There aren’t enough colons in that title.
I love role-playing games. The first RPG I ever played was Dragon Warrior – the American version of Enix’s (no Square merger yet) Dragon Quest. From the moment I saw my first blue slime, I was hooked. My folks couldn’t afford to get me Dragon Quests II and III, but on Christmas morning 1992, I opened my shiny new Dragon Warrior IV.
Mr. Brando welcomes you to the game.
My Christmas Morning.
This game was amazing! It came with a detailed strategy guide full of art and pictures of how my magical weapons and armor really looked. It featured chapters, 5 of them, each with different characters! Some of these characters, sisters Mara and Nara, were girls, and they weren’t in another castle, they were right in front of me! (My mother nearly had a cow when she saw me “fan fighting” the dog one day with a cheap Chinese paper fan.)
Even then I knew the game wasn’t perfect. There were level grinds, particularly in the chapter where you play as the merchant (7 swords and 7 suits of armor to be farmed via random encounters, ugh!), but it was all worth it when I took control of my first ever airship.
I SWORE this was what I looked like.
So yeah, I’m excited about Dragon Quest IV’s DS re-release.
SquareEnix has given DQIV the Final Fantasy treatment. They’ve updated the graphics to 3D while keeping most of the goofy charm.
The king slime approacheth!
The storyline is the same, but Squeenix has reverted to the original character names from the Japanese version. There are no touchscreen controls, but the shoulder buttons will adjust your camera angle if you wish and the Y button will bring up a “hand drawn” map in towns, ala DQ VII.
The starting town.
All in all, if you loved the original, or just loved JRPGs, you need to have this one. If you hate turn-based, sprite-y games, keep on moving, nothing to see here.
Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen, will be released on September 16, 2008. The price is USD$39.99
Playing With My Weiner 
I like your site.
I’ve just beat this game! Can’t really disagree with all you’ve said.