A lot of people that I meet know what Dragon Quest is but are ultimately turned off by the Akira Toriyama artstyle for some reason and the very traditional JRPG structure. And like all of the reasons mentioned above, it all comes down to the fact that Square Enix doesn't push it much. I think this goes back to when Final Fantasy VII released and that game made Square ahead of Enix and basically on top of the JRPG market/genre. Both of them were having troubles selling their games in the west and Square just managed to beat Enix in the race. Then again, it's still a very well known franchise. Final Fantasy just came before it in the west in terms of popularity. Pokemon, however, manages to overshadow both.

Interesting read here - https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonquest...l_well_in_the/