Fans of the Dragon Quest series (also known as Dragon Warrior in the United States) might have noticed that the fourth installment has been reissued for the Nintendo DS. Now, before I begin telling you the differences between the two games, I want to tell you what both games have. The story is generic. It’s a story about a rising evil that the chosen one has to defeat. Other games you start the game as the chosen one then you gain friends to help you on your way. This game breaks that mold. The game is broken down in to chapters. Each chapter features a new set of characters that start to learn about this rising evil and decide to seek out the chosen one to help him/her. Only in the last chapter do you get to play as the character you named at the beginning of the game. Each chapter is like a smaller game in itself. The first chapter features a knight that has to find missing children. The second one features a princess that wants to prove to everyone that she is strong. I’ll stop there, I don’t want to give the whole story away.

One of the most obvious changes is the addition of a prologue at the beginning of the DS version. The NES version just starts on Chapter 1. The prologue actually introduces you to your character at the beginning of the game instead of somewhere in the middle.

Another change is the renaming of the characters.

• Ragnar gets a last name and becomes Ragnar McRyan
• Princess Alena gets renamed to Tsarevna Alena
• Brey becomes Borya
• Cristo becomes Kiryl
• Taloon gets a first name and becomes Torneko Taloon
• Mara and Nara become Maya and Meena

It seems that different areas of the game have different accents. It’s another of the obvious changes. It’s also the most annoying change because it can sometimes take you out of the game by causing you to think to figure out what they are saying. Most of the times this isn’t the case, but there are some NPCs that seem to have thicker accents than the others.

Overall, I think the game is worth a play if you enjoy RPG games. This one is one of the first console RPGs that try something new. If at the very least. Play it for the knight with pink armor.

Some Screenshots