I think the game is leagues better than DQ3, at least in my experience. The characters are much more fleshed out, even if they could be even more fleshed out. The story seems to be much more present in the game than in the first three, and there's a lot more music and bosses than those games as well. I like the chapter system introducing characters before they join the main party a lot. It makes the start of chapter 5 cool as you want to hurry and gather up a team of characters you've had before. I do wish they had done a better job with the Hero's story though. I think they should not have shown us the Hero at the start to not just jarringly switch to a whole different character out of nowhere. They could've also shown glimpses of the Hero between chapters to fix this. Combat in DQ4 was generally enjoyable. I really liked the ability to swap your party out freely in certain battles, as that made it feel pretty different from the older games. I like the ease of grinding exp later on in the game from the Metal Slimes, although money is still annoying to grind for. Chapters 2 and 3 can drag a bit in certain sections, but otherwise I enjoyed the pacing. I wish chapter 6 added more stuff to do after getting the 9th chosen, as they expect you to grind a bit too much if you want to see their full potential. I didn't hate fighting any of the bosses like I did in DQ and DQ3 for the annoying final bosses. Overall, a solid entry, and a surprisingly good title to come from the NES, even if the version I played was somewhat reworked.