Dragon Quest IV (DS) Review

Posted by Jordan Williams on 10.08.2008

Joining the long line of DS RPG remakes is Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen. Is this 18 year old game worth still after all of these years?

The DS just seems to be the #1 home for old RPGs that get a remake. It's already been done many times with the Final Fantasy series and now it seems that Dragon Quest is going to get the same treatment. Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen is the latest to join the ranks. Released 18 years ago on the NES, Dragon Quest IV didn't make that big of a splash in the largey RPG-ignorant 90's in America. But now that RPGs have gotten some fame here it was time to release the game one more time on the DS to get it to a wider audience (despite the fact that the game had already been released for the Playstation once before). But let's not get it wrong here, the DS version isn't merely just a port of the Playstation remake. There's a few new bells and whistles added in to make the game feel new to those who have played it before and feel even more complete to those who haven't played it before (myself included).

For those who haven't played the game here's a bit of a rundown about it. Dragon Quest IV follows the lives of a large cast of heroes on a mission to (surprise) save the world. This is different from normal RPGs in the sense that the "Hero" character actually dosen't appear in a large capacity until about halfway through the game. The first four chapters of the game actually focus on the many characters that will eventually become your main party. You have Ragnar, a Royal Knight; (Princess) Tsarevna Alena, a tomboy princess who thirsts for adventure along with her companions Borya and Kiryl; Taloon, a merchant; the dancer and fortune-telling sisters Maya and Meena; and finally, YOU, the Hero.

You will use each of these characters as you guide them on thier way to rid the world of various evils and other wonderful things. Pretty standard for an RPG game. The real meat of it is how it looks and plays.


Graphics

Where as the theme of the RPG remakes is to remake them in full 3D, Dragon Quest didn't go that route. It actually decided to keep the old sprite-style of the game and gave it a bit of a 3D/Isometric face lift. It looks a tad dated at times but in the same vein on the DS' small screens it seems to fit in a lot better than some of the fully 3D remade games that end up looking a bit blocky and rough around the edges. A new feature this time around to go with the completely 3D landscapes is the ability to actually tun the camera 360 degrees in most areas of the game to get a good look at everything around you. The game screen actually spans both screens in the overworld but it's hard to remember it due to the giant gap between the two screens, nonetheless it at least puts both screens of the game to use at all times rather than just confining it all to a single screen. If you actually remember to look at the top or bottom screen (whichever one your character isn't on) you can actually use it a bit to your advantage. Sometimes you may see a trap or a different way out that's just off screen rather than actually have to walk into it and find out the hard way.

As far as the non-3D elements of the game goes, the sprites aren't very detailed but they get the job done. Where the sprites absolutely shine at however are the new updated animations for the monsters in battle. When you see these animations the first time you will actually be pretty impressed how smooth the animations are. When the monsters lunge at the screen actually does a bit of a dive to give it a good 3D feeling. Sadly this is the extent of how great the graphics are. Outside of the new smooth animations there's really nothing new brought to the table outside of the camera control. Then again for a game almost two decades old there isn't really anything else you can do to make it look new outside of giving it a full top to bottom face lift. The graphics are a bit dated, but they get the job done. I guess this is what they mean when they call it "Old School."


Gameplay

With the adventure clocking at about 50 hours the gameplay definitely has to hold up it's end of the bargian which is does...sort of. As tiresome as it is to say, DQ4 isn't exactly a spring chicken in terms of gameplay as well as it's look. While the old school RPG purists might love this to death, a lot of people might find the gameplay to be just a bit too slow and derivitive for thier liking. For instance the first three chapters of the game can easily be beaten by doing little else than constantly tapping the attack button the entire battle and once in awhile you may have to stop to heal. Once in awhile you might have to stall around and grind a little bit, because the game is unforgiving if you happen to go into an area you aren't strong enough to handle yet. But the game often times feels like it's flucutates from being painfully easy to painfully hard.

Outside of the battles the game does feel a bit linear in terms of what you can do, it follows the tried and true pattern of "Go to this village, find what's wrong, go to the dungeon, defeat boss to solve problem, move on" and it gets a bit boring at times when there is very rarely any sort of challenging puzzle to break up the monotony of it all. As I said before those who are fans of this type of game would probably feel right at home but it just moved a little bit too slow for my tastes, the constant random battles (sometimes happening every three steps) didn't help matters much either.

There are some other problems with the game in itself that are outside of the battle system, the save system is going to end up being your worst enemy. The only places you can truly save in game are in Churches (get ready for a very long and creepy prayer before and after). There is a quick save option but you can only use that on the overworld. Which means if you are in a lenghty dungeon or a town event that you have to work through you have no other option for suspending the gameplay outside of closing the DS and hoping the batteries don't run out. This can somtimes prove to be very frusterating because MANY times early in the game you might be at the bottom floor of a dungeon with only a hope and a prayer left and you will end up getting killed not three steps away from the stairs that lead out. Although it is worth mentioning that if you die in game there's no real penalty outside of losing half of your gold and having to pay a lenghty amount of money to revive any fallen teammates. Of course, you COULD run from these battles...but in the entire time I played trying to run from a battle worked for me a whole 10 times.

Yep.

Finally, there is absolutely no touchscreen support for this game at all. This seemed like a really odd move considering just how much of Dragon Quest is relient on menu surfing. It would've been a perfect fit for use with the DS' touch screen. The way the battle are presented and even the movement could've benefitted from the touch screen. Of course this is just a small gripe that dosen't effect the game overall, but it's a personal pet peeve of mine whenever a DS game dosen't use the touch screen in some sort of way, especially for a game that could've defintely used it to it's full potential such as this.


Sound

The music in this game is top notch, you almost get a Star Wars-y type feel from it the first time you turn it on and hear the Dragon Quest theme song. The music in the game all sounds pretty good in comparison. Although a select few of the tracks seem to be of higher quality than others, even the MIDI music is decent enough. You would be doing yourself a great disservice if you did not put on headphones for this game.

The sound effects are a different story, however. While they are mostly the standard sword clanks and spell pows that you are used to, they often time get drowned out by the music or just dosen't sound to appealing at all. But that really dosen't detract from the overall quality of the sound.

Although this part dosen't nessecarily fit into the 'Sound' category, I couldn't find another place to really put it in. New to this remake are a lot of regional dilaects for all of the text in the game. The world is diverse int he since that almost everyone comes from a different 'region' and has an accent to match. For example Ragnar comes from a Scottish-like area of the world and he (and all NPCs from that area) speak with a very noticeable scottish accent. These little details are a nice addition to give the game more of a worldy feel, but sometimes it can be downright impossible to read because the accents are laid on so thick. Although it is nice to see an RPG game world where everyone dosen't speak perfect english and has a little bit of culture injected into them.

All in all the sound design in the game is pretty damn good. The sound effects are on par with what you would expect but the real MVP of this ensemble is the music, the high quality sound bits sound wonderful and the MIDI music sounds pretty damn good on it's own.

Lasting Appeal

Being an RPG, replayability becomes a bit of a touchy subject. Some games you can play over and over again for the story alone and for different paths you can take. Sadly, this game just isn't one of them. The story is good the first time through but it's not really something you want to play over and over again. There's a few sidequests and collection quests that span the entire game, but none of them are really worth it if you ask me. Once the story is done it just seems to be...done. If you REALLY liked the story and the game you might come back to this one later, but I really can't imagine anyone doing so again.

Fun Factor

Despite it's shortcomings, once this game gets going it definitely gets going. Watching the story unfold through the character's eyes is a very fun. It might be a bit too old school for a lot of the modern gamers but it's hard to deny the fact that it comes with it's own charm. You're going to have fun with this game one way or another, it might take you a little bit (I personally didn't really get into the game until Chapter 2) but it will be worth it when it's all said and done.

The 411

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen is a solid RPG-remake for the DS. While it's no as impressive as some of the Final Fantasy remakes or even any of the other DQ-based games on the same system it does have it's own little unique charm. A few missed opportunities like no touchscreen support as well as sometimes downright boring gameplay keep it from being a game that many will remember down the road, but for the time being it's a good game that will eat up the hours and at the very least keep a large number of RPG fans interested until the next DS game comes along.

Graphics	8.0	The 3D enviorments are nice and smooth and the animated sprites flow great. Everything else feels dated however.
Gameplay	7.5	The first hours of the game are very boring and sadly it dosen't pick up much until near the end.
Sound	9.0	Do yourself a favor and play this game with headphones on or else you'll be missing out on some wonderful music.
Lasting Appeal	7.0	Once the game is over, it's over. Not much to do beyond giving it another shot.
Fun Factor	7.0	The game is fun for those who are big fans of DQ or old school RPGs, for everyone else it might just be too slow and too boring.
Overall	7.0   [ Good ]

Screenshots
All 9 Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen Screenshots