While the story may not be the greatest out there, Dragon Quest IV is still worth playing.
While the game lacks in story (well, it's not very well established), I still found pleasure in going through the 5 chapters, the first four preparing the "epic" final chapter, each one has a precise objective which, besides the third one, all seem a bit similar. Even so, I still quite enjoyed the build up to the main chapter and found that the way the developers presented the game was quite cool, yet at times I did wish that it went a bit faster. As I said, chapters 1,2 and 4 are a bit similar as they all bring up to fighting some sort of boss to continue with the story, the 3rd one on the other hand was quite fun: instead of just grinding loads (though you kind-of have to towards the end of the chapter), you're brought to make your own Weapon shop and sell weapons and armour (though the money you gain selling all those items disappears in the 5th chapter...).
After 10 or so hours of gameplay, I started to find that the 4 first chapters were getting kind of long and I grew quite impatient to get to the main story. The 5th chapter, while being the main interest of the game, seems to lack of story, the Hero is the chosen one and must defeat evil, yet nothing really brings up to the final fights, they just seems to be simple challenges in the game, the main bosses in the last chapter hardly ever show up or even do anything. I found that to be quite a shame for an RPG since I was expecting the story to be quite epic, yet it didn't exactly deliver. The final chapter also seems to lose itself towards the end as it simply revolves around getting the Zenithian armour and some small sidequests that aren't very well brought up. Yet in the end, this didn't bother me too much, I still enjoyed visiting the many towns and discovering the world, and even though there is hardly any interaction between the characters, the previous chapters helped me get remotely attached to them.
The game-play mechanics are what I expected of Dragon Quest: a lot of random encounters. When I say a lot, I mean around 1500 for 27h or so of gameplay. This isn't all too bad as they tend to end pretty quick but I must say that at times it did get on my nerves. Levelling up is slower than in other RPGs yet it doesn't seem as necessary: with some tactics you can easily defeat most bosses. Though this doesn't mean that grinding isn't necessary, the final boss happened to be much tougher than other foes and with its countless mutations and such I did end up having to level up to defeat it, yet once again changing my tactics did help.
When it comes to visuals and music, I can't say that there's anything bad about the game. I'm quite a fan of Toriyama's artwork and am always happy to see it in RPGs, the different enemies are colourful and imaginative and it's quite easy to recognise Toriyama's style. Music wise, the game has a pretty nice score, and some of the music I found quite enjoyable though the random encounter theme could get on my nerves after a while the boss music was quite catchy and the ship music too.
For a DS game, Dragon Quest IV is a pretty solid RPG, even though it does have its flaws due to the fact that it is a remake of a game that came out twenty years ago, it is far from being horrible. As this was my first Dragon Quest, I'm quite interested in seeing how the series evolved, and I must say that for a 20 to 30h game it will keep you occupied!
All in all, Dragon Quest IV may not be the best RPG around, or even the best DS RPG around, but still, for those who enjoy RPGs and especially JRPGs, DQ4 is always an interesting game to play, especially for those who want to rediscover this ancient relic.