#92: Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

Crystals!

I recently (ok, wow, it was 2 years ago, but it feels pretty recent) played through this game on my main blog for my Final Fantasy marathon. You can read about it here.

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest was a game Square put out in an attempt to make an easy, gateway RPG for American gamers. Their theory at the time was that we just couldn't handle slow, complicated games like Final Fantasy IV so they gave us a dumbed down version of that game and then gave us Mystic Quest instead of the awesome Final Fantasy V. Many people take out their frustrations on this situation on poor Mystic Quest, but I've never hated it the way most people do. I had fun with the game as a kid, and I had fun with the game during my marathon, and I had fun with it while playing briefly to generate these screenshots. Is it the best game ever? No. Is it offensive that Square didn't think we could handle FFV and gave us this instead? Yes. But if you take this game on its own and compare it to other SNES offerings it's actually a pretty good game.

I need the elixir from in here to save Kaeli!

Mystic Quest uses standard jRPG combat in that you have a turn based battle where you input attack or magic or item and then see what happens. It doesn't have standard jRPG random encounters or dungeon movement though. Instead you can see all the encounters on the screen and only fight them if you walk into them. Dungeon movement works more like an action adventure RPG where you need to solve puzzles using your various weapons. Chop down trees with an axe, hook shot across cliffs with a whip, hit small buttons with a sword poke... That sort of thing. Run around, jump, use bombs to open holes.

The game is both very punishing and very easy at the same time. Combat can be brutal since you have either 1 or 2 people in your party and the enemies often have instant death or confusion attacks which will game over you right then and there. But if you lose a fight you get a prompt to try it again! I actually died to the very first fight in the game where my only options were to attack because I got a miss and the boss got a crit. Crazy!

The story is decent, the music is great, the animations are really cute. The bottom line is that once you accept that the game is designed to be an easy entry level game it's actually really fantastic. I can see why people often vent their frustrations on missing out on FFV, but I don't think it's fair. Especially now when we can play both games. And back when I was a kid maybe I needed an entry level RPG. (I doubt it, since FFIV was my favourite game, but who knows.) I didn't feel offended as a kid; I really liked the game.

Rating: S-