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.
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