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Dragon Quest has hidden English translation
It's not complete. And it's pretty well hidden. But, it's there. If you're anything like us, you've been dying to get your hands on Dragon Quest IV. Now, importing it looks like a more viable option to getting our fix and to put a calm on these shakes, now that this has been discovered.What you'll need is an Action Replay and the game (natch). By inputting code 02106404 00000001, you'll be able to enjoy some nice, readable text. Of course, this isn't perfect, so those of you who want to experience the full game as it's intended for your language region might want to wait. But, of course the problem is that waiting is hard.
DQIV: better than actual questing, says commercial
The adorable little layabout in this Dragon Quest IV commercial sells the central message quite well: playing the garish, hokey adventures of some medieval types on the DS is way better than stepping into a real cartoon adventure.This silly commercial nails the Dragon Quest aesthetic and mood: always goofily happy and bright, with that endless, bouncy march music. We also definitely get a Famicom-era vibe from it: if not for the, you know, Nintendo DS, the ridiculous live-action interpretation of game graphics could easily have tricked us into thinking we were watching a commercial from the late '80s. This is one of the rare cases in which we don't mind the relative lack of in-game graphics in a commercial!
Torneko's Great Introduction
Chapter 3 of Dragon Quest IV introduces one of the series' most famous characters, the jovial merchant Torneko. How famous is Torneko? Pretty famous. How famous is Torneko, with illustrative examples of his fame? He got two spinoff games of his very own. In fact, the first Torneko game, Torneko no Daibouken: Fushigi no Dungeon, was the first game in Chunsoft's Fushigi no Dungeon Roguelike series.As in those games, Torneko embarks on a quest to improve his shop by finding rare items. Along the way, he traverses dungeons and fights monsters-- you know, basic Dragon Quest stuff. But, unlike most Dragon Quest characters, Torneko is brave enough to face down the slimes and whatevers all alone-- probably because he doesn't care to share his earnings.
The heroes of Dragon Quest IV
In case you missed out on Dragon Warrior IV the first time around, or if you did play it but can't distinguish any Dragon Quest characters from one another unless they're Slimes, Famitsu has posted an introduction to the characters found in the DS remake of Dragon Quest IV. These are just some of the people who show up over the course of the game-- in particular, these folks show up starting in Chapter 2.Not counting the "Hero," who is, of course, a big blank, we have: Clift, a priest of the Santheim Kingdom who performs recovery magic; Alena, princess of the Santheim Kingdom with a desire for adventure-- and, of course, a natural talent for fighting; and Brai, a magician who serves as Alena's tutor, teaching her the art of having hair like Larry Fine.In the course of introducing these characters, Famitsu naturally posted a bunch of screens of the game. And it must be "Japanese RPG Remakes With 3D that Actually Looks Kind Of Okay Day", because the 3D actually looks kind of okay! Seriously, the more we see of Dragon Quest IV's look, the more we like it.
Dragon Quest IV remake bridges generations
Being a port of a Playstation remake of the NES game, Dragon Quest IV falls between the old-school presentation of the older Dragon Quest games and the more detailed 3D in Level-5's Dragon Quests VIII and IX. The environments are all 3D, but your party is composed of sprites.Nowhere is the somewhat awkward dichotomy more evident than in the battle system. While exploration takes place in the aforementioned 3D landscapes, which can be fully rotated, you're sent right back to the beginning of the series in a battle. 2D monster sprites, narrative text windows, and all. It would be interesting to see how the DS audience reacted to having both IV and IX on the market at the same time, as we thought would happen for a while, but that's not to be. This way, we'll have plenty of time to buy both.
TGS07: New trailer for Dragon Quest IV
Having just received a release date and price for Japan, we knew the game would be on-hand in Tokyo, but nothing in the way of video managed to climb out from under the already suffocating amount of news. That is, until now. And, while the above video is mainly just some pan shots of concept art with small portions of gameplay tossed in for good measure, it's still enough to get you pumped for the game. [Via NeoGAF]
DQIV gets release date and price for Japan
Square Enix let loose details on the Japanese release of Dragon Quest IV. The title, which will release to the Japanese gaming public on November 22nd, will demand a hefty price of 5390 Yen (comes to about $47). Based on what we've seen, this game is going to take our socks and rock them right the hell off.See also: Dragon Quest IV website launches[Via NeoGAF]
JRPG scan-splosion from V-Jump magazine
A NeoGAFfer called king zell was apparently trying to level up his "Scan Posting" skill, because he created a thread packed densely with all kinds of new images of DS role playing games. There are multiple Final Fantasies, Tales of Innocence, Archaic Sealed Heat, and even an extended preview of Summon Night: Twin Age, which we haven't heard from in quite some time.Be sure to pace yourself and enjoy every thumbnail-sized halftone screenshot, because this is a lot of RPG news to take in at once. There's bound to be something here for you, unless you hate RPGs, at which point you should stop clicking all those image links. We've mirrored the scans after the break, just in case the originals get stricken with a status ailment.
DS Daily: Two fours enter, one four leaves
Our overlords at Square Enix have been making everything old new again, and since we soak up RPGs like starlets soak up fake tanners, we can't say we're exactly displeased. In fact, the only possible dilemma we face when considering the barrage of remakes is: which ones are we most excited about? We thought we'd put the question to you guys as well. So which is it: Dragon Quest IV or Final Fantasy IV? We figured it was only fair to pit two number fours against one another.
The Dragon Quest IV info keeps flowing
Square Enix is not wasting any time getting information about the forthcoming remake of Dragon Quest IV out -- another three page set of scans has turned up, with even more screens (and a lot of the character art we've seen before). Each time we catch a glimpse of this, we're more and more convinced that it's going to look even better than the Playstation remake -- there are a lot of subtle differences that seem to improve upon the look of that last version.The original set was scanned as one image, but we've broken it up into the individual pages for you (or you can hit the original here) after the jump. As usual, you can click through for higher resolution images.
Checking out the look of DQIV
They must be hungry for details on the Dragon Quest IV remake over at Jeux France -- they took scans from a few weeks ago and blew up the screenshots within to get a peek at the look of the title. Since we also yearn to see how things will look (and for an English translation of the game!), we thought we might share them with you. Please note, however, that the scans are cut up; you'll have to slip back in time if you missed the full scans the first time around. But if it's grainy, oversized screens-from-scans that pique your interest, head over there and get your drool on.
Dragon Quest IV scheduled for winter release
Square Enix knows how to develop a game quickly: already have developed the whole thing twice. You'll be able to see this efficiency through redundancy at work this winter, when the first of the three DS Dragon Quest remakes hits Japan.The company has opened the official Dragon Quest IV-VI website, which is probably not based on any NES-era websites, and, as such, doesn't have much content yet beyond the vague release schedule for IV and its CERO rating of A (All Ages). If this is coming out this winter, does it mean that it'll be competing with Dragon Quest IX? Or will IX even come out this year? It is a powerful mystery.[Via Dengeki]
Dragon Quest Remake Mania
Square Enix has announced DS remakes of Dragon Quests IV, V, and VI. Everybody freak out ... now. And ... done. Back at the Square Enix Party, Yoichi Wada mentioned that some of the Dragon Quest games would be remade, but not which ones or how many. These three games comprise an informal "Zenithia" trilogy, linked by the appearance of the same aerial castle in all three games. The blurry screens visible in the scans indicate that the remakes are based on the engine from the Playstation remake of Dragon Quest IV, which used 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds. We hope that all of them come out in the US, since V and VI would be new to us, and it would be awfully nice to have a new version of IV with a better translation and actual availability. Full-size scans after the break!
