Dragon Quest 4: Chapters of the Chosen

Aah, as I finally get around to finishing this game on DS. This is another one of my favorite games from my childhood. So, it's hard to actually analyze this game, given that I've beaten it a good... dozen times on NES. It's gotten the standard modernization to being more like other Dragon Quest games - You have a bag, whips hit groups, everyone can equip accessories, medals now reward based on number collected as opposed to using them as currency, they changed the character names (probably for accuracy and all, but it bothers me), and all the spell names (and some of the monster names) become utterly retarded... But it can't all be good, eh? So, is it overall better?

In short, yes.
In long, Oh god Cristo doesn't cast Beat or Defeat every other turn in combat and against bosses that are immune to it YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
...
In longer, let's get down to the review.

So, the largest change, as I implied, is that in chapter 5 you can control every character in your party, unlike the NES version. In the NES version, you control the Hero and give a general idea to the rest of the party for what they should do. This works kind of neatly, as they can react to things on the fly - eg, if you have full health at the beginning of the round, but take damage before your healer acts, they'll heal. And if you trusted them with items, they'll even semi-smartly use items. The characters aren't actually that stupid in some ways.... But they suck at using not-healing spells. Now that you can control everyone, offensive spells and buffs can be effectively used. The typically considered best part in the NES version was Hero/Ragnar/Alena/[healer], and [healer] is typically Cristo. Alena and Ragnar hit things hard. That's all they do. The casters, Mara and Brey, were ... meh, as they didn't cast effectively or use their buffs.

So, my goal in playing this was to switch up my party structure, and throw in a caster. Maya/Mara, and I couldn't have been happier in doing so. That makes me happy, really. It's not surprising, I suppose, given their usefulness in other games, but, hey.

Other added content: They added in an epilogue chapter, which gives the game a true happy ending. I'm not sure if I particularly like this ending more, as it makes the real enemy someone that gets mentioned all of once before the epilogue, and the whole making everything a happy ending thing is.. meh. However, the extra content was still fun. The optional bosses were rough, but required no real grinding. I went straight from game end into epilogue dungeon to beating the epilogue bosses. Sorta surprised me, after Dragon Quest "GRIND FOR DAYS TO DO THE EPILOGUE" 8. Buuut that's a good thing.

They also added an immigrant town, which was alright. Pretty easy to do, and a source of easy mini medals. It has a wifi aspect that's totally optional.

Graphically, it's spiffy and fancy and has camera rotation. It's neat. It actually allows for a bit easier dungeon exploration, heh, as you can see more of the dungeon, due to the rotation.

Audiowise, well, Koichi Sugiyama is brilliant. Always has been. The audio on this game is spruced up from the NES version, given better soundchips. And there's some actual orchestral stuff. And DQ4 had a great OST to begin with. So, it's great.

My total time for completion was about 20 hours - Though, again, I know this game forwards, backwards, and inside out from the NES, and like 90% of it still applies. So, it'd probably be longer for people not intimately familiar with the game and its mechanics. Same goes for my assertion about not having to grind for the epilogue, I suppose.