[gamebabble] Dragon Quest IV (DS)
Time Taken Till Ending: 045:13 (1)
Battles: 1161
Monsters Defeated: 3124
Total Gold from Battles: 146864
Victories: 1156
Times Wiped Out : 0 (2)
Times Fled: 4
Maximum Damage in One Hit: 366
Clear Level: 36 Lv.
Title: Anti-Resurrectionist (3)
(1) Twice as long as most people I've seen post these stats.
(2) You don't "game over" when you wipe out, but I could never watch it and turned the DS off. :D
(3) I have a feeling this is connected with (2). I had a pretty good laugh when I saw it!
Welcome, all brave (or well-rested) souls, to the Dragon Quest IV Giga-Review!
Story
DQIV starts out as all three of the DQs I've played do--quietly, almost pastorally. Everyone around our Hero (hereafter called Pip, which is what I named him) tells him he's grown up and is the chosen one. So Pip leaves his nice peaceful village, gathers up random vagrants along the way, and together they defeat the menace that threatens to destroy the world.
Well, actually, after a couple of little conversations in Pip's pastoral town, the game takes you to a totally different part of the world with a different protagonist, Ragnar McRyan. To be as spoiler-free as possible, Ragnar completes a major quest that gets him to about lv. 12. Then the game takes you to another place and another character, princess Alena, with her loyal attendants Kiryl and Borya, who have their own quest sequence. And so on, for four chapters total.
THEN we go back to Pip, whose village gets destroyed and then all that business from the first paragraph happens. Pip tracks down all the folks from the first four chapters, and off they go. And that's about it, big plot-wise.
Gameplay
DQIV's an older turn-based RPG, so there's probably not a lot of surprises there. It's "traditional," I guess, with a couple quirks here and there (see below).
When your party is gathered together, there are eight main party members, and eventually one AI-controlled NPC you can rotate into your party if you want. The abilities are spread out nicely between them, and you always have a good selection of people and items to use to fit your style. I went with a buff/debuff setup, but you could easily go turtle, glass cannon, or any other combination you wanted. There's even a character who's partially player and partially AI-controlled, who will do silly things like trip, sing a lullaby, or take a monster's treasure (monsters almost never drop anything in DQIV).
In general the variety in monsters is good--neither too sparse nor too overwhelming. Some of them cast, but have a limited magic pool, so they'll do a spell or two, then try to cast but run out of MP, losing their turn. Some are evasive heavy hitters (rogue types!), some are sheer bricks, and there are some really fun and unique monsters as well, that will cause a chuckle the first few times you see them. The last ten hours or so of the game just uses the same monsters palette-swapped and with stronger spells, but that wasn't a big deal.
DQIV has "use in battle" items, and lots of them. A couple of them are essential to certain boss battles, as in you can't win without them. None of them are as cheesy as the pile of healing helms/staves you can find in the first FF (as much as I loved those, hehe).
A somewhat unique, and excellent, feature of DQIV is that you never have a true "game over." You lose half the money you were carrying (there's a bank you can stow extra cash in), but keep all your items and XP progress.
Look and feel
Music
I like the composer for the DQ games, Koichi Sugiyama. Or rather, I like his music. Yaknowwhaddimean. ;) There are quite a few tunes, and each sets the tone well. However, there is only one major town theme (with day and night variation), one major dungeon theme, and one overworld theme (once you get to the save-the-world part of the game). After about ten hours of each, I turned the volume down except when I thought there'd be something new to listen to.
Translation
The translation has met with both admiration and criticism for its outrrrrrrageous accents. Each major town in the world has its own Scottish burr, Star Trek Chekhov thick Russian accent, Australian accent, Pepe le Pew thick French accent, etc. Since the music doesn't distinguish towns from each other at all, and the graphics not all that much, the accents help. I didn't have a serious problem with this.
Bullet-point time!
If I'd gotten into the "world tour" part of DQIV more, I'd have ranked it up another point. Recommended, with some minor reservations if you don't dig old-style RPGs.
P.S. this game is played entirely touch-screen free, so could be played on Itchy's ailing DS. :)
Battles: 1161
Monsters Defeated: 3124
Total Gold from Battles: 146864
Victories: 1156
Times Wiped Out : 0 (2)
Times Fled: 4
Maximum Damage in One Hit: 366
Clear Level: 36 Lv.
Title: Anti-Resurrectionist (3)
(1) Twice as long as most people I've seen post these stats.
(2) You don't "game over" when you wipe out, but I could never watch it and turned the DS off. :D
(3) I have a feeling this is connected with (2). I had a pretty good laugh when I saw it!
Welcome, all brave (or well-rested) souls, to the Dragon Quest IV Giga-Review!
Story
DQIV starts out as all three of the DQs I've played do--quietly, almost pastorally. Everyone around our Hero (hereafter called Pip, which is what I named him) tells him he's grown up and is the chosen one. So Pip leaves his nice peaceful village, gathers up random vagrants along the way, and together they defeat the menace that threatens to destroy the world.
Well, actually, after a couple of little conversations in Pip's pastoral town, the game takes you to a totally different part of the world with a different protagonist, Ragnar McRyan. To be as spoiler-free as possible, Ragnar completes a major quest that gets him to about lv. 12. Then the game takes you to another place and another character, princess Alena, with her loyal attendants Kiryl and Borya, who have their own quest sequence. And so on, for four chapters total.
THEN we go back to Pip, whose village gets destroyed and then all that business from the first paragraph happens. Pip tracks down all the folks from the first four chapters, and off they go. And that's about it, big plot-wise.
Gameplay
DQIV's an older turn-based RPG, so there's probably not a lot of surprises there. It's "traditional," I guess, with a couple quirks here and there (see below).
When your party is gathered together, there are eight main party members, and eventually one AI-controlled NPC you can rotate into your party if you want. The abilities are spread out nicely between them, and you always have a good selection of people and items to use to fit your style. I went with a buff/debuff setup, but you could easily go turtle, glass cannon, or any other combination you wanted. There's even a character who's partially player and partially AI-controlled, who will do silly things like trip, sing a lullaby, or take a monster's treasure (monsters almost never drop anything in DQIV).
In general the variety in monsters is good--neither too sparse nor too overwhelming. Some of them cast, but have a limited magic pool, so they'll do a spell or two, then try to cast but run out of MP, losing their turn. Some are evasive heavy hitters (rogue types!), some are sheer bricks, and there are some really fun and unique monsters as well, that will cause a chuckle the first few times you see them. The last ten hours or so of the game just uses the same monsters palette-swapped and with stronger spells, but that wasn't a big deal.
DQIV has "use in battle" items, and lots of them. A couple of them are essential to certain boss battles, as in you can't win without them. None of them are as cheesy as the pile of healing helms/staves you can find in the first FF (as much as I loved those, hehe).
A somewhat unique, and excellent, feature of DQIV is that you never have a true "game over." You lose half the money you were carrying (there's a bank you can stow extra cash in), but keep all your items and XP progress.
Look and feel
Music
I like the composer for the DQ games, Koichi Sugiyama. Or rather, I like his music. Yaknowwhaddimean. ;) There are quite a few tunes, and each sets the tone well. However, there is only one major town theme (with day and night variation), one major dungeon theme, and one overworld theme (once you get to the save-the-world part of the game). After about ten hours of each, I turned the volume down except when I thought there'd be something new to listen to.
Translation
The translation has met with both admiration and criticism for its outrrrrrrageous accents. Each major town in the world has its own Scottish burr, Star Trek Chekhov thick Russian accent, Australian accent, Pepe le Pew thick French accent, etc. Since the music doesn't distinguish towns from each other at all, and the graphics not all that much, the accents help. I didn't have a serious problem with this.
Bullet-point time!
- Good: the character designs are all cheerful and the monsters are cute, strange and scary. I'm not a huge fan of Toriyama's art, but it's a great fit here.
- Good: crawls were just the right length, at about 45 minutes or an hour apiece. I could have used one or two more, but that's 'cause I like crawling. ^_^
- Good: there are bits of warmth and "heart" here and there that make it completely charming at times. Mr. Bigbad isn't all bad, in true Japanese storytelling fashion.
- Good: Bunches of cute surprises, like an item you can use to transform your party's appearance to monsters and talk to monsters in a monster castle. Or the silly, punny dialogue of the slime characters you meet. Or the mini-medals that show up all over the place.
- Good: a full map on the top screen of the DS that fills itself in as you explore the overworld. I would have lost my mind without this.
- Good: You can swing the camera around almost anywhere in towns and dungeons, and a second full screen of town/dungeon shows on the top screen of the DS. Another mind-saver. ^_^
- Not so good: once we're past the four introductory chapters, and into the main story, you're thrown out there with not even a little hint about what you're supposed to do. Shades of the first FF--wander the whole world, talking to everyone and getting smashed by random encounters when you wander too far. I understand the design choice, but don't like it very much. Once you track down the first major plot point after gathering your party, though, it's all downhill, especially if you HAVE talked to as many people as you can. "He's looking for a turnip. There was a turnip seller in Le Pewtown..."
- Not so good: when Chapter 4 hit, I wasn't all that excited about taking yet another small party up to level 12. And then I had to do it again with Pip!
- Not so good: once you hit Chapter 5, the entire supporting cast don't get any more story of their own until the very very end.
- Not so good: has its grind. You probably don't NEED to get the most expensive armor for all your characters to win the game, but OCD gamer-gal does it anyway, just in case. I am not crying hard about this--it didn't take up what I'd consider a significant percentage of the game. Just made the experience less compelling when it was going on.
If I'd gotten into the "world tour" part of DQIV more, I'd have ranked it up another point. Recommended, with some minor reservations if you don't dig old-style RPGs.
P.S. this game is played entirely touch-screen free, so could be played on Itchy's ailing DS. :)