Dragon Quest IV
8.6
10
17
17
Fun, but flawed.
I should start this review by saying I've been a Dragon Warrior/Quest fan for as long as I can remember. Of course, when I heard Dragon Quest 4, 5, and 6 were coming to the DS, I felt I had to purchase them. For the moment, let's forget all of that, and get to the review! Without spoiling anything, I can tell you that this game is played in different chapters. You play as the hero for a short time in the very beginning of the game. Each of these chapters follows the members of your eventual party, explaning some things about them and how they became who they are. One thing I really was disappointed about in this game was the detestable translation. At times, the dialogue is just silly. Case in point, I can distinctly remember a cook telling me "I have to prepare the edibles." While things like this don't take away from the fun of the game, at times, it is annoying. While this game has a few bad things going for it, it has several good things going for it. The graphics, for one, are awesome. The use of the dual screen is good, too. As you've probably seen in the screenshots, the lower part of a building is showing in the bottom screen, while the higher part of it is in the upper screen. Something else I liked was the battle screen. I haven't played this game since the NES years, and, of course on that game, the monster spirtes didn't move. This is not the case in the DS version. The monster sprites have a very fluid motion. The best thing about this game, I think, is the music. It is very pleasing to the ear. Personally, music is a big element for me to fully enjoy a game. Thankfully, the music in this game is very nice. I was slightly disappointed by the fact that this game does not utilize the touch screen whatsoever. Personally, that's part of the reason I purchased a DS. The idea of being able to dictate parts of a game with a simple touch fascinating. Once again, this does not take away from the game at all. With everything in consideration, this game isn't bad. It's a solid DS RPG. A must-have for any Dragon Warrior/Quest fan, if they own a DS and want a taste of nostalgia.
9/17/08
Fun but confusing.
This game is fun but it's really confusing on what to do. Also I'd rate the story part of the game only a 6.7 out of 10. But the battles are fun.
7/31/12
People are Under Rating Dragon Quest IV
People who are giving a 7 or under on a scale through 1-10 just DON"T get the point.The game is a true clasic that stands out on it's own. I played this game for 3 months and I'm still not done beating the main story. The 5 chapers makes the game like 5 different video games combind into one epic most-get RPG.
5/13/11
Great Game
This game is great. The Cover is not that good but the game itself is excellent.
4/8/11
Has its high points
fun game was really disappointed with the lack of depth of story, even though they go into backgrounds of the individual characters which was okay but still lacked depth. Overall its dragon quest so its a good game though
1/15/11
Compared to Other Dragon Quests
I will admit that I have never actually played the old NES version of this particular game,so I have nothing to base this off of as compared to that.And even though I'm sure this a 150% step up from that from what I heard,this game is sorely lacking in the one area I appreciate most.Graphics. I have played Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2 and found myself completely ENAMORED so i decided(when I saw the game)to purchase it.And found myself a little bit shc=ocked,at the graphics.Which I can compare to as old GBA style graphics for the most part.Now I do realize that this is a remake but please!I bought the game hoping for a remake with a little modern graphics,like actual 3-D.Of course,I'm not expecting PS2 quality here considering it IS a portable system,and the 3-D rotation is very nice(if in my opinion a bit tedious),but I would like there to be at least travel scenes with more than just classic traveling.For me I guess I was just expecting alittle more and not just another GBA game,but maybe I was aiming a little too high.I guess the fact that it didn't let me use the touch screen wasn't selling me on the oiint that it played almost like a slightly enhanced GBA game. On the lighter side.I do like the way this game is played in Chapters,letting us know our characters background(which is a fresh change from having to play every game before the one you have to understand the full story) and I do like the use of the two screens.The music,as always with a dragon quest game from what I see,was very catchy and made playing the game enjoyable. Overall I would reccommend this game to people who will see this a s a remake as an old NES game and those people really only.You can't really expect much in the way of an exciting new way to play the game as a DS game as you might as well have put this out for the GBA but some poeple will enjoy it if they like the classic RPG playing system.However,it sort of isn't my cup of tea.
1/9/09
Epic RPG for DS
I have been a RPG fan dating back to the early 80's. If you are a true RPG genre player you must buy this game! This is the first remake to reach the USA shores regarding the Dragon Quest series or known in the US as Dragon Warrior. Dragon Quest IV DS is a remake of the original game for the Nintendo NES Dragon Warrior IV. In Japan (Dragon Quest as it's called in Japan) - did see a reprise for the Super Famicom for Dragon Quest I, II, in one Cartridge & Dragon Quest III Reprise. Dragon Quest IV did not appear on the Super Famicom in Japan. Dragon Quest V, and VI did however make it to the Super Famicom in Japan. I have played the Dragon Quest IV Japan version and the USA Version. I have played them entirely from start to finish. The Japanese version and USA version are the same. It's nice to see that Square-Enix kept the game in conjunction between the US version and Japanese version. For the very first time Dragon Quest IV - V - & VI will be revised for USA RPG players. I would recommend the Dragon Quest IV - V - & VI to any DS RPG fan. My personal opinion - the Dragon Quest series are far more dynamic fighting in the 3D perspective. It's about time the USA players can enjoy the Dragon Quest series for the DS. Final Fantasy I - II - IV & VII has been the only other RPG to keep up with Dragon Quest games in my RPG book. I really hope to see more Dragon Quest games make it to the USA! I hope that Square-Enix in the USA will do a remake of the Dragon Quest III reprise Super Famicom edition for the Sony PSP! If you like the good old days of RPG nostalgia - buy DRAGON QUEST IV for the Nintendo DS!
12/2/08
such a great game
I never played the original dragon quest games but from this game right here I would highly recommend this game to everyone. This game was so well planned out and the storyline and the characters how the story is split up into 5 parts and the characters all come together. I have been playing this game non stop since I got it last week. I got it used with a discount so I got it for around 30 bucks but I would have payed the full forty otherwise. The controls are good and easy to use but I wish the ds touch screen would have been used at all because it's no use at all in this game. Also the music is real good too and it gets stuck in your head, ha-ha. Overall I would grade this game a solid A because of the depth of the story and how the game is played and I would highly recommend this game to anyone who loves RPG's.
11/15/08
Perfect RPG for a fan of the NES series
My favorite types of games are RPG's, and even though I'm spoiled by more current games within the genre (MMO's like Warcraft), I still enjoy playing the more linear, turn based RPG's from 15-20 years ago. I was extremely excited to see DQ4 make it's way to the DS, it was one of my favorite all time RPG's on the old NES, even more so than the Final Fantasy series. Overall an excellent game, very well done storeline. The game is divided into 5 chapters: the first 4 are fairly easy to complete, and give the perspective of 4 separate storylines on a wide range of characters, all with their own unique quests (one chapter focuses on a warrior class playing solo, another focuses on group play with a mage & warrior, etc). The 5th chapter is very very long, and merges the 4 prior chapter stories with the main story about the hero; this is where the game really begins. As the hero begins his/her travels, the hero eventually meets up and joins all the prior chapters characters. It's a lot of fun to see what happened to your characters after their chapters ended but before the hero meets them; each of the first 4 chapters all end in a cliff hanger as well. Start to finish, definitely one of the best epic storylines in an RPG; definitely the first time I saw the overlapping of multiple story arcs within one game. Very in depth gameplay that moves at a good pace, I never feel as if I'm getting slowed down by endless grinding just to advance; as long as you fight most of the monsters you encounter while completing quests, you will level up at a good rate & be able to buy the best weapons/armor for all party members. Not overly challenging for the die hard RPG'ers, but still enough of a challenge that you will get well above 40 hours of game play. What is also nice is that even when you have upwards of 12 characters in your party, and only 4 can participate in battle at a time, the other characters not in battle still earn experience & level up, thus avoiding a ton of pointless grinding. Controls are pretty standard, game does not require the use of the stylus pen, which I never thought was a good option for RPG's anyway. No memory option for the battle user interface, so you every time you want to repeat the prior fight's commands, you have to reselect everything, but that's only a minor inconvenience. The graphics are on par with most 16-bit games, and Square/Enix did a good job revamping them, very colorful & adding cut scenes and animating the battle sequences. The music is also really well done, but very repetitive; it's the same background score for every town/castle/house, and for some reason the underlying bass line is super annoying to me. I do have one major complaint, that I've also seen mentioned in other reviews; the translation is the worst I've ever seen (yes, even worse than "all your base are belong to us"). I'd say you have to read about 80% of the in game text mulitple times to understand it, I mean you can figure out what the NPC's are trying to say, but some of the text is one step above gibberish. How hard is it to plug Japanese into an auto-translator, then run a spell check? If I can do it through any number of free websites, why can't one of the largest & wealthiest game companies not do it better? Overall though, definitely worth buying & playing, whether new to the genre or an experiened gamer. Still just as fun as I remember, and maybe we'll get some DQ's that were released in Japan only brought over to the US.
10/16/08
Dragon Quest Bore
Except for a couple of side story based games, I've never played a Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior game. Dragon Quest IV is a remake of an NES game that originally came out in 1990 in Japan and 1992 in the states. Dragon Quest IV is a game that reeks of "old school" RPG goodness. However, it feels too archaic to be fun in this day and age with all of the staples missing that are currently in the genre to keep it fun and hold everything together. Story: The story of an RPG is pinnacle to the enjoyment of the game, so I won't delve to deeply into the story of the epic adventure. Unlike many other RPGs, this game has different "chapters" which contain new characters with a new story arc compared to the previous chapter. Having a separate aspect to the overall story is quite refreshing, but having to level up the new characters from scratch can be quite annoying and tedious.I've never experienced "party talk", but it was apparently in the Japanese adaption of the remake and taken out for the releases of the rest of the people around the world. Party talk lets you talk to the people in your party (hence the name) and helps develop characters that are excruciatingly boring and one dimensional in this current version of the game.Sound: The music and sound effects are very archetypal and serve the purpose of making noise in the place what otherwise would be complete and utter silence. I personally find the music not to be that bad for a DS game, but I prefer to play without any sound besides the background of my tv set and the witty one liners of Scrubs and Everybody Loves Raymond. You can do the same, you won't be missing anything.Graphics: The characters and enemies are all 2D sprites and the backgrounds are in 3D. The perspective of the screen is a 3/4 view which can make some things hard to see when in a 3D environment. Luckily, the developers were insightful enough to let you rotate angles (in most cases) with the shoulder buttons. Not only does this allow you to see your surroundings more clearly, but it also lets you take in the scenery in all of it's glory.The environments in this game look amazing! The towns are sprawling with gangs of townspeople scrambling all over doing errands and the little villages look rustic, quaint and painted with every spectrum of pigment imaginable.Enemies also look amazing in their 2D presentation, they're colorful, the animations are very fluid and the magic attacks (given and received) are vibrant and varied. The graphics aren't pushing the DS to it's full potential, but this game is still extremely pleasing to look at.Gameplay: Unfortunately, the most important part of the game is the also the most lacking. As I said earlier, having new characters after each chapter is a fresh approach to an RPG, but having to constantly build up new characters from nothing feels monotonous. Leveling is also a grind, some people may like grinding, but the game is really cheap with the EXP which makes having to grind at low levels potentially annoying for most.The battle system feels old as dirt and doesn't work well in this day and age. You can't tell how much EXP you have unless you ask a clergyman, you have no idea how much health the enemies have and worst of all you can't always pick your target. If you have more than one of the same creature that needs to die, you can only pick that group of enemy and not a specific one in the group to attack. This can make a battle hugely frustrating because it negates any attack plan you written up and bases too much of the battle on luck and pure randomness.Putting the game down and picking it back up may prove to be a bad decision. I found myself to be lost many times because I had no idea where to go and there was no in-game clue to point me in any direction. There is a very good chance that you will find yourself going to this very same site as a reference on where the hell you're supposed to go next. Having to resort to this cheapens the g
9/22/08