RPG Talk: Enchantasy: Quest for the Eternal Grimoire

So, I've talked about three games that were fairly known or either acknowledged. Now let's talk about a game that is so unknown that I can't even find many screen shots of the game itself and it doesn't even exist on wikipedia. This is:


Enchantasy: Quest of the Eternal Grimoire was released in the early 90's for DOS/Windows and one was one of the first games I ever downloaded from the internet, which was shortly after I had played Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest which to note I didn't play for a few years after it's release. Very few people have ever even heard of this game. It was released by EGA Computing and programmed by a single individual who's name I have forgotten . This was one of those independently developed games that was a unique experience but was heavily overshadowed by much bigger titles. The game was released on a simple AOL page that has long since cease to exist. I should state before I start that the computer holding the full version of the game long has since crashed and the only version I have been able to find was the shareware version that was limited to 5 saves and have yet to find a full version (If anyone ever manages to find it let me know). So this RPG talk is based entirely on past experience and the only light refresher I was able to take with the shareware version of the game.

Enchantasy takes place in the world of Savilia. People are disappearing, monsters and evil humans are roaming the land. Eradan, a humble mage apprentice is summoned to the mage guild headquarters and is tasked with finding the Eternal Grimoire, a legendary spellbook that suppose has the power to cease the evil powers threatening the world. With his friends: The warrior, Jared. The ranger, Rodell. And the thief, Shyna. They would have to scale the globe seeking the Grimoire, searching for the kingdom's prince, discover the mysterious assassinations of the guild members, and confronting an evil wizard.

The story as a whole wasn't entirely original even for the time it was developed. However it uses a much older style of progression and story method in comparison to the JRPGs that were more common on the consoles at the time. There is very little character development between the actual main characters and the actual direction is more open world. NPC dialogue requires some probing in order to learn anything useful. Simple one to two word phases could be typed to try to learn more about what an NPC knows. Most of the time this was accomplished by using by typing a word that the person themselves said. Other then seeking out the four characters the rest of the game is pretty much self directed by what you yourself learn from the surrounding world and the people living in it. The only limits set are the strength of the monsters that you fight. The gameplay is actually more similar to D&D or other earlier RPG games where the story is more directed by the player though there is an eventual endpoint.


The game play is very, very aged. The entire game game play consists mostly of single keyboard commands and the player is capable of moving in only four directions. Many options require additional skill or input such as Invoke or Pick commands. There aren't very many puzzles in most places and requires more exploration or the use of the Invoke command to activate certain areas. In general you have to figure out when and where to go to places because the dungeons themselves give few clues of what your suppose to be doing there. So often times I could recall myself taking down notes to keep track of the things I needed to do or where I needed to go. As tedious as that sounds it did keep you moving forward because you had to pay attention if you wanted to know what was going on. The story really isn't spoon-fed to the player.

Gear was kept fairly simple, weapons, shields, armor were pretty standard to the specific characters but the items were just expensive enough that it did take some work to keep your characters gear up. Also all gear was skill-based in other words if you were too low in level for the gear, you couldn't use it. Skills and abilities did fall back on some old style RPG style type play, as you leveled you received training passes to train in skills such as first aid, magic, range, melee, lock picking, etc rather then simply learning them as you leveled. And since you only earned one pass per experience level it would require you to think through what it was you needed to do. In addition, there is a food supply stat that requires you to purchase food which did place a slight time restraint on how long you could stay away from town. Allowing food to drop to zero would cause a Hunger status that would do a poison like damage over time.

Battles had a mix of random encounter and encounter based in specialized places (you still couldn't see the enemy but running away from these enemies would force your character to step back, so until you won you can't move forward). Battles took place on a large, grind like placement similar to some tactic RPGs. Characters could moving in any of the eight directions and attack any target in eight directions. Bows, Slings, and Magic could allow you to hit enemies from distances, but you couldn't shoot anything next to you, though you could still use magic. But because the characters can only move one space, it really forced you to plan your move carefully or you might end up surrounded. Experience works very differently. Unlike most RPGs at the time, the amount of experience a character earned at the end of a fight entirely depended on their use in battle. If you stand back and let your mage wipe everything out with spells, none of your other characters will gain any experience as a result. Experience was also lost when you ran away. The only problem with this is that it heavily penalized your ability to conserve your resources for tougher fights and particular in areas with high encounter rates could leave you losing quite a bit of exp when you're weaken. The quests you can complete allow you to earn higher numbers of experience in burst which does soften the blow slightly.

I will say this straight out, this game is HARD. Unlike most RPG console games I was playing at the time, the battles were extremely difficult, and taking the quickest and easiest way out could end up hurting you very quickly and punished you heavily for mistakes. Experience accumulates rather slowly so additional grinding for the sake of trying to build up what you need. Some areas had battles ranges that would go from a cakewalk to a impossible death match at a moments notice. The rest of the difficult was based on fact it was extremely difficult to figure out where you were suppose to go and when you should go. It's wasn't always obvious how strong the monsters would be from one area to the other and since there were very few things preventing you from entering most area, and it was easy to enter a place early on with monsters many times greater then you can handle.

The graphics are old even in the 80's they were aged. The graphics use EGA style graphics that were more common in the earlier days of computer games. NPCs and characters hardly ever move. There are probably about 2 frames of animation for water. Battle sprites look little like what they are suppose to. Attack animations pretty much consist of two frames one swing left or right then swing in the other direction. To be expected there is a lot of palette swapping and the environments are limited. The area design though is fairly solid, many of the castles and towns are actually arranged like actual places and don't tend to look identical which does leave an impression regardless of the lack of detail.

The game has no music and very few sound effects, giving the detail to graphics this isn't very surprising, the game using some authentic sounding sound effects, though at a low bittage. The battle start and end have short jiggles.

The game being what it is doesn't appear to have a lot of exploitable glitches. Though there was a cheat code that was coded right into the game that would allow you to heal, get full items, and so on. You could alter a lot of things with a hex editor if you knew what you were looking for.

There weren't a ton of extras, there were certain quests that you could do. Some were required while others were not. More then anything the point of these quests were to gain experience and sometimes items that were sometimes needed. While other times when they weren't needed at all.

How does Enchantasy hold up? We due to it's lack of acknowledgment it's obvious the game didn't leave much impact which was the fate of many independently developed games. As an RPG, Enchantasy was a solid experience. It had a very large world to explore and many things to accomplish. The graphics and sound were very subpar which probably threw some people off. If you are able to look past it though it's technological shortcomings , Enchantasy: Quest for the Eternal Grimoire is worth a try...
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If you can find it that is.

RPG Talk: Super Mario RPG

Super Mario RPG was released in Japan March 9th, 1996 and was released in North American merely two months later. It wouldn't be released in Europe till it's release on Virtual Console almost twelve years later, making it the single longest regional delay of a title in Nintendo's history. Super Mario RPG was not only the final Mario game for the Super Nintendo but was also the last Nintendo game that was developed by Square until 2002. Super Mario RPG is regarded as one of the SNES's best regardless of it's late release and among the RPG community it is usually highly regarded, which is saying a lot since the Super NES's RPG library is fairly legendary even now. Regardless of how many times this game has been reviewed and re-reviewed. I will give my input on rather quirky RPG.

As with most Mario games, the exact time of the setting isn't easy to determine, the appearance of Bowser's Clown Car and Yoshi at least suggests it takes place at anytime after Super Mario World, though like most Mario games it's extremely vague. The story starts up classic Mario style involving Peach (Who was still known as Toadstool at the time) is kidnapped by Bowser in front of Mario's house while waiting for Mario to wake up. Mario being Mario rushes to Bowser's Keep to rescue her. Though Mario was able to quickly dispatch Bowser, his attempt to rescue Peach was halted when the castle begins to shake as a giant sword splits the sky and crashes straight into Bowser's keep sending Mario, Peach, and Bowser scattered to the four winds. Upon recovering, Mario returns to Bowser's Keep believing Peach was still there only to find that the Keep is under control of the 'Smithy's Gang' who seem to intend to conquer the world and fill it with weapons. To prevent interference from Mario or anyone else for that matter, Exor, the sword collapses the Keep's bridge. Mario is forced to return to the Mushroom Kingdom and eventually would discover a star piece in the castle after it is brought under attack by a creature called Mack the Sword while Mario was helping Mallow retrieve a stolen coin. Mario's quest involves stopping Smithy, finding Peach, and discovering the secret behind these star pieces.



Now overall the plot is generic overall, but it's characters and the world that really bring the story to light and make it less ordinary. Mario, like most of his games, remain the silent protagonist but yet still manages to display quite a bit of personality through his various animations and expressions. Bowser revealed a side that hadn't been seen about him often. He's tough guy who thinks he's the baddest around but yet display an attitude that appears to be that of a whinny spoiled kid more so then the force of ultimate evil. He makes continuous excuses for everything that doesn't go this way and gets rather annoyed when people ignore him. Peach shows some courage in this particular story but yet seems to display her symptoms of her Princess life style often getting scared by things and even scolds people a few times. The two original playable character Mallow and Geno. Mallow was a lost prince, who for some reason thought he was a tadpole even though he was more shaped like a cloud. He's more or less a crybaby who tends to have a few moments where he seems to go back and forth from courageous to cowardly. To me he came off as a teenager who's not exactly sure who he is or what he wants. Geno on the other hand has come down from the Star Road to recover the star pieces that Exor damaged when he dropped down from the sky and possessed a doll to do so. I'm going to be honest, I've never quite understood the big deal with Geno of all of them, he's has probably the least personality of any of playable characters. He's the most soldier like in mindset, he has a mission to do and takes most of his priority. Though it's still a solid interesting character, he just comes off a little weaker on my view on him. He does have alot of flashy attacks and is a fairly strong character regardless.


NPC interaction is also fairly interesting, many of the NPC have various animations besides just simply standing or walking randomly. The unusual thing about these interactions is unlike most RPGs, Mario is already well known but most of the world. So there isn't alot of complex involvement into getting involved into most situation, it's more that Mario just seems to happen to be in the area when things are going on though this could easily be view and cheapen the plot or shallowing the development. Some characters interact pretty well with many of the NPCs adding more character particular to Bowser while interacting with his troops showing Bowser as a little less of simply a brutal dictator. That his troops to a certain extend seem to have loyalty or even respect for Bowser regardless of the shortcomings.

Even many of the non-plot related enemies have unique personalities and pre-set relations. The two most commonly known are Booster and Valentina. Booster is a crazy man that lives in a massive tower with his snifits, he forgets things and seems to have no sense of common sense or intelligence. He's not particularly evil more so then easily confused, in his attempted to marry Peach he ended up eating the cake and left completely forgetting about everything else prior. While Valentine is a self-proclaimed beauty who tends to be extremely bossy particular to her sidekick, a fat blackbird named Dodo. She's a character that defines egoistical beauty. She's has a short fuse even though she hides behind that using beauty and sophistication to her advantage.

Traveling is actually more standard of Mario games then RPGs in general. There is no spanning world map between areas. Rather you select the area and enter it much like Super Mario Brothers 3 or Super Mario World. In areas themselves are also a lot like a Mario game. All enemies are visible and Mario is able to jump , run, drop off and interact with the area with very little restriction. Areas range from simple go from one end to the other while others involve more exploration and puzzle solving. The puzzles are entertaining at times and the more difficult ones are more optional then required, which bypasses the struggling with some puzzles like my previous reviewed game. It is easy to jump and move in all directions making it fairly easy to get around and avoid enemies if necessary.

The game does play a little similar method regarding gear and items. Each character only has three slots: A weapon, an armor, and a Accessory. As far as the weapons go each character has three varieties but there aren't many varieties other then them getting stronger. Armor is character specific while most accesories can be equipped by just about anyone. The item inventory is quite small however, I never found it a heavy burden since it's fairly easy to avoid enemy encountered if your dangerously low on health and/or items. The standard spell formula has also been simplified, each character only learns a total of six spells and they are only earned through levels. In this game the mana pool is referred to as Flower Points or FP. Unlike MP it is not character directed rather the party shares FPs. This forced the entire party to converse when necessary and did add a bit of complication to the simple process, but at the same time, it made some abilities pretty useless not making the FP cost worth the effort in comparison to others.

The battle system is a fairly standard turn-based battle, however it had it's own twisted to the system in the form of timed attacks. When attacking or being attacked, if you hit the button at the right time, your damage increases done or decreases your damage taken. The pattern for weapons was pretty easy to learn but rewarding to do, parrying attacks required a little more work and sometimes it was hard to pull off with particular enemies, but it did keep you on your toes in tough spots. Special abilities also had timing features which ranged from timing hits with Mallow's Thunderbolt. Rapidly tapping the button for Mario's Fireball, to holding down the button for Geno's charge attacks. Three members were permitted in the party at once with Mario always making up one of these members.

However, the one place this game falls short is it's difficulty level. Most of the boss fights are relatively easy and the maximum experience level cap is relatively low. Certain boss fights can be skipped in a few places by completing certain mini-games. Regardless there a few extra fights that do challenge you such as Culex and Jinx. However, there is a piece of armor in the game, the Lazy Shell if you equip that to Peach after she's learned comeback, it pretty much can make your party invincible. Level grinding really isn't all that necessary unless you tend to take on Culex with no Lazy Shell.

The graphics were very unique by the standard that was set by RPGs at the time. The actual game was displayed 3/4 perspective. In other worlds it wasn't true 3-D rather sprites that gave the illusion of 3-D. Mario and the other characters could move in all 8 directions and the sprite animations were very smooth for the time. The worlds are very colorful and the environments were all unique and well designed. The enemy sprites were fairly detailed and showed quite a bit of originality along with the common Mario staples. The only real compliant I have is some of the spells look flat. Some spells like Shocker and Bowser Crusher looked like flat pictures moved slightly over the area. Mind you, they still look fairly good regardless.

The music in Super Mario RPG was composed by Yoko Shimomura. The music was of a different style then what was common in Square's previous RPG works. The soundtrack was very upbeat and bouncy fitting in with the colorful Mario world. Even the standard battle theme sounds more upbeat then any RPG theme I've ever listen to, and probably even more catchy. The sound effects range from Mario classic jump noise to explosions and all of them sound very good.

The game is fairly polished and doesn't have a lot of glitches or bugs. There are a few areas that infinite number of enemies walk down, and I could recall people using turbo controllers to level up quickly this way, but that is hardly game breaking. However, I did run into a bizarre glitch, in Land End, according to every source I've ever read, there is a couple of chests up on a high edge. You jump about center to make a floating platform appear then jump in the cannon and land on the platform and it's suppose to take you up to these chests, I've never once got this to work I've tired every method I could think of but it will not move. I don't know if this is a glitch in my cartridge or it was a more widespread problem.



The game is full of extras big and small. The game has several random cameos from other Nintendo games such as Link and Samus. There is also a place in Booster's Tower that turns you 8-bit with the whole classic Mario Overworld theme to go along with it. There are also several mini-games that can provide small rewards and test your reflexes. A mine cart ride, a Yoshi race requiring you to tap buttons via melody (Which I STILL cannot beat, curse my lack of rhythm), and even composing songs by jumping on tadpoles. There are also several bonus fights later on in the game which included Culex, a Final Fantasy style character who is not only the strongest boss in the game, but has four crystals that are just as powerful as he is (Not to mention it includes special music from FFIV).



Super Mario RPG is an unique RPG experience. Everything just comes together very well and expands the Mario World into a living and breathing world in a way that hadn't been entirely done up to that point. It gave us another side of not only the Mushroom Kingdom but RPGs in general. It's colorful world, upbeat musical score, and simple yet appealing battle system. Super Mario RPG is a late blooming but loved classic in the SNES RPG library.

RPG Talk: Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals

Lufia II: The Rise of the Sinistrals was released in Japan on February 24, 1995, and was released in North American over one year later in August of 1996. It was a sequel (or prequel depending on how you look at it) to Lufia: The fortress of Doom. Now before I can move forward talking about this particular game, I should probably establish that much of my feelings towards this game was drawn from the fact that I've never completed the original game, in fact it was several years after I completed this one before even playing the first one. So I won't mention much as far as the original is concerned in comparison to the sequel which is a little uncommon but bare with me..

Lufia II takes places 100 years prior to the original game. Following the ancestor of the originals hero, Maxim, as it follows the events leading up to the introduction scene in the first game. Maxim is a monster hunter in a small town that is informed by a mysterious woman named Iris about his connection to a mysterious light that crashed into the sea that is causing monsters to become more aggressive. Maxim's is forced into what appears to be a struggle between Mortals and Gods called Sinistrals. Simply to decide who deserves control over the world. The plot itself isn't any particular special and follows a pretty standard pattern. Probably the biggest complaint about this plot is the way it's moves forward, this game is very infamous for the dubbed, "Fetch Quests" where nearly everything done in the game works like this:

1)Go to town/castle
2)Something happens
3)Go to dungeon to find item or kill monster
4)Return to town/castle
5)Go to next town/castle and repeat.

Now, this setup on itself isn't unique nor horrible bad. It just becomes a little predictable after about halfway through the game. The other issue with this structure is just how random it gets, much of these fetch quests are required and usually have very little to do with the central plot. Such as retrieving a flower from a monster infested mountain mountain, fighting off an earthquake causing catfish, and fighting a spider for a ruby apple. I heard these quests often compared to what is called anime filler, which basically implies any episodes the don't effect the plot in anyway and is more or less used to fill out the season's time slots. Now this isn't entirely true of all the quests. A few do tie in to particular issues between characters and provide motivation for what is going more often the the ones just taking up space. For example the search for the treasure sword first begins to establish Selan's trust in the group, Maxim in particular.



As far as the characters go, most of them are fairly standard and don't heavily stand out as a whole, even in comparison to other RPG characters at the time. Though the characters don't have deeply developed back stories or emotionally troubling lives. They do have some interesting interaction from time to time. The character bicker over silly things, one I clearly remember when introducing themselves to a boss character, Guy calls Selan 'Magical Lady Wife Selan' which Selan absolutely hates and when they encounter the same boss later he uses the same name much to Selan's dismay. Tia own personal struggle with her feelings over the main character for the first part of the game leave you with a bit of a mix feeling when she is finally leaves. Maxim and Selan were the first couple in a RPG I had seen and it was different to see the few scenes where this was more apparent, particular closer to the end where Maxim tries to convince Selan to stay behind. However, most people tell me the most memorable was Dekar, a temporary character who was the strongest of the bunch but was a complete idiot, something about him reminds me of Gourry from Slayers. A strong guy who doesn't have a clue. Though he was a solid personality in comparison to the others, I wouldn't say he was incredibly memorable though. The biggest gripe that most have with the story is in the introduction we are introduced to a character named Arek, who appears to either be the head of the Sinistrals or at least a major power in connection to them, but for whatever reason after the introduction he is never seen again and is only mentioned briefly by Daos before the last fight in the game, nothing was ever really revealed about him which disappointed a lot of people because it feels like they just forgot about him..














The gameplay regarding travel and dungeon exploration was a little different from most RPGs I was playing at the time. Town and world map travel is fairly standard. In dungeons, the game ran kind of like a Zelda type form of exploration. Enemies in dungeons are visible and only move when you move. There are puzzles that range from simply pushing the block on the button, to brainteaser that will make want to break something. Several tools are found through the game such as bombs, hookshot, arrows, fire arrows, hammers, and so on that are used to deal with special obstacles or stun enemies.

Character gear is specific to character, on top of gear that just add stats, some equip had special attacks referred to as IP moves. Much like limit breaks and other special attack in future RPGs, the meter would built up as you took damage allowing you to perform attacks based on what you had equipped. However unlike most limit break systems, the bar didn't have to be full to perform many of the attacks and acted more like an additional MP bar. So often times you'll find yourself taking a gear that is slightly weaker with a solid IP attack that will deal far more damage with IP then the attacks alone. However, as I went through the game, I began to notice how useless some of these IP moves really are (Seriously I had gear for the longest time that had Free magic which I never encountered a use for at the time the gear was common). So it's wise to consider how useful IP attack is before you actually decide to use it. Spells are entirely bought and are specific to character, there is no exp earned abilities. Much like IP moves, there are a number of spells that are fairly expense and fairly useless on top of it, so if you want to avoid grinding for money it's better to pick and choose carefully.



The battle system follows a standard turn-based battle, which begin randomly on the world map and are encounter based in dungeons. Up to five characters are present in battle based on the progress of the story. The fifth slot opens up for a Capsule monster, eight monsters you can find throughout the game that will fight along side you and can be attacked, but always fully restored after each fight. These monsters can be fed and evolve into stronger monsters, a trait that would become popular in many games to come, though this wasn't the first time it had been done either. This game's spell system throws away the all or single target spells. Each spell can be casted on as many target as desire with every additional target making it relatively weaker, which I find interesting since usually even most spell systems at the time made you select one or all never some. Some IP attacks also work like this but not all IP attacks did this.

The game difficulty overall is relatively easy. There are very few of the actual boss battles that require a lot of effort. There are probably only two battles I can recall that I always lose a few times (Tarantula, I hate you so much. Seriously he can summon spiders, spray everyone with poison, has paralyze effect on his regular attack, AND has 2nd tier healing spell). The puzzles in the dungeons are fairly simple most of the time, but there are a couple that will feel tedious and frustrating. Though once you get by those it becomes fairly easy to manage and doesn't take much effort to get through.

The Graphics are fairly standard for their time. Nothing particular special about the way things look. The characters and monsters both are super deformed in design. Towns, Towers, and Dungeons use the same sprite sets for most of the areas in the game with slight changes to the palette and though their still very different in operation due to the various puzzles. Because of this though there aren't a huge number of difference environments outside of the later game areas.

The music was composed by Yasunori Shiono. Though his work is not as well known in the RPG world. His work in this particular game is a personal favorite of mine. The tracks ran from upbeat to subtle. The battle themes are lively and set the mood especially the Sinistral's battle theme. The sound effects are pretty solid for the most part, though a few of the third tier spells have strange noises connected to them which don't always seem to match up with the displayed creature.














However, perhaps the games most off the wall problem is that the game is bug-ridden. Later areas in the game display glitchy looking names that don't make any sense. The undersea shrine where you first meet Daos and find the Dual Blade is entirely scrambled making it difficult to navigate since you can't tell where the heck you are suppose to go. Also it completely ruins what would be considered a vital scene. Another bizarre glitch one time I played, I was trying to set some options and somehow got Tia maximum stats and level 0, as well as it took 10 seconds or so for her exp earned to display after battle, to this day I still cannot figure out how I did that and haven't been able to replicate it.

As far as extras, besides the Capsule monsters, and common casinos that are commonly featured, Lufia 2 biggest attraction is the Ancient Cave. A randomly generated one hundred floor dungeon which resets all character's levels to 0 and remove your gear allowing you to work your way through. Some people really love this, but I just never got around to going too far into it.

Overall the game has it's fair share of ups and downs. However, I still view it as a fair solid RPG, even with it's drawbacks the charming characters, pleasant musical score, and solid mix of gameplay elements Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals is worth at least a look and hopefully you'll take to it like I once did.

RPG Talk: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

Today I thought I'd try my effort at an actual quote-on-quote review of a game from the past. However, I don't really like reviews all that much and I feel there is little limit on improving my own writing ability with it. I rather would go into an in depth analysis of the game from my own view and see how it goes from here. For today's topic, I will cover the first RPG I ever played:



Final Fantasy Mystic Quest was released October 5, 1992 for the SNES in North American being the first game in Final Fantasy history to be originally released in the United States. The project was an attempt to expand the RPG audience beyond it's original niche audience and develop a new fan base. However, most Final Fantasy fans declare Mystic Quest as the weakest games in the entire franchise due to it's basic storyline, lack of character development, and low difficulty level. But instead of just going by the most popular statements, I will go ahead and break down each area.



The plot to Mystic Quest slightly mirrored the original Final Fantasy, though in a simplified manner. The game's protagonist is Benjamin, a youth who is declare out of nowhere to be the some prophesied knight that would save the world. Focus Tower, that lied at the center of this world, separates the world into four elemental regions of Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind. As prophesied four monsters would drain the power of these crystals and caused the world to decay. Benjamin task requires him to locate these monsters and release the crystal's light back into the world. The plot is pretty basic and cliche, but it's kind of hard to declare that bad when the game blatantly seems to admit it is cliche.

The biggest problem I have with the game is plainly the characters themselves. Besides Benjamin there are four characters that join in and out throughout the game. Kaeli, an axe wielding girl that can talk to tree spirits. Tristam, who is suppose to be a treasure hunting ninja of some kind. Phoebe, the closest character resembling a full spell caster. Reuben, a morning star user. Since only one character joins you at a time, there is a little or no character interaction between these characters.

Benjamin does have a bit of comic intent, the character more or less oblivious to the fact that he is thrown into this quest without really any true personal thought on the matter. He's gets lead into this and that by his party members and the old man throughout the game and not once does he appear to question or even really object to what's going on. He has to be the single biggest stepping stone of main character I've ever seen. He'd acts like a standard silent protagonist from games like Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest expect they actually give him dialogue so that kind of ruin that effect and just makes him look shallow at best.

Unfortunately, Benjamin is about as interesting as these characters get. Tristam is the only one who has his own theme or any sort of personality, which isn't much of one at that. The others could be switched out with one another and really have no difference in their personality. NPC interaction very basic. The NPC pretty tell you exactly what is needed without really any personality, though this was more common in games of this particular time so it's hard to judge it on NPC dialogue.

However, I find this simplification outside of the character less annoying in other areas. So let's talk about the general game play. In the general environment, the game follows a very Zelda-ish type style of exploration. Benjamin is the only character in the game who can utilize multiple weapons at a time: Swords, Axes, Claws, and Bombs. These weapons can be used to push switches, cut trees, climb walls, blow up destructible objects, and later into the game cross large gaps. Basically they tired to incorporate a style of game play that was more well liked by Western audiences. Unlike Zelda though there aren't a large number of complicated puzzles or tricks, so you'll still blast through most of the dungeons without really having to stop to think.

The character customization is very simple. Weapons, Armor and Spells are not equipped manually. When you find a better weapon or armor it is automatically equipped and the effect of the previous armor ceases. Allies come with a default set of weapons, armor, and spells. They don't gain experience points nor can they're equipment be changed. The only additional feature is an Auto/Manual feature for your partner which allows you the computer to control your partner. As a result Benjamin is the only character who you can gain new items and spells for.



Battles are encounter based rather then random. Unlike many RPGs that use this format, the monster don't move and remained stationary until the player engaged them. Other then a that are directly in the path to the end, many enemies can be easily avoided. Battles are turned based with up the three enemies that a time. The character sprites remain pretty much stationary and simply move forward when perform an action. They continuously loop in a walking animation which creates some rather funny looking issues when particular battle animations clip against the characters themslves. The enemy sprites don't move either however some of the flying enemies will hover up and down to declare flying. Sometimes though they don't move at all when they are paired with other non-flying enemies which was something I never quite understood. Though the enemies don't move, the sprite would change as damage was accumulated. Some bosses would have up to four different sprites as they're HP dropped. There weren't a ton of options, Benjamin was able to change between his four weapons at will and could change the partner's control at will. There are only a total of 12 Spells, 4 in each class: White, Black, and Wizard. Rather then MP, Mystic Quest used another homage to the original Final Fantasy using charges that each magic class had it's own maximum amount.

The game's difficulty is beyond easy. There is little equipment to buy, you can spend most of your gold on healing and charge restoring items that pretty much allow you to spam your most powerful spells and pretty much be left with few obstacles to get in the way. Even if you happen to lose, the game allows you to replay the battle without any penalty. You can save anywhere so there is never any replaying upon death. The game's length however, allows you to take the game for what it is and not become bored by it either, you can easily get through the game in about four to six hours if you don't bother getting everything, you'll probably max out with everything somewhere between ten and fourteen. There is no real need to level grind since most of the enemies you have to fight to get to where you need to go give you enough experience to get through the majority of the game.

Graphically speaking the game doesn't look bad for it's time frame. The sprites are done in a similar style to Final Fantasy 4, though the regular travel sprite is also used for battle. The characters animate in a similar manner but also including additional sprites for jumping and other such animations. The animation is fairly smooth and there isn't a large number of graphical glitches. The dungeon design however can be a tad random in appearance. For example on the Mountain of Gales, there several bridges that are missing entire sections of them and are somehow being held some up mysterious. The battle animation are smooth however there are a few character clipping issues. With enemy fire spells, the character becomes engulfed and charred with a classic blinking eyes towards the player, if you look carefully you can clearly see where the character sprite is still walking while this animation is going on. The enemies are designed in a cartoonist design which makes some rather funny looking sprites when they get damaged such as a Medusa going bald when her HP gets low. It's rather silly but does lead to a few chuckles at random moments.

Mystic Quest's Music is probably what makes it stand out in comparison to the rest of it's franchise and this time in a positive light. It was the first Final Fantasy game that wasn't composed by Nobou. Rather it was composed Ryūji Sasai and Yasuhiro Kawakami who's style was more of a rock oriented approach. The music especially the battle themes are very upbeat with a hint of metal undertone. It creates a very unique atmosphere that is enjoyable to listen to. I have even heard from some people that they'll play the game just to hear the soundtrack. The sound effects are appropriates more or less though there are a few such as monster death which seem a little on the random side.

The simple nature of the game makes the game relatively error free. The game is mostly free of error of words due to the fact this is the only game in the Final Fantasy Series originally released in the united states. As such there is little possibility for translation errors. There are few glitches and bugs due to the very simple game progression. The biggest glitch comes down to the final boss who seems to be ridiculously weak against the cure spell even more so then the other zombie type monsters in the game.

How the game stand up in my view. Well, the game is extremely simple and basic, there isn't much to be said as far as story or characters. So technically speaking it probably should be considering bad, but I find this game is one of those guilty pleasures and I've known a few people including myself that do actually enjoy the game. It's like a simple circus side-attraction, just short enough that it doesn't bore you but yet enjoyable enough to make it worth the effort. It's one of those things that it's so bad that it's actually good in it's own way. Though it failed to reach the new audience it intended for in the board sense of the term, it was the very first RPG I ever played, though it failed for the most part it still did bring a group, including myself to the word of RPGs. So to me, it will always be a classic in the world of RPGs.