THE PLOT:
After his village is destroyed in an earthquake, young Benjamin is charged with saving the world by recovering and restoring the four crystals of Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. This sends him on a quest that will take him first to the villages for each element, then into perilous caverns, towers, and volcanoes filled with all sorts of monsters. But restoring the crystals is only the beginning. To put an end to the evil plaguing the world, Benjamin will have to travel to Doom Castle, to face the dreaded Dark King!
CHARACTERS:
Characterization is the weakest the series has seen since the original Final Fantasy. Benjamin (or whatever you choose to name him) is young, wants adventure... and except for turning to the screen to give a bemused shrug, has no other characteristics. He has several companions on his journey, each of whom has a name... but outside of that, they are largely interchangeable, with no discernible personality.
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| Benjamin and a companion battle two Basilisks! ...Which is a lot less exciting than it sounds. |
GAMEPLAY:
Designed specifically to make RPGs accessible to children, Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest offers a deliberately stripped-down interface. Players aren't required to equip weapons and armor; that's done for you, the moment you pick it up. The battle menu is basic and colorful, and the interface defaults to companions battling automatically - though I highly recommend changing this to Manual combat in the Customization menu. Though there are opportunities for some strategy to be employed, particularly in boss battles, it's overall basic enough that most players will be able to just power through regardless.
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| Exploring a forest. |
THOUGHTS:
Square had tasted success in the U. S. market with the releases of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV (retitled "Final Fantasy II"), and the Game Boy spinoffs, but RPGs remained a niche genre, with many considering them too difficult or complex. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was meant to remedy that by presenting a simpler, more user-friendly experience, one that would be entirely accessible to children.
Every effort has been taken to make sure the game isn't difficult or frustrating. Money is so plentiful that it effectively has no meaning after the first couple hours of play, and health items are sprinked like dust throughout every dungeon. If you lose a battle, you have an option to restart from the beginning of the fight rather than being reset to your next save. In short, this is a game that's absolutely tailored to avoid rage-quitting.
Unfortunately, it is also very boring.
I don't actually mind the stripped-down combat, though it gets mind-numbingly repetitive. But the game flattens the entire genre out to combat and very basic exploration. The world is featureless and uninteresting, and the characters are so two-dimensional that it's impossible to get attached to any of them. Surely interesting worlds and engaging characters are at least as much a part of an RPG's appeal as fighting beasties? Surely the best way to hook young players on the genre would be to pair that stripped-down gameplay with engaging, colorful storytelling?
Mystic Quest does have a few good elements. In battles, as your foes get injured, the enemy graphic changes to show their deterioration - sometimes somewhat comically. The combat is fun in short bursts, and the dungeons are well-designed to reward exploration while at the same time allowing you to reach your goal quickly.
Finally, I'll admit to liking much of the jaunty music score. It's not on par with the scores to Final Fantasy IV or V, but it's still an enjoyable and varied soundtrack, one that effectively trades earlier games' atmospheric music for a bouncy and fun tone. The music that plays in Doom Castle, the final dungeon, is particularly good.
However, all this amounts to nice presentation of an otherwise bland product. They may make it less objectionable to play through, but they don't actually stop the game from being a tedious overall experience.
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| Aquaria, the village located near the Water Crystal. |
OVERALL:
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest failed in its goal of bringing RPGs into the U. S. mainstream. The goal was commendable, and it might have worked had it paired its very basic gameplay with some engaging storytelling. But by failing to offer anything to actually engage players, it failed to show the full appeal of the genre to newbies, while at the same time annoying franchise fans who had come to expect more from a Final Fantasy title.
With the closure of the Wii store, I don't know if there's any current way to purchase this title for a modern console. I could grouse about that, as the increasing inaccessibility of vintage game titles is a pet peeve of mine. However, Mystic Quest is one vintage title that's not much worth picking up, save as a curiostiy piece.
The most damning condemnation I can give? This game is less than half the length of Final Fantasy V, yet it took me roughly as long to play it - and at that, I had to really push myself to actually finish.
Overall Rating: 2/10.
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