Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest
Graphics
Well, the graphics aren't that bad in this game, but compared to other games released on the
Super Nintendo, they are a little below average. Towns and dungeon areas are fairly simple,
but there are some details, like water, and lava, that make them kind of interesting to look at.
You won't really see anything all that creative most of the time. The dungeons to seem to be
elementally based in most cases, so you'll see almost all fire enemies and traps in one, and
almost all ice/water related enemies and traps in another. Many modern games still do the same
thing though, so I guess I can't fault this game in particular for it, though.
The battle graphics are a little different from the average RPG. They probably share the
most similarities with Lufia and Lufia 2 than anything else. You see your characters at the
bottom of the screen, and the enemies at the top. The effects are decent, but not great.
The enemy designs are also fairly average. One of the things I thought was very interesting
with this game was the way many of the bosses, and some regular enemies, would change designs
after you did enough damage to them. I recall an Ice Boss that would begin to melt as you hurt
him. The more damage you did, the more melted he would look. The concept is similar with the
other bosses. One of the things that hurt this game a little was the omission of a true world
map. You just move from point to point draw on the world without having to worry about random
enemies. This was probably one of the things that made this game easier for novices.
Gameplay
Basically, this game was intended for people that hadn't played RPG's before. Many aspects of it are greatly simplified. You can see this as soon as you enter battle. You can only have 2 people in your party at one time, and this is always predetermined. As if that wasn't simple enough, there's also the option to have the one travelling with the main character always set on automatic. This leaves you controlling just one character. This may be alright for beginners, but I hated it. Luckily, it was possible to set both characters to manual. The main problem with the automatic is that the judgement seems very poor. You can expect to see magic wasted, etc., if you let the computer do all the work. Another small thing that was probably added for beginners was that you could change how you viewed your party members hit points. You could set it either numerically or as a bar. The battles themselves are generally easy, as long as you level up a little bit. There are a couple of tough enemies thrown in, but in order not to frustrate gamers just starting out, they didn't overdo it. And they provide plenty of places where you can level up by fighting a series of many enemies, with a prize as a reward for beating them all.
The dungeons are not really the complicated, but they can be kind of annoying. The reason I say this is the way enemy encounters are handled. Most RPG players are familiar with two main systems. Either encounters are completely random, and you don't see the enemy before you fight it, or you see your enemies and can often avoid them, like in Chrono Trigger. This game though, has enemies that you can see, but they are stationary. This means that in order to get to most places, you have to go through several unavoidable encounters. It's very annoying because you know that there's no way to get around them, and that there's no way you'll be lucky enough to get no encounters for a while. This is actually one of the things I really did hate about the game. There are some puzzles in this game as well. Surprisingly enough, some of the puzzles and designs of the dungeons are complicated enough to probably annoy those who are new to the genre, and even some who aren't.
Story
The story was simple enough, really. As you progress through the game, you'll encounter four main ''problems'' that make up a good part of the story. These seem to be all elemental. During the game, you will see towns having some kind of trouble with the elementals of Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water. As you beat each of these elemental dungeons, you'll restore that part of the world map, and make the townspeople happy. At that point, you move on to the next area of the world, encounter another town that has a problem, and help them. I apologize if I've gotten that a little wrong. It has been a long time since I've played, and the story is, in my opinion, one of the least memorable of any RPG I've played. As the story progresses, various party members will join, leave, and rejoin your party for various reasons. Would've been much more interesting if they could all join you at the same time, but I guess they thought it would make things too complicated.
Music
This was one aspect of the game that I actually thought was good. It may not compare to games like FF6 in this area, but I enjoyed the music in this one more than that of the average game. Even when you first begin, you can tell that the game really isn't going to disappoint in this area. Sound effects, the ones that I can recall anyway, were not too bad at all.
Conclusion
FF Mystic Quest is a game for beginners. The average RPG player will find it too simple and annoying to stick with and finish. The only reason I did so was because I was desperate for a game to play at the time, and this was my only choice. There are a couple of good moments in this game that make you think about how much better it could have been. Just because it is for novices doesn't mean they couldn't add an interesting story, and a better system of handling the fights. I really can't recommend this game for anyone. The only aspect of it that was really that good was the music, and you can find that on the internet to listen to.
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