Dragon Quest IX is already a hit in Japan – and it's not even out yet.

Square Enix's highly anticipated DS role-playing game will release in Japan on July 11, and pre-orders have already passed the 2 million mark. The previous installment, released on the PlayStation 2, sold 3 million in Japan within the first week.

Famitsu, a popular video game magazine in Japan, estimates that 95.5 percent of all Japanese people between ages 16 and 49 are aware of the Dragon Quest brand. Dragon Quest IX has also been in the top four of the magazine's reader-polled “Most Wanted” list for the past two and a half years.

The Dragon Quest games have proven to be so popular in Japan that Enix (before its merger with Square) had to change release dates for Dragon Quest from weekdays to weekends after receiving complaints of mass absenteeism from schools and workplaces.

However, unlike the Final Fantasy series, Dragon Quest saw relatively little success outside of Japan until Dragon Quest XIII on PlayStation 2.

The newest title will feature four-player cooperative play, which may entice non-Japanese gamers to give the game a shot. Also helping the title is the fact that it's releasing on the DS, which is currently the most popular system.

The release dates for Europe and North America have yet to be announced.