One of Square Enix's best, but often-overlooked series, has always been the Dragon Quest franchise. Continuing their trend of constant remakes, Square Enix has just recently brought out Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen, a welcomed change from all the remakes the company has been producing, since this time around it's a game not many people have played since it was originally released back in the day on the NES. Diehard turn-based fans will likely find themselves in heaven, but others will find a good game, but marred by tradition.

Battle System

Dragon Quest IV bucks the trend of conventionality from the moment the game first starts. Players will first pick the sex of their character, name them, talk to a few people, and then you don't even see that character again until many hours have come and gone. I wouldn't have even remembered what they looked like if they weren't on the game's box. Instead of taking a character from beginning to end and adding new adventurers as the story progresses, Dragon Quest IV is instead broken up into chapters, each telling the side story of other characters, until their own individual stories intertwine with the main character you created at the beginning, and then it's time to travel together in order to thwart the ultimate evil. The story is almost like the videogame equivalent of Pulp Fiction, where the story details the lives of several people, and then ultimately the way they all fit into each other's lives.

The storytelling mechanic is a unique twist on the old formula, but for every time it raises the game up to be something new and unique, the formula also hampers and destroys the momentum the game had going for it. For example, once I'd gathered all the party members together for the first time, I actually forgot all about the main character of the first chapter, especially what his name was. You start remembering things as the story goes along, but still the narrative isn't as top-notch as it could've been. Another problem with the narrative is an early portion of the third chapter is all about selling items in a shop. Imagine if you worked retail for a living and then had to play the exact same thing in a game – not really fun at all. You basically say yes to everything until you have enough money to go adventuring.

The dialogue of the game is a mixed bag too, mainly because accents don't work as well when read as they are when heard. I loved the accents used in Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, because you could actually hear what the characters were saying during the most important parts, and hearing Yangus always call me "guv" was just downright funny. Dragon Quest IV's written dialogue is often so thick it's hard to tell what they are trying to say in the first place, which hurts even more when the person is talking about something critical to the progress of the game.

As someone who prefers the tradition of a turn-based RPG rather than the quick action tactics of more modern games, the combat of Dragon Quest IV is like coming home after a long trip. It just feels good to be home again. For each of the main characters you control – since some of the non-major characters that join fight automatically – you'll issue them a command such as attack, heal, use an item, etc. You can have the characters act independent of you if you like by changing their battle tactics, but it's much easier having total control of all the combat going on. Battles are presented from the perspective of your party, which are looking at the creatures you're fighting. In a nice update for the remake, players will get to see party attacks – such as arrows – go from the foreground to the background, while enemy attacks will be vice versa. The animation is particularly nice during the battles, as you'll see everything from weretigers scratching towards the screen and archers flinging arrows right at you.

Rotating World

My biggest gripe about the game isn't really the combat system itself, but rather the fact that there is so much of it. It's not like I was surprised by the fact that the game includes the need to level/money/item grind, since all RPGs use this system. The problem with Dragon Quest IV, however, is that you do it so often. Typically I'm able to play through a story normally, find the boss is whipping me, and then level up in order to conquer it. Once the boss is done, I continue on, and then it's repeat the steps again when needed. With Dragon Quest IV the process is much different, as merely stepping out into the field is reason enough to need to level. Do you have to make a trip to a distant cave? If so, you'll have to level up, because merely walking there can be difficult (partly because characters start out so weak, but also because every few seconds will result in a random battle encounter). You'll also often need the best weapon and armor that money can buy, but the prices in the game are usually extremely high when you really need the pieces, and that of course leads to even more grinding.

Besides the addition of animated characters attacking, the game has also brought the world of Dragon Quest IV beyond the realm of 2D and sprites, into a strange and yet wonderful mixture of flat characters walking around fully realized worlds. When walking into a town, village, or place like a dungeon, it's entirely possible to walk around and never have to use the game's new 3D environments. If you want a better look at the environment and where to go next, however, by pressing the shoulder buttons you can rotate the world around to change perspective. In order to get the view back to the default, simply hold down both shoulders buttons at the same time and the world will spin back to the regular placement. During the exploration phases of the game, these rotating environments even stretch into the top screen, really making the world feel expansive since it takes up so much of the DS' screen space.

Beyond the excellent old school sprite graphics, newly realized revolving landscapes, and excellent animations, the game also features some great music and sound effects, ranging from the classical score that starts the game off to the dungeon crawling or slash of a sword. The only thing that would've made the package even better from a technical standpoint would to have had a little more variety from the effects and include a little spoken dialogue.

Having never had the chance to play the original Dragon Quest IV, I had fun discovering the game for the first time, and getting to enjoy an old-school RPG adventure, which are almost an extinct subgenre considering the gaming industry is constantly evolving and heading towards more action oriented battle systems. Despite enjoying the game, it's hard to ignore some of the problems that hamper the game, most notably the constant grinding and the ways the story is approached from different angles. Neither system is particularly bad through and through, but they could've either been implemented slightly better or tweaked a tiny bit.

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