TGS 2001 Fall: Hands-On: Dragon Quest 4

Enix showed a playable build of its 2805924recently announced remake of Dragon Quest IV at TGS 2001 Fall. The game essentially upgrades the original DQ IV with many of the features found in the latest installment of the series on PSOne, Dragon Quest VII. DQ IV now makes use of the 3D polygonal graphics engine used in VII that mixes 2D character sprites with real polygonal environments and a rotatable camera. In addition the game will use the party-talk system, which allowed you to talk to the members of your party during the game, including combat, for advice.

Those who have played DQ VII will know exactly what to expect from this remake. DQ IV looks nearly identical to the most recent installment of the series on the PSOne, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Offering clean graphics and minimal loading, the game offers comparable speed to its cartridge-based predecessor in most places. The game also seems to handle like DQ VII as well- exploration and combat appeared to be exactly like VII's. The language barrier kept us from noticing any changes or tweaks to the game's story.

Dragon Quest IV is slated to ship this year in Japan.