Mystic Quest, hidden gem in Final Fantasy

Long time audience. Actual Halloween night was a lot fun since I spent it with two of my best friends in the whole wide world, Nay and Suzy. I'll post a pic of us three being adorable as soon as files are sent to me. Speaking of Halloween...I had some complaints about the Halloween post for being too "uncomfortable" of a read. Well shit, sorry that I freaked you out audience I was just giving you a small window into my head. I suppose that was too personal even for this space of internet. I'll try not to reveal too much of myself to you again, the post will stay there though. I actually rather liked it...

Time to go back to non terrifying topics. Mystic Quest, considered by many idiots players to be the "black sheep" of Final Fantasy (clearly they've never tried to go through VIII) is an SNES turn-based RPG. This game is a perfect intro to RPGs and is one that everyone can beat. It's an easy game. Sometimes it's nice to not have to be frustrated with a game and to just blissfully enjoy it. For all of you without an SNES it is available through PC emulators. Hopefully by the end of this blog you'll want to play the beauty that is Mystic Quest.

Some chunks of info:

• You are a lone hero named Benjamin/Zash who must save the world from the rule of the Dark King
• There are four main "lands" all themed around the ancient four elements that have been cursed
• Along the way you gain friends who can fight with you in battle
• There is a spell named exit
• Unlike other FF games you can actually see your enemies rather than enduring random battles

In the beginning you find yourself alone on a cliff. Apparently that's where you live with your family and friends except before your very eyes the village you love crumbles to the ground. Huh. You walk away devastated and run into a bloodthirsty monster. Oh, you only have a sword that resembles a toothpick as your weapon too. Crap. The monster luckily sucks in stats (otherwise this would be a very short game) and is defeated without too much trouble. Then an old man appears and gives you a sword that shoots laser beams when at full health. He leaves you with the mysterious words, "it's dangerous to go alone, take this!" Wait, that's not how it goes in Mystic Quest...

Right, there is an old man but he takes you to Focus Tower and explains that the world has gone to shit as the cliff you were just standing on collapses. My mistake earlier. It seems that mysterious old men in retro games tend to blur into the same character and that I enjoy making painful jokes just to annoy Brian. Sorry Noey. Well now the game is set up; you have your quest, you have your sword (it becomes less crappy), and you're soon to find your damsel.  Benjamin is ready to go save the day! 

The actual gameplay is something similar to other Final Fantasy titles (turn based) except for one major difference that I mentioned earlier. In most Final Fantasy games you cannot see your enemies. Instead you are at the mercy of the "random battles". We've all played Pokemon Red/Blue (if you haven't then immediately remove yourself from the gaming community) and have experienced the joy of the journey through Rock Tunnel. Fuck that place to hell. Every time I always think I have enough repel and then halfway through my supply magically goes from ten to zero. The zubats, not the zubats! 

My point was/is the random battle system sucks. Rather than having your enemies visible at all times, you wander around in fear of the screen shattering and a battle commencing. It's not as though the battles are hard (c'mon zubats) instead random battles occur far too frequently and produce weak enemies. Zubats (my favorite example) are more work to kill than they're worth since they use both "confuse ray" and "supersonic" on your pokemon and give almost null amounts of experience once defeated. Battle time should be spent on enemies that boost stats, demonstrate a challenge, and don't last ages. 

Mystic Quest does not have a random battle system (except for a brief period in the ice pyramid). Instead the enemies appear as sprites on the screen. If you approach one the battle begins and you hack and slash your way to victory. Once defeated the sprite of the enemy disappears, nifty right? So what this does is it gives you the player the choice on which enemies you want to fight and when. For reasons unknown this battle method did not stick after Mystic Quest in the Final Fantasy series. My theory is that everyone else doesn't mind and I'm simply more hyper and easily startled than the average player. Random battle screen shatters give me miniature heart-attacks...I still blame it on the zubats.

A huge perk to this game is the soundtrack. Scroll down the bottom and press play. You won't regret it I promise.

Ah I haven't mentioned characters yet, least not characters that are worth talking about (sorry old man). Mystic Quest gives Benjamin four companions who appear at different times in the game to assist him in his quest against the Dark King. They are as follows princess hippy (Kaeli), cheap ninja douche (Tristam), conflicted jock son (Reuben), and amazon female(?) warrior (Phoebe). Just so we're clear I do like these characters but those nicknames do sum them all up rather nicely. Phoebe is actually my favorite of the four; Tristam please stop trying to have me pay for your services because you're not putting out, whore!

So Phoebe, this is what she looks like,

According to Japan

According to Europe

And her actual Game Sprite

I'd say Japan has a closer match than Europe. Phoebe resembles a warrior because she is one. She has this awesome weapon called the Cat Claw which not only enables you to climb walls but also upgrades into the Dragon Claw which is the ancient form of hookshot. Ah Zelda references <3. Phoebe isn't the brightest sidekick you have in the game though, she um does some rather stupid stuff along the way. Phoebe you aren't a black mage, pyrotechnics should be left to the experts. Still Phoebe is a lovable character, all of the sidekicks are to be honest. I just enjoy giving them nicknames.

Besides weaponry and characters (I could on for hours) the game has spells. Muwhahaha magic! So there are black magic spells (elemental) to kill enemies with such as quake (there's something about tectonics), blizzard (out cold), fire (flames of wrath), and aero(plane?). Also wizard spells which are like more specific versions of black magic spells; meteor has a pretty cool visual sequence. Then you have your white magic spells (health) which are arguably the best and cheapest spells in the game. They are cure, heal, exit, and life. Exit is a lot of fun since it erases the enemy before you. Sadly you don't gain exp for erasing a monster but it's amusing to watch. 

Quick Tip: Heal is great for causing status changers to enemies and Cure works well on undead enemies. Experiment a bit and see what happens.

That's about all I have for Mystic Quest right now. I know I didn't go into the game's story line or fighting style much but I have my reasons. Mystic Quest is a relatively short game so if I went into detail about the story it would ruin most of it. I'd rather you play the game audience, experience it for yourself. The fighting style is turned based meaning one character attacks, then the other character attacks, then the enemies attack before it all repeats. Honestly turn based style fighting isn't a diverse topic. Alternating it is like trying to reinvent the wheel, underneath that new coat of paint it's still the same damn wheel.

Happily I was blasting the song below while writing this post. Finally the fantasy of having inspirational music mystically fits my quest to create blog posts. Too much?