Das Gamer Review - Dragon Quest IV: Chapters Of The Chosen

Das Gamer: "It wasn't long after I fired up Square Enix's Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen for the Nintendo DS, that I remembered why I loved RPGs so much. There are so many electronic quests, pixellated kingdoms alight with activity and destruction, monstrous displays of level grinding, sprawling, mystifying magical portholes into dimensions that our stupid brains won't transport us to unless you're one of the lucky few with something called imagination (or hard drugs). Yet, very few of these video game adventures ever provide a seriously entertaining experience that doesn't dwindle after the first act. Enter Dragon Quest IV: The Chapters Of The Chosen.

In this cultural wasteland of reissues, remakes, reincarnations and regurgitations, I hesitated at picking up Dragon Quest IV, just as I balked at the idea of the much beloved Chrono Trigger getting the DS treatment. Dragon Quest is not a fresh-faced game as it's seen the insides of Famicom and Playstation. And even though I never played those versions (Dragon Warrior for the NES took my dragon-based virginity) I was worried I'd be playing a game that clung to clunky controls or tried to update the graphics with 3D character models that look like little steaming piles of kuck with bright eyes. But as I saw the menu screen light up and the familiar tinkle of the tunes made popular by its 8-bit ancestors, I was drunk on its hybrid of the nostalgic and novel approaches to story, characters and the universe. It was like seeing an old comic book character done right after hundreds of overbearing, arcing story lines that destroyed the allure."