, creator of the Dragon Quest series, about the possibility to add characters and items from the Dragon Quest franchise, and Torneko, the merchant appearing in Chunsoft's previous work Dragon Quest IV, only to have the permission accepted soon after.[2][1] Torneko no Daibōken: Fushigi no Dungeon was published in 1993 and became the first video game to bear the "Mystery Dungeon" moniker.[3] Even if it sold less than the series' main titles, the game has sold over 800,000 copies. Koichi Nakamura conceived the series as Chunsoft's first original work.[1] The game spawned two sequels starring Torneko, Torneko: The Last Hope in 1999 and Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko's Great Adventure 3 in 2002, and a follow-up, Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mysterious Dungeon in 2006, where Torneko would appear as a cameo instead of the protagonist. And indeed, the game became the first of the over thirty Mystery Dungeon rogue-like series.[4]
Other characters other than Torneko would become playable throughout the titles: Torneko's own son Tipper Taloon in 
Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko's Great Adventure 3: Mystery Dungeon and Young Yangus in the spin-off and prequel of Dragon Quest Ⅷ: Journey of the Cursed King, Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mystery Dungeon.
Regional Releases
As of now, only one game was able to receive an official translation and port in North America, which is World of Dragon Warrior: Torneko: The Last Hope. The other games have remained in Japan due to the series' popularity in Japan, being more important than overseas.
| Game | Japan | North America |
|---|---|---|
| Torneko's Great Adventure | ✓ | ✗ |
| Torneko: The Last Hope | ✓ | ✓ |
| Torneko's Great Adventure 2 Advance | ✓ | ✗ |
| Torneko's Great Adventure 3 | ✓ | ✗ |
| Torneko's Great Adventure 3 Advance | ✓ | ✗ |
| Young Yangus and the Mysterious Dungeon | ✓ | ✗ |
| Dragon Quest Mystery Dungeon Mobile | ✓ | ✗ |
| Dragon Quest More Mystery Dungeon Mobile | ✓ | ✗ |
Translations
Games
| Game | Console | English | Chinese | Korean | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exist? | Ref. | Exist? | Ref. | Exist? | Ref. | ||
| Torneko's Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon
|
|
✓ | [Citation needed] | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Torneko's Great Adventure 2
|
|
Official | Enix | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
 |
✗ | ✗ | ✓ | [Citation needed] | ✓ | [Citation needed] | |
| Torneko's Great Adventure 3
|
|
✗ | ✗ | ||||
|
WIP | [n 1] | ✓ | [Citation needed] | ✗ | ✗ | |
| Young Yangus
|
|
✗ | ✗ | ||||
In Other Languages
| Language | Name | |
|---|---|---|
| English | Torneko's Great Adventure | |
| Japanese | トルネコの大冒険 | |
See Also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 http://www.1up.com/features/koichi-nakamura-interview-console-rpg Koichi Nakamura Interview: On the Birth of the Console RPG
- ↑ https://www.famitsu.com/news/201406/08054671.html
- ↑ https://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/projectbook/dungeon
- ↑ https://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/07/26/shiren-the-wanderer-is-a-mystery-dungeon-game-without-pokemon-or-chocobos-thats-all