There were many improvements made to the Dragon Quest series between the first game and the fourth. This comparison will mostly track the changes between Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest IV. I do like both games, but for different reasons.
Dragon Quest is a very simple game. Whenever I play this game, I have fun with it. The first time I played this game was in high school when I was collecting retro games.
Dragon Quest IV is a little different. I played this game on an emulator before I got a physical copy of the game. It wasn’t until the 2010s that I really gave this game a chance, and I really liked what was in this game.
These games are quite different once you get past the core concepts. They both start a trilogy of video games, which is something interesting in the Dragon Quest series. This means the settings are a little different. Let’s get into both games and see what they have to offer.
Game Descriptions/Overviews
Both games have similar settings and graphics. They lean into being high fantasy games, right down to the Shakespearean way of talking. While not raising to that level of writing, the translators did use some of the tropes of that speech in this series.
Dragon Quest is a high fantasy RPG. The player controls a solo protagonist who fills every combat role. The story is fairly basic and doesn’t deviate from the main goal. You play as a “legendary hero,” you have to save a princess, gather key items, and then defeat the Dragonlord.
Dragon Quest IV is a high fantasy RPG. The story is told in five chapters/sections, and each has a different main protagonist. In combat, you control a party of characters with different skill sets. You don’t necessarily know the overarching goal of the game right away, but it is slowly revealed as the game progresses.
These are just brief overviews of each game. I didn’t want to provide a full plot synopsis or anything like that. This was just meant to be a brief description of what you’ll see in each game. Let’s get into the main differences and compare the core concepts.
Main Differences
There is a lot to get into here. I’m going to try to stick to 3 or four of the big differences between them. There are differences in storytelling, combat, gameplay, and setting.
Dragon Quest is a very basic game. The story is told mostly using in game graphics and text. There are a few cutscenes, and those are mostly at the end of the game. Dragon Quest IV has a lot of cutscenes when compared to the first game, which is a reflection of how far the technology of the time had come.
Combat is pretty different as well. Dragon Quest IV has some boring combat screens, but is a more complex combat system because it has more playable characters. The first game has all the combat roles in one player. You also don’t fight more than one enemy at a time in Dragon Quest.
There were a few gameplay improvements made from the first game to the fourth. Dragon Quest IV got rid of or mitigated the number of archaic mechanics from the first game. The first Dragon Quest had a lot of things from tabletop RPGs in it, which don’t always work too well in a console RPG.
Dragon Quest IV takes place in a new setting. The previous three games took place, or eventually ended up, in the same world. The reason for this is that the fourth game is starting a new trilogy of games. There are some similarities because these are both high fantasy games.
These are the things that stood out to me. There are a few other things that are different, but I wanted to go over the more significant ones. I’m sure that there are others that I’m either omitting or that are important to other people.
Comparing Core Mechanics (Combat, Story, Visuals, etc)
There might be some overlap between this section and the previous one. I’ll be going over the combat, story, and visuals in the game. I’ll try to keep this brief and hopefully not repeat myself too much.
Combat in these games isn’t all that different. Both games are turn based RPGs, but the fourth game has a party system, and the first game doesn’t. All the combat roles are consolidated into one character in Dragon Quest, and they’re spread out in Dragon Quest IV. You also fight more enemies during battle in the fourth game.
These games have very different stories. Dragon Quest has a very simple story that doesn’t have a twist or anything to distract the player from the main plot. The fourth game has a much more complex plot and uniquely tells its story. Dragon Quest IV tells its story across five chapters, if you’re playing the NES version, and they come together in the fifth chapter. Other versions of the game have a sixth chapter or other content.
The overall graphics aren’t too different from each other. Enix didn’t make any dramatic changes to the graphics as the series progressed, which is something that I like. Dragon Quest IV is more cinematic, and it looks a little better than the first game. There is a wider variety of character sprites in the fourth game, which is a reflection of how technology progressed in the series.
Those are the core mechanics that I wanted to focus on. There are some other mechanics that I could break down, but I don’t want to go on for too long. Let’s get into what each game does better than the other.
What Does Dragon Quest IV do Better?
There are a lot of things that are better in Dragon Quest IV. This game has a better story, characters, combat, and I like that it has more cutscenes. I’m sure there are other things that this game does better, but I can’t think of them at this time. If I think of any more, then I’ll add them at the end.
This story is much better than what is in the first game. While the end goal isn’t too different, the path to get there is much better. It also has a unique way of explaining things, as it has five chapters, and everything comes together at the end. It is a fun story.
There is more character development in this game. While you don’t spend a lot of time with them, there is more here than in the first game. Each of the main characters is given some development in their own chapter, which is a fun way to tell a story. Personally, I really like the merchant section of the game because it is a little odd.
Because there are more characters, this makes the combat better. I like having a party of characters more than a solo protagonist. It makes combat more interesting, you fight more enemies, and it simply makes games like this more fun for me.
Dragon Quest IV is a more cinematic game. It has more and better cutscenes than the previous three games in the series. This makes the story better and makes the graphics more enjoyable to look at. Having more of these scenes helps to tell the story in a more meaningful way, and I like having them, even if they use in game graphics.
These are things that I think are better in Dragon Quest IV. This game does a lot of things better than what is offered in the first game. You can really see how far the series has come when you look at them side by side. Let’s get into what the first game does better.
What Does Dragon Quest do Better?
Much like the other times that I’ve compared games to the first Dragon Quest, I was really struggling with this section. There isn’t too much that this game does better than most of the RPGs released in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I do like the battle screens a little more, and I enjoy how simplistic this game is.
This game has better looking battle scenes. Most of them aren’t on a boring black screen, as they’re brighter and more colorful. They aren’t as complex as other RPGs, but they do look much better.
There is something to say about the simplicity of this game. While this isn’t something that everyone likes, it is one of the things that I enjoy about it. I like that it focuses on the main story as much as it does, and doesn’t deviate from a set path.
This was very difficult. There isn’t too much to this game to begin with, and not much that is better when compared with other games in this genre. Let’s get into which is better and which I would rather play.
Which is Better Overall and Why?
Dragon Quest IV is the better game overall. It has a better story, the battles are more complex, and I like the characters a lot more. I’m sure there are other things, and if I think of them, then I’ll add them in at the end.
I just like the story more in this game when compared to the bare bones story in Dragon Quest. The fourth game tells its story in a unique way. Being told in five parts makes it feel similar to Phantasy Star III. I also like how the chapters link up at the end.
Because this game has a party system, it makes the battles more complex. While you don’t spend too much time with each character, you do learn more about them than you do about the protagonist in the first game. It is also a lot of fun that you have to learn how each character class plays as you go through the game. Even the classes that you wouldn’t normally choose to play as.
While you don’t spend too much time with the characters, you learn a lot about them. By focusing on a few of them at a time, it helps the story focus on their motivations, even if we don’t learn more than that. This is a nice way of doing things.
These are just some of the reasons why I like one game more than the other. Dragon Quest IV has a lot going for it, and with its different way of telling a story, it makes it stand out from other games. Let’s get into which game I would rather play.
Which Would I Rather Play?
This wasn’t close at all. While both of these games are fun, I would rather play Dragon Quest IV. I enjoy the story more, and it has fewer archaic gameplay mechanics. I’m sure there are other things, but I’m trying to avoid repeating myself too often.
There is more going on in Dragon Quest IV’s story. I also enjoy how it is told. This is something that has grown on me as I’ve gotten older. From what I remember of playing this game in the late 1990s, I didn’t get too far because I had no idea what I was doing. When I went back to play it a few years ago, I found the story to be a ton of fun.
The first Dragon Quest has a lot of archaic gameplay mechanics that were included from tabletop RPGs. Those were slowly phased out over the course of the series and are mostly gone in the fourth game. Dragon Quest IV is the game that I would rather go back to because it has the best gameplay out of the four NES games.
I was a little unsure of what to put in this section. I enjoyed playing Dragon Quest IV more than I did when I played the first game. Both games are fun, but given the choice, I would rather come back to the fourth game in the series. The first Dragon Quest is one of those games that is fun to play every once in a while, but not as good as most of the other RPGs on the NES.
Conclusion
This wasn’t really that close. The Dragon Quest games slowly got better as the series went on. They didn’t normally make big changes from game to game in the same way that Final Fantasy did. They also tried to tell larger stories across multiple games.
Dragon Quest isn’t a terrible game, but it is the one that really shows its age. There are a lot of archaic game mechanics, and other things that I find annoying about it. It does have a decent story, and I enjoy the graphics. They were more unique than other high fantasy games.
Dragon Quest IV is my favorite game out of the four on the NES. In many ways, it reminds me of Phantasy Star III. Both games have different ways of telling their stories, and they have fun characters. This is also the more cinematic of the three games, which helps to tell the story quite a bit.
The first game in the series has an uphill battle against any RPG. The fourth game has a lot to offer, and I enjoy the characters in it as well as the story. Both games were the start of trilogies of games, which is pretty fun. I can’t wait to see how Dragon Quest IV stacks up with the other RPGs I’ve played so far.
If you liked this post, please check out the others in this series. Such as Phantasy Star IV vs Phantasy Star III or Robotrek vs Sweet Home.