Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

I have just beat this game! And it was pretty ... ADDICTING! I don't know what about Dragon Quest that is so addicting. I mean the character designs are funny because.. well lets just say Dragon Ball Z Character designs aren't exactly Final Fantasy! The graphics were just okay and the story line wasn't particularly compelling but it was one addicting as hell game! I think part of it just has to do with my obsession with buying things in the game and the weapons in this game are actually loot-worthy, and part of it is because despite none of the characters talking, you can get to know how all the characters are just by talking to all the people around them and through that you fall in love with the characters! Even the Torneko Taloon! And I tend to have a.. .dislike towards chubbier characters (please don't kill me!). But I loved the game. It was fun and I totally wouldn't mind playing through it again near the future. I'm actually anticipating the next Dragon Quest Game I have on my hands.

Here are the pictures of the now forever imprinted into my head charcters:

So what is this game about? Spoiler alert!

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You start off the game as either male or female. If you choose male you get the handsome lad in green at the far top left to be your avatar, and if you choose female you get the lovely curly green haired lady at the far top right. Now you get to play around a little as one or the other and get the feel, but right after you get attached to your character the game whisks you away and you are now the man in the pink armor named Ragnar. From there the story unfolds one at a time.

Ragnor goes on a quest to see what is the cause of the missing children and goes on a mission to save them. Along the way he befriends a little slime monster named Healie and together they defeat the monster that has been kidnapping the littler barines! Right after the king thanks you very generously, Ragnar is off again to go and find the Hero (in my case Heroine) that is meant to save the world from utter destruction. Yup, you get attached to the leg revealing funny captain and before you know it the story changes again! Onto Chapter Two!

This time around you start off as a flaming orange headed tom boy princess by the name of Alena. (She is one hella of a strong melee character.. hint hint). She is fed up with living the princess life and so without her father knowing sneaks out of the castle and runs away to have a worldly adventure. (But not without Kiryl, a priest in love with Alena and Borya her tutor!) Well along the way, she does some heroic deeds from town to town and eventually finds out that her castle hometown is attacked and so she rushes back to save her father. Her father thanks her professedly and allows her to journey as she wishes. But before she departs again the King of Zamosva tells his daughter that he had a scarily haunting dream where the world is going to come to an end. But with a splitting head ache he dismisses it and wishes Alena luck on her journey.
                            


Following her wise Father's advise Alena continues her journey until she comes across a Tournament for the Princess's hand in marriage in Endor. Well the King of Endor relealizes what a mistake he made proclaiming such a prize and so Alena joins the tournament to save the Princess from a horrible gruff muscle head. (A girl can't marry a girl in Dragon Quest after all.) After her victory, Alena gets the horrible news that everyone in her castle has just vanished! She rushes back to her castle to see that its true and the story ends for Alena and starts with Chapter 3!



Now comes in the fat Torneko. The kind Tornkeo with a dream to own a shop one day. You start off with Torneko going to work at a shop. With his wife worrying if he'll ever attain his dream, he leaves his family and goes off on an adventure to start his shop. Along the way he ends up saving some people and doing other miraculous deeds such as preventing a war, and so the king of Endor allows Torneko to open his shop which he does with a lot of money. Don't worry, money isn't an issue in Torneko's chapter. The Chaptor closes with Torneko funding a tunnel that is meant to reach from one continent to another and he travels this tunnel to search for a legendary sword... interesting...



Well the chapter ends with this Merchant and goes to two beautiful sisters by the name of Meena (a fortune teller and also Guree's FAVORITE character followed closely by Hero and Alena which are tied :D) and Maya (a dancer). These two girls are off on a journey to revenge their father's death. After a tantalizing dance shown by Maya (I assume its tantalizing.. 16bit graphics make tantalizing hard to pull off) the girls are off. They eventually do find the traitorous traitor and manages to defeat him with the help of several things they were able to obtain throughout their journey. But the taste of victory is very short because a bigger badder monster comes out of now where and wipes the sisters out clean. They wake up to find themselves in a dungeon with the real king of the castle and he helps them escape. The girls go off to find the Hero who can defeat that badder monster and run away on a boat to Endor to end chapter 4.

So you saved children, witnessed the disappearance of your home, started a shop and failed at a revenge plot. Wow this game takes you all over the place. Enticed? I sure was. I skipped my studies for this. I just hope that choice doesn't bite me in the doo doo later.

So your long awaited hero/heroine can be the star of the show after all these chapters! I was sure excited. So the game starts off with your home completely ruined and in shambles after a strange bard happened to be lost in your village. You find out later that the village's entire purpose was to take care of you and raise you so that one day you can save the world. Its a little heart wrenching to see everyone die around you. I shed a tear.. but only one! From there you go on your adventure of revenge with only a name. Psaro the Manslayer, Master of the Monsters. Yup.. talk about a mouthful of a name. Well you originally go off into the city of Endor and from there you meet, non other than the two beautiful sisters from the chapter before. Meena recognizes you as the Hero when she reads your fortune and together you guys retrieve her gambling addicted sister Maya. From there you go to a port town called Porthtunnel and meet up with Torneko. Tornkeo gives you a boat and a grand boat it is. From there you meet up with Alena while trying to save Kiryl. After this and that you eventually meet up with Ragnar who's trying to defeat the Baron of Leos. Upon defeat, Ragnar joins your group and together you guys are off to kill the Sister's Father's Murderer. Wow everyone's together. You get a feeling of completeness when everyone finally rejoins your group. Group Photo!

From there the journey is just half started. You follow town to town, from rumor to rumor (A very not smart way to travel in real life kids!) to find out about Psaro the Manslayer. Along the way you pick up items that are useful, funny, or cursed and with those go to the next obstacle. Eventually you meet a girl named Rose. She's a elf girl who can cry ruby tears. Apparently humans have sought after her tears for so long and so to protect her Pasaro places her in a safe tower to watch over her. You're starting to see a motive in Psaro. Character depth is always welcomed. Eventually you find out that he wants to destroy human kind and its corruptness of greed and dirty ... yeah you get it.

Well you go along your merry way and stop the Lord of the Underworld. At the end of your victory, Psaro comes flabbergasted that you could do such a feet. Before he can do anything though, a monster comes in and tells Psaro that something has happened to Rose. As if you're not even there he runs off to her aid and you follow close behind. Of course Rose is dead and Psaro is furious! So now you have to stop Psaro before he completely revokes the Secret of Evolution and becomes a godly BEAST! Well this journey takes you to the skies and there you learn your origin. Get this guys, you're an half angel half human! Yup! Your mother disobeyed the Dragon God's rule and came to the earth to fall in love and give birth to you. For disobedience, your father is struck dead and your mother is taken against her will to the heavens where she is also appropriately punished. Apparently your grandfather is a cranky wood cutter in the middle of now where next to your demolished town at the beginning.. figures.

Well the Dragon God, who doesn't like you cause your a creation of disobedience grudgingly admits you're the only one who can stop Psaro in his final form. (I wanted to "hah" in his face.. but you can't..) He grants you some nice things then off you go to save the world. After breaking down the barrier (very tedious work by the way) you end up at the feet of.. Psaro.. a true Monster. He was at least some what good looking before. The above picture is the original art of Psaro and Rose. Here is a 2007 remake version of him. Well you defeat him and .. find out on your own. I gave you a good enough spoiler as it is :D

So if you guys can't tell, this is one lofty hefty story. It has a long game play. Took me around 33 hrs to defeat the game. The characters are fun and have depth, the monsters are interesting to look at, and the game is overall just fun to go through.

Spoiler end:

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So guys, get this game! I highly recommend it! Especially if you are an old fashioned Japanese RPG fan. I admit that when I first got this game, it was on a whim. I was playing Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Sky and realized I wanted to meet the characters that gave up their outfits in the IXth game. Of course I couldn't get all of them because the game series is really old but I did my best to buy all the remakes on the DS. I'm on my way for Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride and I'm excited as no other to play that game! 

Chapters of the Chosen is a solid game. The story line is compelling enough, the game play is great, the length is about right and it has a certain charm that older games seem to always contain. Details that are missed in the newer games as standards have changed. Give it a try.  

Now to end, I want to show you guys some beautiful art work I found throughout the web while looking for pictures. Feel free to click and look! 

Always Guree

Random Artwork