It had been a year and a half since Square had whipped North America up into an RPG frenzy with Final Fantasy II (IV). Although it had been wildly successful, it was a series that was only resonating with the hard-core gamer. Square decided to create a game that could ease SNES owners into the RPG category and hopefully create a generation of RPG fans by creating an RPG-Lite version of Final Fantasy.
In October of 1992 they released Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest for the SNES. The game opens up as the hero is ascending a crumbling mountain and following a mysterious old man. As the old man begins to explain himself the hero is attacked by a large behemoth. Once the monster is dispatched the old man reveals that the battle was a test to ensure that the hero is capable of fulfilling the knight's prophecy. This begins the quest for the hero to recover the four elemental crystals and restore balance to the world.Mystic Quest has all of the traditional elements that make up an RPG. The hero has hitpoints, magic points, items, equipable weapons and armor, and turn based battles. It uses the same progression formula that you've come to expect from JRPGs. The hero begins in a town and receives his first quest to go to a dungeon, once the dungeon is complete the hero returns to find out that another part of the world map has opened up and leads to the next town where the hero finds the next quest for the next dungeon, and so on. It doesn't do much to change the formula, but it does execute it quite well.
Loved RPGs for the Masses To say that this game was made for RPG rookies would be an understatement. The things that made RPGs of the SNES era difficult were streamlined in Mystic Quest. It allowed those who were new to RPGs to enjoy the story without having to worry about the consequences of not being well prepared. The save system allows the player to save the game anywhere, the magic system is universal in that it only takes 1MP to cast any of the spells, there are no surprise attacks as enemies can be seen on the field and even the hit point system does away with the "cumbersome" numerical system in favour of a a health bar with the visible representation of small and large ticks (each bar of small ticks is represented by a single larger tick). It makes the idea of playing a statistical game (which, let's face it, are what RPGs usually boil down to) much less daunting for new players. Great Graphics (for its time) For a game released in 1992, the graphics in this game are fantastic. Most enemies do not animate, but each enemy sprite has varying states as the battle progresses and they are closer to being killed. It is a simple, but effective mechanic that added something new to the RPG genre. In the image below you can see the different frames of animation an enemy will cycle through.
In addition to the enemy animations, there are also some great spell animations for all of the different spells in the game. Lastly, the tile sets were nice and varied for the time, but later SNES games such as Secret of Mana did a much better job, albeit a few years later.
Entertaining Boss Battles
The boss battles are easily the highlight of the combat system (as they should be). These are the only battles in the game that will challenge anyone who has even a little bit of RPG experience. They are also the only enemies in the game that have animated attacks.
Brings the Action to the Field
One of the big departures from any previous turn based Final Fantasy is the interactivity of the field maps. The player can jump, swing weapons, and see enemies before entering into battle. Some of the uses of weapons in the field include swords to hit switches, an axe that can be used to chop down trees to create paths, bombs that can be used to break down barriers, and a claw that can help the player climb walls. Although most of the dungeon puzzles were simplistic, the little bit of interaction helps to keep the game play fresh.
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest Intro
Hated
Oversimplification
One of Mystic Quest's greatest strengths is also its biggest weakness. There are quite a few elements that are simplified to the point of making the game tedious. One of the greatest offenders of this are Battlefields sprinkled throughout the overworld map and their sole purpose is to win 10 battles in order to get experience and a reward at the end. It is an artificial way to extend the length of the game and I think it was lazy on Square's part. Another streamlined game mechanic is the over world map, instead of being able to explore the map at your leisure you can only go from one point of interest to the next. One of the biggest disappointments in the entire game is the items system, or lack thereof. You can't buy new weapons or armor, you can only find them and once you find something more powerful it is automatically equipped leaving player choice out of the equation.
Repetitive
Battles are extremely repetitive as the same strategy can be employed against basic enemies (repeatedly pressing the A button) and occasionally having to make priority decisions such as attacking the poisonous enemy first. Also, as mentioned above, the battlefields are glorified grind points and do nothing but remind the player of how boring and easy the battles are.
Length
The game only takes about 10 hours to complete. This is a disappointment for any RPG fan, but with the target audience in mind, it makes sense.
Story
The story is an extremely simple and clichéd JRPG story from the late 80's and early 90s. Only the chosen hero can bring the world back to order by collecting a series of elemental crystals. Again, it is a huge disappointment but understandable as a novice RPG player wouldn't want to get confused by a complex storyline.
Final Thoughts
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest did exactly what it set out to do. It brought RPGs to the masses, but judging by the lackluster sales it wasn't something that the masses were looking for. It's a game that all RPG fans wanted to be excited for, it was a brand new Final Fantasy game to play, but its oversimplification turned away all but the most hard-core fans of the series. The best way to explain to explain Mystic Quest is Final Fantasy with an identity crisis, it couldn't reel in the casual crowd and was too easy for the hard-core. This lack of identity has ultimately sentenced Mystic Quest to go down as an obscure footnote in the history of the Final Fantasy series.
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