The gameplay in
Dragon Quest IV: Chapter of the Chosen is slightly different from most RPG's. Usually you get one set of characters and that's who you play with for the entire game. In
Dragon Quest IV, each of the five chapters brings new characters for you to play with. The chapters are not necessarily equal in length. All of the characters from the first four chapters will come together in the fifth one though, so it's not like you're done with them when their chapter is over. The whole point of the story is for the people from the first four chapters to find the person in the fifth chapter.
In each chapter, you will have one or more characters to battle with. You can find out where you're supposed to go by just wandering around and talking to the various people that you meet in the towns. There are three types of areas in Dragon Quest IV, the towns, the world map, and the dungeons. When you are in town, you are safe from attack. There are no random monsters in towns. Each town has several buildings possibly including a church, an inn, a weapon shop, a defensive gear shop, an item shop, and random people's dwellings. If there is an inn, you can rest there for a fee. The churches provide you a save point. The shops allow you to buy items.
Once you leave the safety of the towns, you can be randomly attacked anywhere on the world map or in the dungeons. The dungeons can be nice, however, because there tend to be chests scattered around them with helpful healing items, armor, and weapons. You should always look for chests and open them. One note about dungeons, if you're underground or in a cave, don't use a chimera wing to try and whisk you out. You'll only hit your head on the ceiling and waste the wing.
If you die in battle, you need to go back to a town to bring party members back to life. To bring one or more party members back from the dead, just go to a church and choose resurrection. If all party members die, you end up back at the last church saved at. You will have to bring all party members but the main one back to life. You will lose half your gold when all party members die (except when carrying the steel strong box). You will retain knowledge of any map areas that you explored before you died and any levels and experience that you gained, but you will also be out all the items that you used since your last save. Sometimes I found it was just better to load from the last save rather than lose half my gold.
