Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen! Post-game finished in 48 hours and 55 minutes. The main game was finished in 38 hours and 10 minutes.

Alright, let's get into it.

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen is a classic turn-based JRPG for Nintendo DS developed by Enix. It is a remake of Dragon Quest IV for PSOne which is a remake of Dragon Warrior IV on NES.

Dragon Quest IV tells a story of a hero/heroine destined to save the world from the antagonist, who is known as Psaro the Manslayer. Along the way, the hero/heroine meets all kinds of people. Some of the party members, some of them temporary party members, and others are major or minor characters.

With Dragon Quest IV, you basically have a traditional turn-based JRPG. Tride and true to Dragon Quest. You pick your commands and play them out. Simple. I, like many classic RPG fans, really like this system because there's no riffraff and it's easy. However with newer RPGs, I prefer that you pick the person with the highest agility's command first and they do it upon selecting it like newer turn based RPGs. But I have no problem with the Final Fantasy I through III/Dragon Quest style.

I really enjoyed these songs from the game:

Dragon Quest IV Battle Theme (DS)
Dragon Quest IV Battle Theme (NES)
Dragon Quest IV Boss Theme (DS)
Gypsy's Dance (DS)
Homeland (DS)
Homeland (NES)
Torneko Taloon (DS)

The thing about Dragon Quest IV is that it's story doesn't really revolve around the characters. After I beat the game, I started to realize that the story is kinda told in the music and what happens during the journey. Like, the song "Homeland" which is the hero/heroine's world map theme. Kinda gives you this melancholic feeling like that the hero/heroine is feeling sad and lost from everything that happened in his/her hometown but still needs to press on. Or "Gypsy's Dance", Meena and Maya's battle theme, sort of shows their dancer and fortune-teller personalities in a way that can't really be explained in words. And the song "Torneko Taloon" gives you that feeling of this wandering jolly merchant that's just trying to find money, who stumbles upon caves and fights monsters every now and then. Hard to explain, but it's a really good song. I suggest listening to the version from Torneko's dungeon crawler game on PSOne called Torneko's Last Hope. But anyway, I found some of the themes in the music to be very interesting in Dragon Quest IV.

One thing about the story that made me think was that in Dragon Quest IV, the antagonist, Psaro, is trying to find the Secret of Evolution to evolve into the ultimate being and destroy the world. Psaro's "evolved" form can reproduce/generate it's body parts when they're gone and create new ones as well as enhance it's own body structure and judging from it's design, I think it has wings. It also has a two mouths and four eyes as well as two noses. This made me think that Psaro in that form is able to do everything that is needed to maintain survival. He has evolved to the ultimate state.

The superboss (if you will... I thought it was stupidly easy, but super strong) had a similar appearance. His name is Aamon. After you defeat Aamon, he says that it must be an illusion because he believed that the Secret of Evolution was not supposed to fail.

That made me start to wonder that... What if living organisms are even meant to evolve to a point where they are nothing more than perfection? Maybe because accessing it could essentially destroy your spirit thus breaking you as a person unable to maintain such a form. And maybe if they are, they are ultimately imperfect because such a form of evolution, the "Final" evolution, was not meant to exist. That whole thing really made me think... Just damn...

In the end, I really really loved the entirety of Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen. It's one of the best RPGs I've played in a long time and one of the best games I've played this year. I had to use a walkthrough for the first 4 chapters. And I got some help for the Zenithian Sword quest. but other than that, I played this game completely on my own, which I'm very proud of! ^o^

After I beat the game, I did the bonus dungeon, the Fungeon, on my own and I used a walkthrough to learn how to get Psaro's equipment, finish Hoffman's Town, do the Pirates' Treasure sidequest, and get all mini medals (which I got all of them without the help of a walkthrough except for the ones from Hoffman's Town and the one in the Pirates' Treasure cave).

That is about it for this review! Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen. A FANTASTIC JRPG. One of the best. PLAY IT if you love turn-based JRPGs. I cannot recommend this game enough. It's fucking amazing! The most accessible way to buy this game is on the iOS Store or Google Play Store. The NES & DS versions are fairly high in price and the PSOne version is only in Japanese. It would be nice if Square released the NES version on 3DS's eShop, the DS version on Wii U's eShop, or translated the PSOne version and put it on the PlayStation Store as a PSOne Classic. But that's a topic for another day.

And with that, I leave you with my party's stats. Of you crazy kats don't know, I love to grind. So don't be surprised. XD

BTW, just to give you an estimate of how much I leveled up, I defeated 392 Liquid Metal Slimes and in total, I've gotten 3,939,600 EXP from them. XD

Heidi (Female Hero)

Level: 78
HP: 678
MP: 368
Equipment:
Liquid Metal Sword
Liquid Metal Armor
Zenithian Shield
Zenithian Helm
Ruby of Protection

Alena

Level: 82
HP: 621
MP: 0
Equipment:
Gringham Whip
Angel Leotard
Golden Tiara
Elevating Shoes

Maya

Level: 74
HP: 593
MP: 666 (Oh my goodness. XD)
Equipment:
Falcon Knife Earrings
Angel Leotard
Liquid Metal Shield
Goddess Ring

Psaro

Level: 61
HP: 613
MP: 461
Equipment:
Pandemonic Sword
Pandemonic Armour
Pandemonic Shield
Pandemonic Helm
Meteorite Bracer

==

Undisputed Verdict: 9.5/10

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time!! ~Gothorita