The upcoming spin-off Dragon Quest: Heroes will include two characters from Dragon Quest VIII. The information came from an interview in Famitsu and was reported by Gematsu. In the interview series creator Yuji Horii and Koei Tecmo's general producer Kou Shibusawa described the character selection process. It's run predominantly by Horii, but Shibusawa managed to sneak in one of his favourite characters.
"There was one character I just had to step in and implore be included and I said, ‘I want you to put Jessica in the game!'" Shibusawa said.
"Aside from Jessica, Angus will also be showing up to help represent the old geezer crew", Horii commented after Shibusawa.
They try to get as balanced roster as possible, so the bulk of the character selection process is done by the series creator Horii. It was also confirmed that some of the characters from DQ IV and DQ VI would appear in the upcoming game.