Dragon Warrior IV Review

A castle floating in the sky on the clouds!

Dragon Warrior IV, released in Japan as Dragon Quest IV, is a bit of an odd duck in the series of Dragon Warrior games that were released back then, and even still considered a bit of an odd-duck in the series today, as instead of just having one large overarching story, the player must play through five chapters of the game (four that set the story for Chapter 5 up, and the fifth chapter sees how all of the actions of the previous chapters effect this chapter) but we'll get to all of that later.

The soldier gives you a hint about the King and
on how to acquire better equipment, at least
from town shops.

Gameplay-wise, Dragon Warrior IV plays out the exact same way as the previous three Dragon Warrior games; you talk to people to get clues on where to go next, you go outside and grind against monsters to level up and to get gold pieces to buy better weapons and armor so that you can be outside grinding monsters even longer. It feels a lot closer to Dragon Warrior III in this regard than Dragon Warrior I and Dragon Warrior II, as it doesn't take anywhere near as long to level up as it did in the first two games, and about the same amount of time grinding as it took back in Dragon Warrior III. However, unlike in Dragon Warrior III, this time there is no character creation option. All the characters that join you already have predetermined names, classes, stats and stat growths. Now, for some, this is a welcome change indeed. For others, like myself, it dampens the experience quite a bit. Now, make no mistake, I have absolutely nothing against playable characters who are tied into a video game's story, not even in RPGs, but it's something that I heavily prefer, because in games like Baldur's Gate, you have to balance your actions with the possible options at your disposal carefully. Like, very carefully, because your companions have minds of their own and they will leave your party if you perform actions that they don't like, which is one reason why I always create my own characters in Baldur's Gate I and Baldur's Gate II. Thankfully, in Dragon Warrior IV, you don't have to worry about nonsense like that.

People have different things to say at nighttime.

The day-night system from Dragon Warrior III also returns, and just like back there, it plays a role in the game's story somewhat, only to a slightly larger degree. Some people will only be out at day, and others will only come out at night. Some people will have different things to say at night, while others will tell you the exact same things they said during the day, or they might even be asleep! While this attention to detail was impressive back in the day, it's nowhere near impressive as it is in some games, such as the Elder Scrolls series or the Fallout series, for an NES game this was pretty darned impressive! Of course, you also have to remember that, back then, game developers had a lot less money and space on whatever medium games were used to play on. The NES, for example, had very little space on it's cartridges and so some sacrifices had to be made here and there.

Just like in Dragon Warrior III, you don't get a
message saying that "wit and courage have
served you well" while leveling up.

Grinding is still in Dragon Warrior IV, just as it was in Dragon Warriors I, II, and III, but like I said earlier and in my Dragon Warrior III review, the grinding is more bearable this time. The complaints about the grinding from Dragon Warrior II seem to have stuck with Enix regarding the grinding in the Dragon Warrior games, and although it still gets bad later on in each and every game, it's still not at a level nearly as bad as Dragon Warrior I and II were. Another thing that they changed back in Dragon Warrior III was removing the annoying "wit and courage have served you well, for So-and-so has been promoted to the next level!" message. One of the complaints from Dragon Warrior II that Enix didn't get, however, was the lack of a battle background. Dragon Warrior I had a battle background of sorts, yes, but that game wasn't nearly as large as the other Dragon Warrior games that came out on the NES, now were they? Again, you have to remember that back then, game developers didn't have a lot of space on cartridges to put in every single thing they wanted, and who knows how much space on an NES cartridge that would've taken up. Heck, even in Earthbound there were no battle backgrounds, but then again, we Westerners never got Earthbound 1, we got Earthbound 2 (Mother 1 and Mother 2 in Japan) but I digress. Back then, you took what you could get or you found a different hobby.

Story time! For some people, this will be their favorite part of the review, and for others like myself, not so much. As you can see, Dragon Warrior IV was the first, and so far only, Dragon Warrior game to use chapters like this to break up the story, and just like with a good book, you can't just start in the middle or at the end, oh no, you started with Chapter 1: The Royal Soldiers every time you started a new game, and you would play through that one, and then Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 after that, all the way up until you got to Chapter 5. However, like I said at the start of the review, each chapter in the game leads up to the events in Chapter 5, explaining to the player what exactly is going on and why you should care about the characters, and speaking of the characters, unlike in Dragon Warrior III, where they were, ahem, to put it in the words of some imbeciles out there who like to dismiss player created party members, brain-dead puppets, they each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and backstories. For example, Ragnar is a Soldier, and like the Soldier class from Dragon Warrior III, he has amazing HP, Strength, Vitality, Defense, and can equip most weapons and armor in the game. However, all that time that Ragnar spent learning how to fight with all manner of weapons and armor has left him with very little time to study magic, so he won't learn any spells to cast, nor will he ever gain MP. He also has really sorry Agility. Alena is a Princess, which is basically the Fighter class from Dragon Warrior III, and as such, she doesn't rely on equipment or spells like the other characters in the game, instead preferring to rely on raw stats alone. Seriously, she'll easily max out her Strength and Agility, and her Vitality is nothing to sneeze at, either. She gains a ton of Luck as well, but her Intelligence leaves a bit to be desired, although she doesn't need it, as like Ragnar, she never bothered learning how to cast spells, although Brey tried to teach her, according to the iOS and Android English translations. Also, Alena has an awful selection for equipment. Mara can't fight worth a darn, but dang can she dish out some damage with her spells! However, each character has their strengths and weaknesses that compliment your other characters. For example, Cristo learns the Revive spell, but in combat during Chapter 5, his AI is... untrustworthy, to say the least. Remember this, as I'll come back to it later. However, Nara is also a healer, and although she doesn't learn all of the healing spells that Cristo does, her AI is more reliable.

Unlike the previous Dragon Warrior games,
the AI now controls the party members
during Chapter 5.

Screw it, we may as well get this out of the way now. You see, for whatever reason, Enix decided that, during Chapter 5 of the game, the AI, and the AI alone, should be the ones controlling the characters who you didn't get to name and create back at the start of the game. Now, to be fair, the AI can do some things that are literally impossible for a human player to do, such as read what the enemy is going to do and react accordingly. The best a player character can do is merely guess, and that's a lot harder than it sounds early on because there isn't an awful lot you can do if, say, your primary healer gets killed. Now, you can prevent that, but only if one of your other characters has higher Agility than the enemy or your other party members, but that character has to at least know the Heal spell or have some Medical Herbs on hand to be able to do anything about it. Still, it was a fairly big gamble on Enix's part and they learned from their mistake from this game's AI to never make that mistake again. That's what mistakes do, isn't it?

You were actively ignoring your subjects
problems!?

Anyway, back to story time. As I said before, this game's story is divided into chapters, and each one sets up how things are going to play out in the final chapter of the game, Chapter 5. Chapter 1 sees the player jump into the shoes of the royal soldier Ragnar (Ryan in the Japanese version) and how the King has had mothers from Izmit village coming to him in tears that morning about their children suddenly vanishing. As the King's most trusted soldier, it's up to Ragnar to find out why the children are just disappearing the way they are. You go to Izmit Village yourself and you hear from someone that the tower located in the middle of the lake seems suspicious and how you should investigate it, but it's impossible to enter because it's in the middle of a lake and there's no bridge leading to it. You reunite a woman with her husband and he tells you about a hidden well that the children play around at, and so you go there to investigate further. There you find some Flying Shoes and a Healslime named Healie who wants to become a human, so Ragnar lets him tag along. Putting on the Flying Shoes has Ragnar fly into the Lake Tower where he sees a child being taken off by a monster. Working his way down to the bottom of the tower, Ragnar sees a soldier dying on the floor who tells them the monsters' plan. He says that the Ruler of Evil is about to reawaken somewhere in the world and that the hero who is fated to destroy him is growing up at this time. Basically, the monsters plan is to kill the hero while he or she is still growing and weak. Just before the soldier passes away, he tells Ragnar that he must protect all the children in the world. Going downstairs, Ragnar meets the monsters who have been kidnapping the children, and he and Healie beat them senseless. Ragnar and Healie take the children home and return to Burland castle to tell the King about his plan to protect the Hero. The King allows this, and gives Ragnar some experience points as a parting gift.

In Chapter 2, you control Alena, the princess
of Santeem Castle.

After that, you move straight into Chapter 2, only this time, you're not playing as Ragnar anymore, and you're not overseeing his journey from Burland to wherever he ends up next, no, you're playing as the Princess of Santeem, Alena, who wants to travel the world to prove her strength. Her father, the King of Santeem, and her tutor, Brey, both feel that she's too much of a tomboy and should learn to behave like a proper princess should, but she is absolutely determined to make her mark on the world through a show of strength. Talking with Brey and Cristo, she goes back to her room to find the wall she kicked down the last time boarded up with flimsy boards, and kicks it down again, and heads out into the world with Cristo and Brey hot on her heels. So basically, instead of controlling just one character in this chapter, you're controlling three, and each one of them has their own strengths and weaknesses, which gets you ready for the later chapters of the game, so use this time wisely.

Puns, and not for the first time, either.

The only direction that the player can have Alena and her companions go is north, and arriving at the village of Tempe, they learn that a monster is demanding sacrifices of women at the village alter, just like how the Orochi demanded female sacrifices at Jipang in Dragon Warrior III. Anyway, Alena decides that this would be the best way to test her strength in battle and decides to help. She offers to become the monster's next sacrifice, and defeats the monster like she claimed she would. Afterwards, Alena travels to another village, only to find that they're apparently already there, only they're not there, it's a group of imposters who got carried away with their act. Well, it's the obvious hostage situation, and since Alena is the hero of the chapter, that means it's up to her to do something about this. Going south, Alena comes upon a cave that has an item that apparently affects evolution called the Golden Amulet. Getting this treasure, she takes it back to the village at nighttime and exchanges it for the "princess'" life. The princess reveals that she's actually a travelling actor named May, and as a reward for saving her life and teaching her a valuable life lesson in the process, May gives Alena the Thief's Key. Going further south, Alena reaches a bizarre where she learns that the King of Santeem is in danger! He's lost his voice, and to fix it, you have to talk to a bunch of people, only to find out that someone at the bizarre knows where the cure to damaged throats is, and that's at a tower to the west of the Bizaar. Getting to the top of the tower and getting the cure, you give it to the King of Santeem who says that you can now go wherever you want to in the world, he'll try to stop you no longer, and you go off and win a tournament in Endor. You learn that Necrosaro was the only one prior to winning five rounds of combat in a row, but since he's nowhere to be found, Alena is declared the winner of the tournament by forfeit. However, the glory was not to last, as a Santeem soldier comes up to you as you leave the castle and tells you to return home, but at the castle... no one is home? Alena sets off to solve this riddle and several others as well. Thus ends Chapter 2.

Chapter 3: Taloon the Arms Merchant

Chapter 3 rolls around and it's by far the most unique chapter in the entire game. You see, in this chapter, you don't spend time fighting to just level up and get money, no, you have to save up your money to purchase your own weapon and armor shop. You start off in Lakanaba, to the north of Endor, where Taloon works for another weapon shop owner, and he makes money based on how hard he's worked for the day. After Taloon has saved up enough money to purchase some weapons and armor of his own, he can then go out into the world and start adventuring. Talking to some of his buddies over at the inn, he learns that there's an Iron Safe in the cave north of Lakanaba, and it prevents its owner from losing money if killed. This is a necessity for Taloon's chapter, as he is no warrior at all, he's a merchant and his starting stats and stat growths prove this. As such, being able to venture without worry is a must for chapter 3. Anyway, during this chapter you have to solve Indiana Jones-styled puzzles and sell treasures to get enough money to move on. This chapter is the worst in the NES version, but in the remakes it's a lot better.

The start of Chapter 4

Then Chapter 4 starts, and it's back to the usual Dragon Warrior IV stuff. Go outside of town, grind a lot to build up levels and get some gold pieces, then go back into town to buy some new gear to be out killing things even longer. 

I mentioned this earlier in the review, but it needs to be stressed for those who are sitting on the fence about whether or not to buy this game. Whenver you complete one chapter in the game and move onto the next one, you lose the character you had, along with all of their money and items, you get two new characters who start off in a completely different location with basic equipment for their class, and you have to build them up all over again. They also lose all of their money, too. 

Anyway, back to the story of Chapter 4. Mara and Nara are twin sisters whose father was killed by his apprentice, and now they want revenge. Basic, but it gets you going. They go back to their home town and learn that another of their father's apprentices is hiding in the old cave out to the west. Going there, they find the Sphere of Silence and Orin, not to mention the Lamp of Darkness. Going to the Castle of Keeleon, they learn that Balzack is somewhere inside, but nobody knows where. They also learn that the Chancellor is easily startled, and going to Aktemto Mine, they find the Gunpowder Jar. Going back to Keeleon, they detonate the Gunpowder Jar, and just like the person at the castle said, it startled the Chancellor, who basically leads the party to Balzack. They beat Balzack easily enough with the Sphere of Silence, but then Keeleon himself appears and beats them. Waking up in a jail cell, an old man tells them that he's too weak to leave the country and gives them his Boarding Pass to go to Endor. So the girls leave the country of their birth and end up in Endor.

Chapter 5, the final chapter of
Dragon Warrior IV.

Thus begins Chapter 5, the final chapter of Dragon Warrior IV, and easily the longest chapter in the entire game. You finally get to play as Solo (the male protagonist) or Sofia (the female protagonist) depending on the gender you chose for the main character back when you named him or her, and unlike in Dragon Warrior III where, even if you chose to play as a female Hero, she would still be referred to as a male, here the female Hero is actually referred to with feminine pronouns and she has a unique sprite! Anyway, you start the game off by having to take your father his lunch, and he says that because you're seventeen now, you're almost an adult. You then return home for lunch, but monsters have found the village and seek to kill you, for you are their greatest threat. Killing everyone in the village, your best friend takes your place, fooling the monsters into thinking that they've killed the legendary hero. Leaving the secret room in the cellar, you find that your village has been destroyed and everyone else killed. You leave the village and go south to a woodsman's hut, and he tells you to go to the castle in the south. Deciding that no one here can help you, you go to Endor in the west, through the tunnel that Taloon created back in Chapter 3. Here you find Nara and Mara and they join you. Going back eastward past the castle, you find a man who has lost his faith in humanity, so you bring him the Symbol of Faith from a nearby dungeon. Regaining his faith in humanity, he gives you his wagon and travels along with you for a while. You go south through the desert and find a port town where a ship is being built, but it's crew is too scared to sail with the evil light shining from a nearby lighthouse. You fix the lighthouse's problem and you now have a ship, meaning that you can sail anywhere in the world, but the problem is is that monsters that you fight out at sea are no pushovers and so you should do as you're told for now. 

Two of the characters you controlled back in
Chapter 2. Noticing a pattern here?

In the town of Mintos, you meet an old guy who gives you a treasure map that leads to--what else?-- great treasure. You also go to the inn and learn that one of the characters from Chapter 2 is sick and in need of medicine, so you go to the town off to the east and you learn that the medicine is kept in an ice cavern. You get it and go back to town, give it to the king who manages to make the root needed grow, and you go back to Mintos and give it to Cristo. The Chapter 2 party then rejoins your group and you continue on your merry little way, but not before a man who overheard your conversation tells you that a man named Ragnar was staying at that very inn not that long ago, and that he said he was headed west to visit the House of Prophecy. Going West, you land straight in Keeleon, but you see a human who happens to be Healie, who says that Ragnar snuck into the castle but was captured. Healie says that the party will need the Magic Key to enter and that it's somewhere in a cave to the south. Basically, the spot where you found the Lamp of Darkness in Chapter 4. You get the Magic Key, you come back to Keeleon, and you fight him again, only this time you actually manage to beat him. Ragnar then joins your group, and you see Healie head off into the world. You also learn that Balzack went north, to Santeem. I won't spoil the story any further from here, I'll let you play it for yourself.

A scarecrow!

The music was composed yet again by a literal war-crimes-denier, Koichi Sugiyama. Yuji Horii wrote the scenario for the game and Akira Toriyama designed the monsters and the characters. Basically, the same setup from the previous three Dragon Warrior games. 

Overall, I can easily recommend Dragon Warrior IV to players, but just like the previous three Dragon Warrior games, not the NES version. Thankfully, we got a few ports of the game, and I would go with the Nintendo DS version. Unfortunately, they cut the party chat system, meaning that non-Japanese fans didn't get a lot of character development and potential story development, but the NES version didn't have that, either, but it would still have been nice to have that in the English version. Thankfully, due to the humongous outrage from non-Japanese fans, Square Enix seems to have learned their lesson on removing party chat from the games English releases, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Respect my authoritah and my copyrah!

My rating for this game is 7/10. Worth it!

This review, including all text and screenshots are © 2019 Jestan Diams. Please don't repost this anywhere else on the internet or print it in a gaming magazine without my express written consent.