Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen is based off the NES game: Dragon Quest IV. The game has been given a graphic overhaul on it’s way to the DS and unlike Final Fantasy IV it did not stumble into the mire of poorly rendered polys. The graphics for the most part are 2d, buildings and various other infrastructures are in cell shaded 3d while people and enemies are sprites. If you have ever played Dragon Warrior VII this may seem familiar since it uses the same graphics engine.
Dragon Quest IV is less of full-on adventure and more of a collection of short stories, up until the last act when everyone joins together. While not bad and a revolutionary method of storytelling back in it’s age the action can get broken down in between the transition to different chapters. Each chapter you take on the role of several different characters: a merchant trying to make his way to the top, a princess going on a journey to prove herself, a soldier looking for lost children, and so on. It’s not until the final chapter do all these character’s stories intertwine and work together for a common goal.
Your role in the story is the ubiquitous mute and prophesized hero, spending your early days preparing for the day you must leave the village and destroy the evil one. I don’t get why writers are so lazy they have to make silent protagonists. If Link and Mario actually spoke I bet they would have some pretty decent quotes. It seems unnecessary and uncreative to do that and one of my most hated cop outs ever. It's better to have an actual character than pou yourself into the role of hero, because after all who would want to play a game as you?
Eventually your idyllic life turns to shit (ala Fable 2) and you must begin your quest to cast out evil and seek out like-minded individuals. The game being a true-to the-original remake sticks to the vagueness of the original, your never quite sure what’s your next step until you’ve spoken to everyone. Although if you’ve played the NES version this will seem all quite familiar with the exception of updated names for certain people and places.
Unlike the NES version the difficulty curve has been toned down a bit, this means less level grinding and more action. Although this makes things easier that does not necessarily apply to the entire game, some parts can be difficult and you may need to build up some levels. Conveniently, the combat is fast paced and zippy, the enemies are wonderfully animated in 2d sprites and your characters are well balanced and have a variety of abilities at their disposal. The combat is not without it’s problems though, it’s nearly devoid of strategy, a problem which plagues many Dragon Quest games. Most of the time in random encounters you’ll end up attacking, using multi-hit spells, and taking small breaks to heal during battle. Later in the game the random encounters become more strategic as the enemies become stronger and pose more of a threat. No more will you sit idly by attacking but you must put foes to sleep, steal their MP, boost your offence, lower their defence, and much more. The boss fights are guaranteed to keep you on your toes however.
If you are not familiar with the RPG genre or don’t care for RPGs whatsoever chances are you won’t like this game and it won‘t change you. Dragon Quest IV harkens back to the older days of RPGs (and rightfully so) the game is as true to the original as possible. The updates to the script are hit-and-miss, the characters now have accents and dialects based on their nationality (French, Irish, Russian, British, ect). The game also uses local Wifi but it’s instead of multi-player minigames or Questing for a friend it’s squandered on a town building game that doesn‘t really go anywhere. If you enjoyed the NES version or are a fan of Dragon Quest and want to see what it’s more older entries are like, I highly recommend this throw-back to the old-school RPG.
Sun Mar 15, 2009 1:16 pm
