Dragon Quest - The Chapters of the Chosen

Whilst Final Fantasy continues to dominate the western world in the RPG market, it is a sad fact that some of the other long-running and successful Japanese RPG series often go unnoticed. The Dragon Quest (or Dragon Warrior) series has been running since 1989 on the NES and now the fourth game in the series, The Chapters of the Chosen has been remade for the Nintendo DS.

The plot of the game would give anything Quentin Tarantino wrote a run for its money when it comes to divergent timelines and intertwined characters. In the prologue you are introduced to a young boy who, after naming, is completely ignored until much later on in the game. The next four chapters see you taking control of a soldier saving children, a princess with a need to explore the world, a merchant with a desire to run his own shop and twin sisters who want to avenge the death of their father.

In each one of these first four chapters, your character starts at Level One, which by the fourth chapter can become frustrating. Part of the fun in an RPG is building up the stats of your character to greater heights through experience and exploring so starting from scratch each time feels wrong. However, your hard work is rewarded come the fifth and longest chapter when you are reintroduced to the child in the prologue, now grown up and ready to face the world. On his travels he will encounter and group with all those that you have helped previously, complete with any items and experience that you gathered during that time. It is at this point the game starts to draw you in and feels whole.

Being a remake of such an old game, simplicity is definitely the keyword when it comes to Dragon Quest. Whilst the graphics have been upgraded from its Two Dimensional cousin with shoulder triggers to rotate the isometric view, the basics are fighting are still just selecting whether to use a weapon, magic or an item and selecting which enemy or group of enemies to use it upon. In early stages of warrior characters this is really just a case of choosing "Attack" on the lone enemy which sees you repeatedly pressing the A button until one of you dies, but as you progress you get to select which four members of the group to take into battle, tactics for each of them ranging from focusing on healing to attacking indiscriminately or selecting a multitude of spells to lull your enemies to sleep or destroy them with ice shards.

The game never becomes complicated though, leaving you with an RPG that is aimed at casual players rather than the hardcore audience. Much as I love the Final Fantasy series, there are aspects that repel a lot of people such as requiring you to kill 10,000 characters to get a sword or levelling your character for 500 hours to face a secret boss without being wiped out. Dragon Quest never attempts to lose itself in the repetitive grind and instead concentrates on guiding the player through the storyline to a conclusion. You are never unduly punished for mistakes, with death resulting in you being resurrected at the nearest church and paying a small amount of gold to bring back your friends, so you’ll never have to replay the same half an hour because you forgot to save at the last village.

Dragon Quest - The Chapters of the Chosen is a solid RPG and straightforward enough to appeal to the younger audience as well. Definitely worth a look if you own a DS.