Over the last few months I've been chipping away at Dragon Quest IV for the Nintendo DS. I decided to go ahead and play it ahead of Dragon Quest IV challenge quests I had, reasoning that if I wanted to do a similar comparison to what I did on the first three games I could do it with the Smartphone version, which I assume uses the same translation.
Over the weekend I finally finished the main game. I liked it, but as far as a remake goes it didn't feel as engaging overall as the Dragon Quest III remakes. The new town was in interesting mechanic, and the expansion of the mini-medals. I liked the Thief abilities added to Torneko and Bray. And it certainly feels nice to have manual control over all characters in Chapter 5.
On the other hand, I beat this several levels sooner than previous NES/Famicom playthroughs. I didn't even finish out my Hero's spell list before winning. Dragon Quest IV's original versions were already among the easiest in the whole series. It didn't really need to be made easier still. Several of the boss fights were made harder, but that didn't do a whole lot to make things more interesting.
The last few days I've been exploring the post-game content. I had gathered from stray comments and headlines on message boards and Google searches on the NES game that there was a Chapter 6. It involves a new dungeon and at least two new boss fights, similar to post-game content of other Dragon Quest games. It also involves unlocking a new player character, which I did today, but losing the dragon NPC that is with you at the end of the regular game (Sparkie is his name on the DS; I believe it was Doran on NES). It also adds some new story elements.
It's been a lengthier process than other DQ games where I've finished or nearly finished the post game content, which makes it more interesting. But, unlike other Dragon Quest games, the post-game content appears to eventually close off the game's normal final boss and ending, making them unavailable after a point. I'm not 100% sure of this, but that's the appearance as of where I am. I'll test it on my next play session.
My interest in the post-game content of the various Dragon Quest games has been reignited lately. All of the main games from V onward have such content, and the remakes of III and IV have some added in. I've finished the dungeons and bosses of Dragon Quest V and VI, and finished just the dungeons of III and (I believe) IV. I didn't find all of the map shards to unlock new content in VII, but I'll get back to that search someday. I had gone through the content in VIII up to the home of the Dragovians. This last week I was inspired to go further. My characters in this game have a harder time making it through regular enemies in this dungeon than in other games. I got all of the chests in the first two areas, and I think I'll try pushing further tonight.
I'm really intrigued again into trying to figure out more on Dragon Quest IX, which I plan to dive back into very soon after at least attempting the boss on IV. I've always felt that there was more to unlock story-wise in the game's post-game, but I've failed to figure out how. There's a plethora of gameplay content in that game after the "end", but aside from unlocking the Starflight Express, none of it seems to affect the rest of the game. I know there must be something, for example, to do in the Tower of Nod, but I've failed to discover just what can be done there.
Well, I'm inching away at my quest to discover all things Dragon Quest related. I'll get there eventually.