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My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

Posted by Bob Mackey

It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal over the next several excruciating days! Please enjoy.

It seems that surprise has been a common factor in nearly all of my top ten of 2008 entries; with quite a few of the games that ended up as my favorites this year, I either didn't know what to expect, or I wasn't expecting much. But the DS remake of Dragon Quest IV was a little different--after all, it was a Dragon Quest game, and those buggers are about as familiar as you can get. Of course, I assumed the same thing of Square's Final Fantasy IV remake earlier in the summer, only to find the impressive technical improvements outweighed by a baffling new skill system and an unwarranted increase in difficulty. Thankfully, Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen took a markedly different path; instead of warping its gentle features into the twisted form of a more modern RPG, the Enix side of Square Enix (and I can only assume the company is run this way) decided to preserve the super-fast, super-addictive game play of the original title by sprucing up the graphics a tiny bit, and generally making the already-simple NES RPG even more user friendly than it was in 1990.

For me, a lot of the joy caused by Dragon Quest IV came from the simple fact that I was finally able to play it. My story probably doesn't differ from most American console RPG fans who were getting into the genre at its least popular point: I had asked for Dragon Warrior III and IV for two different Christmases, but Enix's tiny print runs forced my parents to find alternatives (one of these was Crystalis, so I didn't have it too bad). And the original PSX version of DQIV's remake--which is what the DS version is based on--was promised in the American Dragon Warrior VII manual, but never actually came to America. When I finally got a chance to sit down with the game some 18 years after its original release date, I wasn't surprised to see how timeless it was--after all, that's what Dragon Quest is known for--but I was surprised to see how the dramatic departure from the typical Dragon Quest formula worked so well. Dragon Quest IX looks to be the same sort of shake-up, and I'm trying my best to stay alive for its inevitable American release. And you should do the same.

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Posted Dec 19 2008, 12:00 PM

Filed under: dragon quest, bob mackey, dragon quest iv, top 10, top 10 of 2008, square enix

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About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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