Game thoughts: Dragon Quest IV
Published 30 December 2025
I recently finished playing Dragon Quest IV, yet another RPG that took a prolonged amount of time for me to finish due to my habit of swapping to playing other games halfway through.
Unlike the typical fans of the series, I have no longstanding relationship with the Dragon Quest games, having only played the SNES versions of I and II in the last couple of years. I found both of those games quite enjoyable, however simplistic they were, and eventually I decided to play IV next because I wanted to jump into the era of the DS games rather than continuing onto III (which had its own remake just around the corner at the time).
I think my experience with Dragon Quest IV is best summed up as a case study in expectation management. For games I and II, I expected very little since they were essentially very early NES games with a SNES makeover. I was able to enjoy their simplicity and appreciate how they were establishing the very foundations of console RPGs from their time. With IV, though it too was originally a NES game, I subconsciously expected there to be some significant strides in the game's complexity, owing to it being two generations newer and having a 2000s DS glow-up to boot. Instead I was met with essentially the same game framework with practically no fundamental changes, and the game's additions largely consisting of quality-of-life changes to smooth out the experience.
I'm led to believe that many fans of the Dragon Quest series enjoy it for its purity. The games feature classic, run-of-the-mill RPG systems with low complexity, and are perfect for players who want to spend hours zoning out while grinding, perhaps while consuming other media at the same time. This is where my tastes differ. Although I can understand said appeal, I typically crave games that offer unique combat systems with at least a level of challenge that forces the player to master the tools given to them. So, when I found myself several hours into Dragon Quest IV fighting the same old pushover enemies to progress through a paper-thin story, I quickly got bored.
I do have to admit there is definitely a charm to it - the art style mixing 2D and 3D art in the DS remakes is really nice, the music is pleasant, and the whimsical writing brought the occasional smile to my face. But none of that was enough to stop me feeling like I would fall asleep at times while playing. For everything that people praise about the series, I found myself expecting much more than what was actually on offer. The writing, praised as humorous, really only had a few moments of proper amusement, the rest consisting of very mild jokes and puns. The third chapter, which is praised for changing things up by casting the player as a merchant rather than an adventurer, does so only in the barest sense by tasking the player with carting back and forth, selling various items ad infinitum to raise enough money to complete the chapter. All of these "unique" features of the game are usually just paper-thin systems that amount to tedium most of the time.
The game's chapter-based format, which consists of 4 chapters spent playing through introductory adventures for each character in the story, followed by the "main" chapter spent using them all together in a party to defeat the evil boss, definitely lends it a unique story-telling angle which is a credit. Ultimately though, I may have enjoyed it less because of that, because it felt like the game was constantly resetting my progress to move onto a new chapter rather than providing one smooth levelling curve throughout the experience.
I realise I'm being very critical of the game so far, so let's reel off some things I did like about the game before I close this out:
- experimenting with characters to form your favourite 4-person party composition is fun
- the opening scenes establishing the hero's call to action are quite charming and compelling
- the boss fights do actually offer up some challenge and encourage the player to find an optimal strategy to beat them
At the end of the day, sometimes it is just nice to sit back and play an undemanding RPG, even if I was just heading straight for the finish line by the end. I can see the game's appeal and do partially wish I had been in the right frame of mind to enjoy it more. I'll wait until I am next in the mood for a simplistic RPG before jumping into any more Dragon Quest games.