What is a pleasant return to Dragon Quest IV for the Japanese and US markets (if you accept the witless censored NES version released in the US as canon) is an exciting debut in overlooked Europe. Elsewhere, the remake is surveyed for graphical and mechanical tweaking; it is the localisation itself that promises British shores a treat. For while the mechanics are well worn by subsequent Quest dabbling, the narrative structure remains an interesting premise to this day.

Divided into six chapters, the first four focus on four individual heroes. Think of it as the Robert Altman approach to RPGs: an ensemble cast that, in going about their own normal lives, reveal more about the world than any single uber-hero ever could. A soldier, a princess, a merchant – worlds apart and yet somehow in the same world. The variety of scenarios demanded from the average RPG are rarely so naturalistically present.

And where having five rebooted heroes (the fifth is your character, who brings the other four together) would suggest five times the RPG toil, the pace is actually slickened. The constant levelling up of five low-level grinds puts off that eventual slog to the fifth and sixth chapters, each of the earlier tales playing out to a statistical spiralling that paints an exciting picture of a nation gearing up for a fight.

Additions to a title never before played are more difficult to see. Battles, in particular, remain their hoary old selves, only Toriyama’s monster design receiving any love from a visual reworking.

To finally be able to understand the story, and to have it so wittily translated – some of the written dialects have to be read out loud to be understood, let alone believed – is Dragon Quest’s raison d’etre.

8/10