RPG Diary

Dragon Quest IV

I know very little about Dragon Quest IV. To be honest, I'm getting a little burned out on Dragon Quest as the first three games did not have much story and required hefty amounts of grinding. Is Dragon Quest IV any different?

Title	Dragon Quest IV (US Dragon Warrior IV )
Year	1990 (US 1992 )
System	NES
Developer	Chunsoft
Publisher	Enix

Thankfully, Dragon Quest IV has significantly more story than the previous games. In fact, the distinctive feature of this game is how the story is divided into five chapters. Each chapter features a different main character which I thought was a great way to introduce the characters and the story. I thought this was easily the best story of all the NES RPGs that I have played so far. In previous Dragon Quest games, the stories felt very static — there's a bad guy, he's over there, so go level up and defeat him. This time the plot unfolds during the game which is much more compelling. My only complaint is that party members do not have much personality or dialogue.

The game balance also seemed better than the previous games as there was less grinding required. However, every chapter starts with a new character at level 1 again, so there is a little grinding required there to get started.

One of the new gameplay mechanics in Dragon Quest IV is the wagon. The wagon lets you easily change your active party members, even during battle, without returning to town. Experience is also shared with party members in the wagon, which reduces grinding and helps keep the other party members relevant. The only caveat for these features is that the wagon must be present — it is unable to enter some dungeons.

The other gameplay mechanic is AI controlled party members, which seems pretty ambitious for 1990! There are a few guest characters that join and leave the party during the quest and the AI controls them during battles. Furthermore, during Chapter 5, all party members outside of the hero become AI controlled. I liked this feature at first because it speeds up the common (i.e. boring) encounters where you just select your strongest attacks. However, later in the game this became quite frustrating as the AI would make strange and ineffective choices about spells to cast. The worst case was Cristo draining his MP repeatedly casting Beat and Defeat (instant death), even on bosses, instead of healing. By the end of the game, I was just using my three best physical attackers and using the hero to heal.

Despite the annoying AI, I had a lot of fun with this game. It far exceeded my expectations for an NES RPG. The reduced griding and the interesting story kept me hooked until the end.

After completing a game, I add it to my overall enjoyment ranking which orders the games I've completed from those I most enjoyed to those I least enjoyed. It's hard for me to choose between this and Final Fantasy III. Final Fantasy III has a big difficulty spike at the end, but I think Dragon Quest IV's AI party members were more frustrating.