The latest Nintendo Direct spooned immeasurable quantities of good news down the gullets of JRPG fans like myself. I’m stuffed.

First, and most bizarrely, Cloud is coming to Super Smash Bros. That’s beyond weird, especially when I think back to how my dumb fifteen-year-old self almost burst into tears upon reading that Final Fantasy VII would be a PlayStation game, not an N64 title as everyone assumed (I had poured every last excess drop of sweat and blood I owned into my N64 fund).

So when I first heard those iconic, gentle dings that herald the start of Final Fantasy VII’s prologue on Cloud’s reveal trailer, my brain seized up. Ecstatic as I was over the Mega Man reveal, it made perfect sense for the Blue Bomber to get equipped with Smash because despite being a third-party mascot, he’s a staple of Nintendo’s history.

But Cloud?

Co-signed, you spiky-haired bastard.

Whatever. I’ll take it. Just cram it into my pie-hole along with everything else Nintendo revealed at the Second Coming of E3 2015. I’m just glad the era of crazy-ass Smash reveal trailers is not quite over.

(Incidentally, Final Fantasy VII’s aforementioned “opening chime” also shows up on the trailer for the PlayStation 4 remake. Interesting how both Square-Enix and Nintendo understand its power.)

So, Cloud. That’s one thing. Here’s another two things: The Nintendo 3DS iterations of Dragon Quest VII and VIII are getting English translations.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Dragon Quest VIII isn’t a hard game to find. It’s relatively easy to hunt down for the PlayStation 2, and there’s a mobile version you can pick up right now.

The mobile version is … not a bad port, really. I would recommend if it if you have no other way to play Dragon Quest VIII, which is hands-down one of the best JRPGs of all time. But it really makes older devices creak, plus you’re locked in portrait mode.

Yangus 2016

Also, there’s no charmin’ British voice acting, it sucks down battery power like a kindergartner let loose in the classroom’s apple juice cache, and some people — some people named Nadia — have a 16 gig phone, and therefore can’t afford to let a 1.5 gig game sit around on their device.

Also coming to Nintendo 3DS: Dragon Quest VII.

Now, this one’s interesting. Outside of its initial PlayStation release, Dragon Quest VII has scarcely appeared in North America. It recently hit mobile phones in Japan, and lately, mobile has been the platform for English-language Dragon Quest games, like it or not. So I dutifully waited for Square-Enix to announce an English translation for Dragon Quest VII mobile.

It didn’t happen. I guess that should’ve been my first indication that Nintendo had plans.

It was a big rock.

I’m thankful for the mobile versions of Dragon Quest. I’ll lap up my Slimes and Drackees in whatever form they’re served to me. But something feels right about Nintendo making another localization push for the series. They’ve tried to cram Dragon Quest in North Americans’ faces since day one, and while I doubt the financial returns have been as meaty as expected, they’ve helped cultivate a small but viciously loyal fanbase.

And maybe these recent stirrings indicate Nintendo has plans for a simultaneous Japanese / English release of Dragon Quest XI for the NX.

As a decades-long disciple of the series, I can confirm that THIS IS WHAT THE ZENITHIAN DRAGON WANTS, PRAISE BE UNTO HIM.

Let us pray.