They removed a lot from Dragon Quest IV.  Things like the Party Chat feature, a couple scenes from the game (puff puff) and altering the story.  With little logical reason for it, other than possibly wanting to make the game appeal to a more 'casual' audiance.  I really have given up trying to understand the logic behind localizations for Square-Enix.  It almost seems they change things just for the sake of changing it.

And they haven't given an American release for a Dragon Quest game original content since DQVIII.  And all that included was added voices (which weren't in the original game) and an orchestrated score.  All the other improvements to the game come from the original Japanese games.  What we in America get is just alterations or cuts. 

For Dragon Quest V however, early reports are claiming that they are altering (and possibly removing) portions of the script again.  As well as changing names and giving certain characters accents, which has been confirmed.

I have been made aware that one of the primary reasons is that every Western copy of DQIV (American and European) has the code for every single Western language version inside of it, with certain switches flipped to make it so that a given language displays. This is just what I hear.

It's not arbitrary - it's just laziness, or possibly cost-cutting.

And no, most people who play it (like me) don't care all that much.

People who would pick it up if Nintendo pushes it as hard as they pushed Pokemon wouldn't care, either.

If they really wanted to cut costs and effort, they would have just gone with a straight English translation.  Our views of the accents aside, that's just really the logical assumption.  The quickest and easiest way would have been to translate the game with a straight 'Queen's English' Translation.  And the same to be said for all other languages that needed to be considered in the European release.

It has been done in the past.  Dragon Quest I-III on the GBC and Dragon Quest VII on the PSX did it.  And nothing was lost in translation or character.  But there is a argument to be said that there has been too much time and effort being put into these accents and changing of script over the various Dragon Quest titles over the years that material has been left out of games  Wither its due to time restraints or lazyness, that's unacceptable.  Especially since we got Dragon Quest IV DS WELL after a year of the Japanese release, and the Japanese release even had a beta english translation embedded into the game.  They've dropped the ball on Dragon Quest in America.

And it may not get up there.  But while the PS2 was suppose to be the BEST SELLING SYSTEM EVAR!!!!, Dragon Quest VIII its still not the best selling Dragon Quest game.  Which goes to DQVII for best single selling title and DQIII for best accumulated sales in the series.

And this is the DS we're talking about.  Which is pretty much becoming synonymous with Japanese gaming.  I think its at least going to topple all other DQ sales, if not break 5 million easily.

And it may not get up there.  But while the PS2 was suppose to be the BEST SELLING SYSTEM EVAR!!!!, Dragon Quest VIII its still not the best selling Dragon Quest game.  Which goes to DQVII for best single selling title and DQIII for best accumulated sales in the series.

And this is the DS we're talking about.  Which is pretty much becoming synonymous with Japanese gaming.  I think its at least going to topple all other DQ sales, if not break 5 million easily.

Well, the series is kind of in a decline if you compare DQ7 -> DQ8. But that's a long time ago.

But it's also been a while since another non Pokemon RPG has sold well in Japan. The only two that broke a million were DQ 5 and 6. (as far games released in 2008)

And the DS is much of a better seller than the PS2. I do not think breaking 5 million will be easy by any means.