Dragon Quest X PC Beta: Everything You Need to Know to Register, Install and Play (UPDATED)

Giuseppe Nelva June 22, 2013 5:34 PM EST

By now many know that today Square Enix opened registrations for the Japanese beta of the PC version of Dragon Quest X: Mezameshi Itsutsu no Shuzoku Online. What not everyone knows is that the beta has actually started already, and it’s an open beta, so everyone can register, download the game and play.

The first phase of the test started today and will continue until July the 10th at 6 PM Japan time.

The game includes two separate portions. An offline adventure that serves the purpose of a prologue and the proper online MMORPG-like game. This is rather relevant, because depending on where you live, you may not be able to play online, and the process to simply play offline is a lot easier.

First of all, if you want to play online you need to create a Japanese Square Enix account. North American and European ones won’t work. Online gameplay is also region locked via IP, so unless you live in Japan, you’re stuck in offline mode. Of course there are way around this, like a VPN, but the purpose of this guide isn’t to teach you to get around the limits imposed by Square Enix, so if you want to try that route, it’s quite easy to find out how via Google.

Luckily if you don’t live in Japan there’s still the extensive offline chapter to enjoy. To do so you don’t even need to create a Square Enix account, you can just jump to the sections of this guide about downloading and installing the benchmark (if you want to try it) and downloading, installing and configuring the game.

Disclaimer: creating a Japanese Square Enix account implies that you reside in Japan. This guide has the exclusive purpose to explain the process to those that can’t speak Japanese. If you input a false Japanese address you do so at your own risk, and DualShockers won’t be held responsible for what could happen to you. Your house may be carpet bombed by a Gundam, or an enraged Majokko could turn you into a cutesy toad, with a wand shaped like a chainsaw.

Now that we have gotten the legalities out of the way, assuming that you reside in Japan you can follow this link to start creating your account. From there on, follow the pictorial guide. If you don’t have a Japanese browser, it’s best to use an incognito window in Google Chrome. If you crash against a “Service unavailable” message, try the incognito window.

Now open your e-mail. You should have a confirmation mail from Square Enix.

Now comes a slightly tricky part. You’ll need your last name and first name written in Japanese. If you don’t know how to write them in Japanese (shame on you, since you live in Japan) open Google Translator. Make sure English is selected as the source language and Japanese as the output language. Then type your last name on the first row and your first name in the second. It’ll give you the Katakana equivalent on the other side. You’ll have to paste them (separately) on the following form.

Now, you’ll need your Japanese address. Just to give an example, you could insert Zip Code: 163 – 1055, Prefecture and City: 東京都, Address: 新宿区, Number: 3 – 7 – 1 – 2, which corresponds to an hotel in Shinjuku. Of course you need to replace this with your real Japanese address.

Now that you have your new and shiny Japanese Square Enix account, it’s time to get to the fun part. Yeah, we aren’t nearly done. First of all you need to download the official benchmark. After downloading it, run the installer and follow the steps in the guide below.

Now launch the benchmark (you’ll find the icon on your desktop in the cutesy form of an orange slime), and continue following the guide below.

Now that you’re all done with the boring stuff, you can finally download the game.

Once you’re done downloading, launch the installer and continue following the guide below.

Once the game is installed click on the launcher on your desktop (the blue slime) and let it update. It can be a long process depending on the speed of your internet connection. It took me a couple hours. Once you’re done the login window will appear.

Take your time to configure the graphical settings. To do so, click on the link on the bottom left of the window.

Once your game is configured, you’re ready to play. Remember that you can play online only if you live in Japan, otherwise you can still play the full offline initial adventure. To do so just click on “Play Offline” without typing any username or password.

Character creation and gameplay are actually very intuitive, so I’ll let you discover what to do there on your own. If you have any question, feel free to ask in the comments, and I’ll try to help.

UPDATE: many were reporting the inability to access the beta, and after much searching I finally found the reason (they put the official calendar into the most invisible place ever, go figure). The beta runs for the whole day only on weekends (Japan time, meaning that it’ll mostly be friday and saturday for us), while it runs only for twelve hours a day during weekdays. Below you can see the detailed calendar with the hours in which the beta will be accessible marked in green. Remember that all times are JST (Japan Standard Time). If you need to know what time is it in Japan, you can check here. During weekdays the beta starts at noon Japan time, which translates to 11 PM EDT. I apologize for not noticing it earlier, but it was really well hidden with an extra smallish link in the middle of all the Japanese text…