Dragon Quest IV is one of my favorite games in the series. I'm only familiar with the Playstation and Nintendo DS version though. Akira Toriyama's artwork is even more prominent here. I'm writing this almost a year after I played the Nintendo DS game, so memory isn't all too fresh and, to be honest, there's not much to say about it after having played Dragon Quest III.
As far as gameplay goes, there isn't much to add since the games added very little with every addition to the franchise. The Nintendo DS version looks pretty neat, and people familiar later entries will find certain game elements that they should be familiar with. For example the hidden coins that let you receive a reward for delivering a certain amount to a NPC.
The cast is pretty alright but the only noteworthy characters are the Hero, Torneko, Alena and the sisters.
Alena is fun because she's one of strongest physical hitters in the game even though her class resembles something like a swift thief. And it's not so common to have a female character be the physical damage lead.
The sisters are just easily recognizable but they're also magic users, so you'll end up using at least one of them most of the time. The Hero is the typical Dragon Quest hero who can do everything and is usually the best at everything, in this case, the Hero's role is kind of being the messiah but not as dramatic.
Torneko is just a fun character because he's not special, just a family father and a merchant. The games subtitle comes from the part of the game where you have to play each characters/groups chapter first, who will then through fate, end up meeting each other. And Torneko's story starts you with him going to the store on a daily routine and making some money, which you can do as long as you want until you progress.
In the DS version, the game starts you with playing a prologue chapter with the Hero though, in which the home village gets attacked and you loose your best friend. It already makes somewhat clear that the bad guys are looking for children because they are looking for the hero due to a prophecy or something (been a while since I played it).
After that, chapter 1 begins and you play as Ragnar, some kind of worn out looking knight. He's out on a quest to investigate the mystery of missing children, and gets accompanied by Healie later on, a heal slime.
Ragnar isn't very interesting and the chapter is pretty straightforward so that's basically it.
Chapter 2 features Alena's party, who has some Son Gohan looking goof by her side and some old wizard. Son Gohan is rather important as a party member due to his defensive magic spells and the Borya, the old wizard just does offensive magic, so not very important.Alena is a princess who wants to explore the world and escapes from the castle, accompanied by those two guardians. Instead of a happy adventure, Alena finds herself on a quest to save her kingdom instead. And surprise, it's connected to the missing children.
Chapter 3 is Torneko and like I said, you're quest is to make money. At first you can job in his town, but to become a greater merchant, you have to travel. Your goal is to make money, so you end up farming a lot. There are also turn in quests that will reward you with a lot of money. If I remember correctly, Torneko's droprate is increased so it's not that bad. But I still didn't really enjoy that part.
Chapter 4 has you play as the sisters, Maya and Meena. Meena is the dancer and uses offensive magic while Maya is a fortune teller who uses support magic 
and healing spells. Their quest is to avenge their father's murder, and the murderer turns out to be a henchman of the evil force that threatens the world.I like those two characters (they have a french accent in the DS version), and the
boss fight was fairly difficult.
Chapter 5 is the Hero's chapter. The "official" names are Solo for the male one and Sophia for the female. I like the female design, so usually pick her. This is the prologue chapter in the DS version if I remember correctly, or at least you play a part of it in the prologue. Your village gets, you find out you have special powers, and a certain destiny. Which is why the bad guys are looking for you. Your best friend uses a shapeshifting spell to make the enemies think she's the Hero while the villagers keep you hidden. After the attack you find the village destroyed and your friend dead. This chapters is rather long because you start traveling the world and group up with the other characters. And then hunt down the bad guys.
In the PS and DS version, there's a Chapter 6, which adds the initial main villain to your group. Psaro the Manslayer. His deal was basically to kill humans because they are evil in his eyes or something like that, it's been a while... After defeating him, he comes to his senses and joins your party to fight a real bad guy.
In his chapter, you'll find out about Psaro's backstory a little but the chapter isn't very long.
The other stuff you can do in this game is fighting in a Arena and you can use the casino to gamble. And of course the Medal for the Medal King for nice reward. The DS version is pretty great due to the visual, DQ characteristic sound effects and good music. I believe they censored the Puff Puff room out though and I'm not too familiar with other changes.
But overall, it's a pretty nice journey with fairly decent characters. Your hero turns out to be Dragon Jesus and there's even a pretty satisfying ending in store, at least in this version.
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