Dragon Quest series creator Yuji Horii has explained that Dragon Quest’s weakest weapon exists thanks to a limitation with the Famicom.
Speaking to Japanese outlet MagMix (and a big thanks to Automaton for the translation), Horii talks about the series’ iconic Cypress Sick. This weapon is… well, a stick, but its lack of power has made it an icon of the series since it first showed up in Dragon Quest 2, and it has gone on to appear in a number of mainline and spinoff entries since, most recently in Dragon Quest 11. The humble stick is such a big deal that it also appeared in Nier Automata as a reference to the classic JRPG weapon.
However, cypress wood is actually a pretty solid bit of kit in real life – used in the construction of shrines and temples – which has led to some confusion over the name of the comically weak weapon.
Horii explained that, because of the limitations in cartridge space for the Famicom (which is what the NES is called in Japan), the game could not use kanji characters (which convey meaning and sound) and instead everything was written in hiragana (which conveys sound). So, while wooden swords are generally known as “kashi,” their equivalent in hiragana would be “kashi no bo,” which he says made it sound too much like “okashi” – the Japanese word for snack.
In the end, “hinoki” was chosen, which means “Japanese cypress,” as it was a distinct sound that wouldn’t have any potential to create confusion. So all these years later, a mere stick has become an iconic part of the father of JRPGs, and its contradictory name is all due to some hardware limitations.
Ahead of Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate, why not check our list of the 10 Best Dragon Quest games of all time, ranked
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