Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest is a turn-based role-playing game originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s one of the only Final Fantasy games to make it to Europe in the early ’90s, which is crazy when you think about it. Despite being designed by one of Square’s Japanese teams, Mystic Quest was specifically made for the North American market. As a result of that, Mystic Quest is one of the few Final Fantasy games that got released in the West first before being brought over to Japan. RPGs weren’t very popular in North America around this time, so Square wanted to create an RPG that would target beginners of the genre. Thus, Mystic Quest is a lot more simplified when compared to conventional Final Fantasy games. While this might have made sense at the time, fans of the series now widely criticize this move. This is the reason why Mystic Quest is one of the most despised of the 16-bit Final Fantasy titles. It’s true that this game doesn’t hold up to any of the real Final Fantasies, but it does provide some simple fun for when simple fun is all you need.
You play as Benjamin, a fellow who wanders onto a dangerous mountain one day to do heroic stuff or whatever. A mysterious old man shows up to tell him that he is the destined knight of destiny and will save the world from all of its ills. Benjamin doesn’t believe the old man’s silly tales initially, but he eventually goes along with it. Mystic Quest continues in Square’s obsession with crystals by featuring four crystals for the elements of earth, water, fire, and wind. There’s some nonsense about villains stealing the elemental crystals from a tower, thus wrecking havoc on the world. Four monsters have locked four doors in the tower and escaped with the keys, so you’ll have to hunt them down. These monsters are using the powers of the crystals to grow stronger, adding to the severity of this calamity. Don’t worry, because Benjamin is on the job. At this point, the mysterious old man ditches you and tells you to find everything on your own. I have to give the writers some credit here, because they made a small attempt at humor. It’s as if the writers realized how silly this all was and decided to make the best of it. From then on, the story devolves into Benjamin town hopping and helping its citizens in hopes that he completes his overall objective. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest focuses more on the gameplay than the plot, so if you’re expecting an in-depth story, be prepared for disappointment.
Even though Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest isn’t an action RPG, it does contain a lot of action elements in it. The first thing you learn in the game is how to jump. That’s a pretty big deal, because you normally can’t jump in RPGs. You can even jump over people, solving the issue games like Final Fantasy IV had in which townsfolk would sometimes block your way accidentally or on purpose. The action doesn’t stop there, though. Not only are you able to jump, but you can actually use your weapon outside of combat, too! Different weapons do different things, like the axe cuts down trees. There’s a certain sense of excitement as you progress through the game and get new weapons, as they will sometimes help you solve new environmental puzzles, allowing you to access previously inaccessible areas. It’s a nice touch that’s reminiscent of the Zelda series. Being able to interact with the environment to such a degree makes Mystic Quest a lot more entertaining than it otherwise would be. Normally, you only see action in an RPG during battle, but Mystic Quest has plenty of action going on outside of the fights to keep you invested. That’s the main reason dungeon areas are so much fun, because they feature most of the interactive environmental puzzles in the game. As strange as this may sound, more RPGs ought to learn from Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest’s example and up the interactivity.
The Active Time Battle system that was first introduced in Final Fantasy IV is completely absent from Mystic Quest, and it has been replaced with a purely turn-based system. Square likely went back to this system because it’s friendlier to novices of the RPG genre, since you aren’t pressured into acting swiftly. There really isn’t much to say about the battles in Mystic Quest, for the most part. Well, except for enemy weaknesses. In addition to being weak to magic of certain elements, enemies are also sometimes susceptible to certain types of weapons. Besides that, the battles are as generic as you can get. The graphics in battle aren’t much better than what you see outside of combat, either. There are some cool visual details during battle, though. Enemy sprites change as they get damaged, showing you that they’re, well, damaged. Another good thing about the battles in Mystic Quest is that there are no random encounters. Each screen has a certain number of enemies present, and you approach the enemies for a fight whenever you’re ready. Enemies only reappear if you reenter an area, so your exploration won’t be hampered by annoying random encounters. While the battles themselves may be boring, at least you don’t have a million random encounters shoved down your throat every two seconds.
For a game that tries to simplify the RPG experience, Mystic Quest sure has a complicated magic system. Magic in Mystic Quest is divided into the three categories of White, Black, and Wizard. White consists of restorative spells that heal HP, cure status ailments, and revive fallen comrades. Black consists of spells that inflict damage on enemies using elements like fire and ice. Lastly, Wizard is the same thing as Black, except it’s far more powerful. Okay, now here’s where it gets unnecessarily convoluted: your characters have separate MP for each category of magic. Using magic of a particular category expends one use of a character’s MP for that category, so using an offensive spell consumes one use of Black Magic. The one thing that’s simple about magic is how you get it. New magic is obtained from spell books that you find inside treasure chests. Upon acquiring a new spell book, you’ll permanently gain the ability to cast that spell. I actually like this a lot, because it makes the prospect of opening treasure chests more exciting.
You’re only allowed up to a maximum of two party members in Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. That’s a pretty low number when compared to most conventional RPGs. What’s stranger still about the other party members in the game is that they default to being controlled automatically. Square probably made that decision to simplify things for new players, but given the poor AI, this is something you want to change immediately. The good news is that you can go into the options menu and switch secondary characters to manual control, enabling you to give them specific commands during battle. You never get to keep any of these characters, though. They’re guests that come and go as they please, and you usually have a new one for each new area you visit. Also, you can’t change their equipment at all. On top of that, these characters are incapable of gaining levels, which means they never become stronger. I realize party customization might be too complex for novice RPG players, but this is overdoing it. It’s hard to get invested in characters you can’t influence in almost any way.
Unlike most RPGs of the era, the world map in Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest can’t be freely explored. The world map works more like the maps seen in Mario games like Super Mario World, where locations are selected on the map screen for instantaneous travel. On the one hand, this greatly simplifies things and reduces travel time, but on the other hand, it’s kind of boring. There’s a certain sense of adventure in walking across a vast landscape that’s lost in these map selection screens. A slightly interesting design choice is how there will sometimes be spots on the map reserved for battle. These spots will allow you to fight a certain amount of battles before they become depleted of foes to decimate, acting as a convenient means to level up. Once you kill all the enemies in one of these spots, they never come back. That’s likely to prevent players from totally breaking the game by leveling up too much. You sometimes get an item for defeating the entire lot of foes, too, though it’s rarely anything too useful.
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest sacrifices a lot to achieve simplicity in hopes of getting new players on board with the whole RPG thing. Did it work? The answer would be no. Mystic Quest wasn’t well received in either Japan or the West. It failed to bring popularity to the RPG genre in North America, which is something that didn’t happen until games like Final Fantasy VI and VII got released there. The game also alienated the Japanese audience because it felt like a downgrade from the typical Final Fantasy, and it sort of is. If it weren’t for a couple of nostalgic fans, Mystic Quest would have been lost to the sands of time as a forgotten title. It does do a few neat things, like no random encounters and allowing for some environmental interactions. Those things aren’t enough to truly set it above the other games in the series, though. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest is a good RPG for beginners, but it will likely bore veterans of the genre with its lack of depth.
