With enhanced multimedia and gameplay, "Chapters of the Chosen" is a paragon of any update on new platforms.
There was time when Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are staple in the competition over Japanese Role Playing market between Square and Enix. That ended with the mergence of the two firms and both titles have continued to play the role of trump-cards in Square Enix's policy ever since. Along with the development of new versions and expansions, they have been published on new platforms one after the other. On NDS, Final Fantasy has its IV version while Dragon Quest presents Chapters of the Chosen (DQIV), 16 years after its first appearance on NES.
DQIV is the most famous of the trilogy about the legend of Zenithia because Enix has never distributed DGV and VI outside Japaness market because of their difficulty during the 1990s. Unlike its brothers, DGIV has a very original story line consisting of many small tales in each of its chapters instead of a series of consecutive events. These tales may seem incoherent at first sight but the hidden thread connecting them will gradually be revealed along your adventure. Therefore, you will one by one make acquaintance with several characters like knight Ragnar McRyan, Princess Alena, merchant Torneko and two sisters Meena-Maya before the playing part of your main character. All of you will unite in the struggle against Evil force to preserve the peace of this world.
DQIV still retains the most distinguished features which have established its reputation so far. At the heart of its gameplay are still turn-based random encounters which are implemented from first person view angle, an unmistakable characteristic of the title. Real time factor (day and night) also appears in the game in strict relation to some particular events of the plot. However, the developers have obviously made effort to renew this instalment with new features. The most important of those is that from chapter 5 on, when there are a number of characters in play team, players can switch control between them easily. That means you have full control over all members, not only giving them general directions like before. Additionally, different frequency of usage of characters is not a problem, since unused ones still gain experience when the game progresses.
Apart from that, saving mechanism is cute in this publishment. In addition to fixed check points in certain locations, players can feel free to quick save any time during the adventure. Of course, quick save points can be reloaded later.
In terms of control, unfortunately DQIV still depends on the old method of the series and overlook touch screen feature of NDS. Another limitation is the balance in difficulty level of chapters, with the beginning seemingly too easy and interesting points of gameplay revealed too late (after chapter 5). It takes nearly 30 hours to finish DQIV, not including the time spent on its various side quests; quite satisfactory for an alluring title like this.
On a new platform, it's not surprising that multimedia of the game is a long step forwards. Graphics presents a colorful 3D surrounding with detailed 2D character models, much more beautiful than old versions on NES (1992) and Play Station (2001). Characters have more sophisticated costumes and lissome movements while familiar monsters become more lively under Akira Toriyama's brush. With both screens utilized and additional ability to rotate camera angle, it becomes much more convenient when the adventure comes to narrow caves or roads. As for music, old song tracks are still retained with some remix to match the capacity of NDS. Overall multimedia is a very strong in DQIV.
From the view point of either old fans or new beginners, DQIV is still a high quality product on NDS with unquestionable fascination.