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, also known as '''Dragon Quest IV''', is a console role-playing game and the fourth installment of the ''Dragon Quest'' (then known as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America) video game series developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix (now Square Enix). The game was originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System and was remade by Heartbeat for the PlayStation, which eventually was available as a Square Enix Ultimate Hits title. Dragon Warrior IV began the ''Tenkuu no Shiro'' (''Castle in the Sky'') trilogy. It was originally released for the Famicom on February 11, 1990 in Japan. The North American version, titled ''Dragon Warrior IV'', was released for the NES in December 1992. This game is also the final ''Dragon Quest/Warrior'' series title for the NES.
''Dragon Quest IV'' differed from the series by breaking up the game into five distinct chapters. The first four are told from the perspective of the Hero's future companions and the fifth one, from the hero's perspective, brings all the characters together as they begin their journey to save the world.^[1]

Contents

Gameplay

Plot

Characters

Story

Chapter 1: The Royal Soldiers

Chapter 2: Princess Alena's Adventure

Chapter 3: Taloon the Arms Merchant

Chapter 4: The Sisters of Monbaraba

Chapter 5: The Chosen Ones

Legacy

Reception

Remakes

Spin-offs

Soundtrack

References

External links

Gameplay

''Dragon Quest IV'' offered several new features over the first three titles. In addition to the new chapter-based storylines, an artificial intelligence system was implemented that allowed the player to provide strategies to the party members (who become NPCs in the final chapter) while maintaining full control of the hero. The wagon, introduced in this game, allows the player to choose which characters are used in battle. The wagon can also be seen in ''Dragon Quest V'' and ''Dragon Quest VI''.

Plot

Characters

They are the main characters of the story, and are controllable party members.

★ 'Hero'. The main character of the game. The player can choose a male hero or a female hero.

★ . Captain of the Burland army. He investigates a case of children who are disappearing throughout the kingdom.

★ . Princess of Santeem Kingdom. She is bored of the palace life and wishes to travel the world.

★ . Alena's tutor. He's a magician who travels with Alena to look after her.

★ . Priest of Santeem. He travels along Alena and Brey.

★ . A weapons merchant who wishes to open his own store.

★ . A dancer from Monbaraba, whose father died in mysterious circumstances. She and her sister Nara seek revenge.

★ . Mara's sister. She is a fortune teller.
;Main villains

★ . Ruler of Dire Palace. Leads many of the monsters in a quest to find and revive the Ruler of Evil, Esturk.

★ . Also known as the Ruler of Evil. Defeated in a battle with the Zenithians ages ago.

★ 'Radimvice'. Assistant to Necrosaro. Orders the killing of Rosa.

★ . The new king of Keeleon, a castle on the southwestern continent. Has the head of a lion and multiple arms. His name better translates from the original Japanese as King Leo.

★ . Apprentice to Edgar, Mara and Nara's father. Betrayed his mentor and sought the Secret of Evolution, eventually becoming a fierce monster.
;Uncontrolled party members
These characters join the party, but cannot be controlled by the player.

★ . A healer slime who desires to be human. He joins Ragnar in his search for the missing children.

★ . A mercenary who joins Taloon when he is looking for treasure.

★ . Another mercenary hired by Taloon.

★ . A family friend of Mara and Nara who joins the sisters in their fight against their father's murderer.

★ . The son of an inn keeper who lost faith in friendship when his partners betrayed him during a quest.

★ . The best comedian in the world. He is the star at Monbaraba after Mara leaves.

★ . A citizen of Zenithia who fell from the sky.

★ . A baby dragon who joins the battle against the Ruler of Evil.
;Endor Tournament participants

★ 'Hun'. First fighter in the tournament.

★ 'Roric'. Second fighter in the tournament, who uses a boomerang.

★ 'Vivian'. Third fighter in the tournament who casts magic.

★ 'Sampson'. The fourth fighter in the tournament.

★ 'Linguar'. The final fighter in the tournament who creates three shadows of himself.
;Other characters

★ . The ruler of Zenithia.

★ . A childhood friend of the hero. She is, along with all the townspeople, responsible to protect the growing hero.

★ . Hector's cartmare. She pulls the party's wagon.

Story

The first four chapters are dedicated towards introducing motives and back-stories to the hero's companions, as well as some information on the game's antagonist, Necrosaro. Each story gives meaning and attachment to those characters. In chapter one, the royal guard Ragnar must save the missing children and in doing so uncovers a plot to kill the still young hero. In chapter two, the princess Alena of Santeem rebels against her father and sets out to prove her strength and embarks on a journey with her tutor, Brey and Santeem's Chancellor, Cristo. In chapter three, the merchant Taloon (Torneko in the Japanese version, and recently and universally referred as such) seeks wealth and treasure, and an ultimate weapon that would destroy Necrosaro. In chapter four, the dancer Mara and the fortune teller Nara attempt to exact revenge on their father's murder. All four of these stories lead up to the hero's fifth and final chapter.

Chapter 1: The Royal Soldiers

The King of Burland issued a concern about the case in which children in the region has somehow been disappearing. After checking through the country, Ragnar finds the whereabouts of the children; they in fact were kidnapped by the monsters, who intended to get rid of the still young Legendary Hero. Accompanied by a friendly healer Healie, Ragnar ventures into the abductors stronghold and saves children. He also learned there that the Ruler of Evil was going to resurrect, and he decides to set off on a quest for the Legendary Hero.

Chapter 2: Princess Alena's Adventure

A hoyden princess of Santeem, Alena finally slips out of her castle. Joining Brey and Cristo, who noticed her leaving home, she begins a journey to try her strength. Along the way, they encounter a group of actors pretending to be the Princess and her companions, but the fake princess gets abducted. Alena's party then ventures out to find the "Golden Bracelet", a priceless entombed treasure as directed by the kidnappers for a ransom. The kidnappers make off with the bracelet while Alena's father, the King of Santeem, becomes unable to speak. Alena then sets out to find Birdsong Nectar that will make her father find his voice. Afterwards, King tells that his speechlessness started when he decided to speak about his dream in which a giant monster attempts to destroy the world.
Permitted to leave the country by her father, Alena ventures to Endor and enters the tournament for the sake of saving Endor Princess from a forced marriage to the winner of the tournament, that is if Alena (a girl) were to win, a marriage could not take place. After overcoming her first foes, she is due to fight a man by the name of Necrosaro. He however fails to appear, so Alena won the tournament due to a forfeit. They afterwards return to Santeem, and it turns out every one in the castle had disappeared. They embark on a journey to uncover this mystery.

Chapter 3: Taloon the Arms Merchant

Taloon works at Lakanaba's weaponry shop, but eventually he sets off on a journey to be the greatest merchant in the world. After helping restore peace between antagonistic Bonmalmo and Endor, he purchases an empty shop in Endor, and starts living there with his family. While doing business, Taloon hears about the legendary weapons. After helping open a tunnel to the eastern continent, he leaves Endor to find the legendary weapons.

Chapter 4: The Sisters of Monbaraba

A father of Mara and Nara, Edgar was a well-known alchemist who had been coming close to turning objects into gold; he was however killed by Balzack for refusing to help him. After the murder, Mara and Nara had remained in Monbaraba and sought after their revenge. But in frustration of not finding him, they finally venture out on a journey. While investigating their father’s laboratory, they meet again with Edgar's apprentice Orin.
The three of them venture to the Keeleon castle after hearing rumors of girls being abducted, but are unable to find out anything from the counselor. They then head to the mining town Akemto in search of explosive powder on a tip that the counselor is afraid of loud noises and would run to the "master" of the castle.
Eventually the three get the powder and scare the counselor into showing them the secret entrance in Castle Keeleon, where they then encounter and fight with Balzack. After their victory against him, however, the true master of the castle, Keeleon beats them into submission and sends them into the dungeon. In there, they get a boarding pass to Endor from a dying old man, whom also tells them a secret exit out of the dungeon. During the escape, Orin sacrifices himself to buy time for Nara and Mara so that they can flee to the port town Haville, and then to Endor.

Chapter 5: The Chosen Ones

The Hero was living in a calm village with his family, but his town was finally discovered by Necrosaro. In an assault of monsters, the hero's best friend used her transform magic to disguise herself as the hero and sacrificed herself to the army so as to fool them into thinking that the real hero was dead. Having lost his hometown, the hero has to drift from town to town. Along the journey, the hero first meets Nara and Mara in Endor, then obtains a wagon and ship before joining Taloon, Brey, Alena, and Cristo. Ragnar assists the hero in defeating Keeleon, thus uniting the eight chosen ones. Afterwards, they defeat an evolved Balzack in the Santeem Castle, it is revealed while he is dying that the "Golden Bracelet" is needed to make the secret of evolution stable.
The Hero's party then begins to search the world for the legendary Zenithian Equipment so that they can gain access to the Zenithian Castle high in the sky. While doing this, they eventually disguise themselves as monsters to sneak into Necrosaro's stronghold, the Dire Palace. At a conference with Necrosaro, they discover that in Akemto, the miners had struck too deep and stumbled upon the lair of Esturk, the Ruler of Evil. Necrosaro teleports there while the Heroes chase after him, and after crawling through the mines they come across the ancient ruins of Esturk's palace. The Heroes then engage the revived Esturk in combat, and destroy him, but while doing so Necrosaro approaches prepared to take out the weakened heroes. At last moment he is informed that something terrible had happened, and he leaves before engaging the heroes.
The Heroes eventually make their way back to Izmit village where they have a strange dream that the entire town had continued to have. The dream showed Necrosaro's sweet-heart Rosa getting abducted by humans. Rosa, an elf, whose tears were made of ruby, and so the humans were assaulting her to make her cry. The dream sequence shows Necrosaro arriving on the scene and killing the humans. Yet he was too late to save Rosa, and with her dying breath Rosa asked him to give up his mad scheme to destroy the humans. He however gave into his anger vowing that no human would survive his rage. He then went deep into the World of Evil where he hid in his castle using the now perfected secret of evolution on himself to become the next Ruler of Evil.
The Heroes realizing his plan finished gathering the armor and made their way to the Zenithian Castle where they confronted its ruler Master Dragon. Master Dragon informed them that they must descend underground after Necrosaro and stop him. While in the World of Evil, the Heroes discovered that Rosa's abduction was part of a plot to drive Necrosaro to insanity by one of his generals. After defeating Necrosaro's generals, they confronted Necrosaro who had evolved himself to the same state as Esturk. While they battle he continued to evolve until he reached the "final stage" of evolution, where the Heroes managed to defeat him.
After the battle had finished, the Heroes were taken back to Zenithian Castle by Master Dragon who offered an invitation to the Hero to stay with them forever and revealed that he was in fact Zenithian. The Hero however turned down the offer and escorted each of his companions to their homes before returning to his own destroyed home. There he used his power to restore it and revive his best friend, and then reunites with his companions.

Legacy

Reception

''Dragon Warrior IV'' was awarded "Best Challenge" and 2nd place "Best Overall Game" in 1993 by Nintendo Power, runner-up "Best Role Playing Game of 1992" by GameProagazine, "Best Role Playing Game of 1992" by Game Informer and "Best NES Adventure/RPG of 1992" by Game Players.

Remakes

''Dragon Quest IV'' was remade for the PlayStation on November 22, 2001 in Japan. It was developed by Heartbeat and published by Enix. The remake was developed using the Dragon Quest VII's 3D graphics engine, but was still ''Dragon Quest IV's story and world. With this remake came new features. Among these features were a new chapter, a new character, an intra-party talk command similar to ''Dragon Quest VII'', and the ability to turn off the artificial intelligence for party members. Enix America originally planned to bring the remake to North America in 2002, but it was later canceled due to Heartbeat closing its video game development operations.
Recently, Square Enix announced that ''Dragon Quest IV'' would be re-released for the Nintendo DS. Few details have been revealed, other than that the game will be remade in 3D, similar to the PlayStation version.^[2]

Spin-offs

''Dragon Warrior IV'' is the first game in the series to spawn spin-offs. The merchant Torneko (also known as Taloon in the NES version) was very popular to star his own series, in which he finds himself in quests in order to expand his store. These games are the ''Torneko no Daibouken'' sub-series (Translated as ''Torneko's Great Adventure''), roguelike and random dungeon games produced by Enix (and Square Enix) and developed by Chunsoft. The success of the games later inspired the creation of the Mysterious Dungeon series.

Soundtrack

As with every ''Dragon Quest'', Koichi Sugiyama composed the music and directed all the associated spinoffs. The song heard during gameplay depends on a number of factors. A specific track is always played for towns, another for caves or dungeons, another while the party is mounted on the hot air balloon, for instance. Lastly, while out in the world, each of the first four acts has its own theme song, as does the Hero--in act five, the theme song played depends on who is the first character in the formation.
''Dragon Quest IV ~The People Are Shown the Way~ Symphonic Suite'' is a compilation of music from ''Dragon Quest IV''. The first print of the album was in 1990, the London Philharmonic version came out a year later, and a reprint of the original was released in 2000.^[3]
The tracklisting of the Symphonic Suite is:

# Overture (1:55)
# Minuet (3:07)
# Comrades (10:28)
# In a Town (8:16)
# Homeland ~ Wagon Wheels' March (5:58)
# Frightening Dungeons ~ Cursed Towers (5:19)
# Elegy ~ Mysterious Shrine (5:03)
# Balloon's Flight (4:32)
# Sea Breeze (4:31)
# The Unknown Castle (4:37)
# Battle for the Glory (7:51)
# The End (5:12)
In 1991, Enix released a set of videos featuring Koichi Sugiyama conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra performing the soundtrack in Warwick Castle, along with clips of acting.

References

1. Nintendo Power, volume 46. Nintendo of America, 82-87. Retrieved 2007-7-1
2. Dragon Quest 4 to 6 Square Enix
3. Dragon Quest IV soundtrack Lucy Rzeminski

External links

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