Hours Played/Hours Total - 3-1/2 hrs / 3-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - Beginning of the Game.
Current Goal - Start Mystic Quest. Beat Mystic Quest.
What Happened - Woot! It's finally time to wrap up the Final Fantasy series! (For now) It is possible that I'll come back to it in the future, but this will most likely be the final Final Fantasy playthrough. Just so you know, I currently have no plans to pick up and play Lightning Returns. However, I am somewhat considering Final Fantasy XIV, but I'm not really an MMO guy. Thus the future holds for us many mysteries. Back to the game at hand!
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is an off-title in the overall series, but it also featured incredibly simplistic gameplay compared to its brothers. I'll highlight things as I start to play of course. This is another Super Nintendo Final Fantasy, but I'll be playing it on an emulator! I do own a real copy, but I figured I could use an emulator and take some screenshots as I go. It's time to start this bad boy up!
Ah the intro screen! I missed these simple yet entertaining 2D ones... Seriously, I sometimes feel like I miss the simplicity of older 2D RPGs compared to all of today's 3D, generally action RPGs. Just for fun, let's throw up the very first screenshot RIGHT HERE!
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That's right. I'm going to be having so many screenshots with this game. It'll be nice to show off the game as I play it. It might be an older, simpler Final Fantasy, but it's a great game nonetheless. Let's start the game!
The game begins, and shit is already going down. I'm on a mountain as the main character. (His actual name is Benjamin, but I named him Keeper.) He says something about his village being gone, and then a mysterious old man (who I think is on a cloud) appears. He tells me that the mountain is coming down, and that we had best hurry. We quickly traverse the mountain to reach the top, and I CAN JUMP! Not lame jump like in FFXIII, but it's a real jump that can be useful!
The old man points out a tower in the distance and explains the story to me. That tower is the Focus Tower, and it's the center of the world. It holds a great power within it, and there's a prophecy involved! (You can't have a true RPG without the word Prophecy.) The prophecy states that the Vile Four will steal the power from the tower and divide the world behind four doors. At that time, a knight will appear, and the old man believes I am that Knight. The four monsters have locked the doors and run off with the keys needed to open them. They're draining all of the light from the Four Crystals of the Earth, and the world is in... CHAOS! Being Final Fantasy, the Crystals are quite important to the world. Only I can save the world! OH NO! A MONSTER! FIRST BATTLE TIME!
And just a small note here, I've actually lost to this monster before. You don't have any items or any way to heal here, so if the criticals are against you, you can die here. There's not much to say for this battle, so I'll just show a few screenshots to show off how the battles look.
I got a critical on him, he got a critical on me, and I almost lost. Regardless, I came out victorious and won my very first battle. With the battle over, the old man sees my victory as the sign of being a TRUE KNIGHT! Another great thing about Mystic Quest is that it's got quite a sense of humor. Keeper is all like "But I thought you were already knew!" The Old Man admits it was a guess, but he's confirmed that guess now. The mountain is coming all the way down now though, so we head off to the Level Forest!
As soon as I enter the Level Forest, all I get is a "Which crystal is first?" The old man says the Earth Crystal and then vanishes. The forest isn't very traversable at the moment though because of all these little trees blocking my way. The only path I can take involves pushing a boulder out of a guy's way. After doing so, he hands me a piece of withered tree and tells me to show it to a woman named Kaeli in Foresta. I don't really have anywhere else to go, so let's head for Foresta!
When I arrive, the town is quite grim looking despite it's name. The place is all brown and gray colored. The people are all old people and claim to be young although they clearly aren't. Exploring the town earned me a Cure spell and some other various items. (Just a quick explanation, the spell system works much like the original Final Fantasy title. Instead of MP, you have a limited number of castings of the different types of spells: Black, White, and Wizard.) With the village looted, it's time to locate this Kaeli person.
Once I find her, she immediately realizes what is wrong from the tree branch. She talks about an evil tree blocking the northern exit of Level Forest. She says that she can't handle it by herself because of the monsters, so Keeper (my guy if you forgot) offers to escort her and help. To her mother's dismay, she grabs her axe and comes along. KAELI JOINED THE PARTY! I'm only level 1, and she joined at level 3. We head off for the forest, and she immediately shows an example of some of the game's action-y elements. She walks up to a tree that was blocking the way and chop it down with her axe.
Basically, your weapons all have a use outside of battle. Alongside jumping, you can stab with your sword, swing an axe, and I'll reveal other weapons' abilities as I get them. She chops down the tree, and we continue through the forest. Now, I should go into how the encounters work in this game before I get too much farther. Unlike the previous and afterwards Final Fantasy titles, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest has a set number of encounters. For instance, in the Level Forest, there are monsters just standing around and waiting to battle. You can avoid some of them, but you can't avoid them all. (Many are standing directly in the path you need to take.) Now, seeing as the encounters are numbered, I feel it is best for me to fight any and all enemies I can. (I did find out later that they respawn if you leave and come back though.)
We fight our way through Goblins and Slimes to come upon a lone tree. However, it is an EVIL LONE TREE! Kaeli chops it down, and SURPRISE! MONSTER IN A TREE! The monster poisons her, and now it's BOSS BATTLE TIME!
(FYI, poison element was only story element at this time.) We are now facing off against the MINOTAUR! The first of many, many other minotaurs to come. He's pretty tough, but we kick his butt to awesome boss music. Seriously, it's awesome stuff. Listen to it here. I have more screenshots if you were curious how he looked during his "damaged" state, but to keep the post a bit shorter, I only included the single screenshot. I have a link to the screenshots album at the bottom of the post. Check it out!
Anyways, with the battle over, Kaeli's mother comes by to get her daughter. (Since she randomly knew that something had happened somehow...) Kaeli says she'll be fine as long as I can get the Elixer to cure her. Where's the Elixer? It's in the nearby Sand Temple, and Keeper offers to go and get it. Kaeli gives her axe to me, and now I can chop down trees! Before I left the forest though, I went around and collected all of the items I couldn't. Also, the axe is a new and more powerful weapon in my arsenal, so yay for that as well. I head back to Foresta to heal and grab more items. (Like enemies, items replenish when you leave and come back, so you can kinda farm them up if you want.)
You can save at any time in Mystic Quest, so that's a nice feature. Also, this is what the basic pause menu looks like. Just going to add a screenshot right here.
Nothing special really, but it's got all the right information. Since the battles are supposed to be more or less set encounters, the game also has multiple Battlefields set around the world map. You can visit the Battlefields whenever you like and fight through ten random encounters.
The first one I encountered was full of "Mad Trees" that were all quite weak to my fancy new axe, so I cleared it out pretty fast. It takes a little time, but the reward is generally more than worth the effort. I received lots of experience, money, and even gained a level in the process! (Level 5 Now!) You also sometimes earn treasures like new equipment or items, so they're always worth stopping by. Now, it's time to head to the Sand Temple!
The inside of the Sand Temple turns out to be really small, but there are chests all around. Unfortunately, they're all empty... As I am looking around, a random guy shows up and offers to sell me the Elixer for the low, low price of 9000 GP. Keeper is all "That's way too much!", so the guy (looks kinda like a ninja) offers a trade. He wants to me to go with him to the Bone Dungeon and hunt for treasure. It's our only choice so... Tristam joins the party! Not only does he look like a Ninja, as it turns out, his main form of attack is throwing ninja stars. It's got a limited quantity of attacks, but he starts off with 99 of them.
Before heading to the Bone Dungeon, I use Tristam to clear out another Battlefield. Nothing really special to say here... The game does have a sort of "weakness" system, but it's more like you think about it and it works SORT OF. For instance, the axe worked well against trees, and that's really the only one I can think of at this time. (SORRY) After the battlefield, it's time for the Bone Dungeon! I head inside and start fighting my way through various enemies like skeletons, sand worms, frogs, zombie minotaurs, and more. Partway through, Tristam offers to sell me bombs to use. It's less about offer and more of I have to have them. EITHER WAY, I now have bombs!
With the bombs, I have a great way to attack, and a useful item for opening up paths. The bomb works differently than most weapons and actually attacks the entire enemy group. It's very much useful! The Sand Dungeon isn't too long though, and I quickly find myself confronted by a giant red T-Rex Skeleton! It claims that we will never defeat it because it has the Crystal of Earth to power him. BOSS BATTLE TIME! It's Flamerus Rex, and it's a pretty easy battle overall really. Only advice I can offer? Be sure to have some status healing items because he can cause both poison and sleep. Bombs seemed to be the most effective weapon against him. This battle is another great example of how the battle sprites change based on the damage done to them. (I love it!) Flamerus Rex went through four different sprites of falling apart before his defeat.
After his defeat, Tristam runs around to the nearby chests and grabs all the treasure. As he does this, the Crystal of Earth appears and is now reborn! Tristam comes back and says he found what he wants. He hands over the Elixer and leaves the party. Unfortunately, I have to manually walk back out of the dungeon. Thankfully, I cleared the dungeon on my way in, so I didn't have any trouble while heading out. Back to Foresta!
And as it turns out, restoring the Crystal of Earth had a drastic change on the environment of... all over the place. The world map looks quite a bit better, and Foresta is drastically improved.
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The area is all green, pretty, and full of life. The old people from earlier have reverted to their younger selves. And it's just all all right now! I head for Kaeli's house and give her the Elixer. She tells me that she can no go and visit Spencer in Aquaria. Keeper offers to check out the place first though since the world is all full of monsters and such. She says I can get there by going through the Focus Tower and leave through the Northeast exit from it.
Before going to Focus Tower though, I revisit Level Forest to see the difference. It is also all green and pretty now! The monsters have respawned as well, like I said they would. I didn't think the monsters did respawn honestly, but I know for sure now that I was wrong. SILLY ME. Enough of this extra nonsense, time to continue along the path. I fight my way through the nearby Battlefield and then head for Focus Tower. When I arrive there, I find the old man waiting for me. He congratulates me on restoring the Crystal of Earth and says that someone named Captain Mac will be crucial to my quest. He also adds that a girl named Phoebe can help me out as well. Keeper tells the old man that he's heading for Aquaria right now, and the old man responds by saying that I should find her along the way. With his message delivered, the old man flies off.
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I love it when the character does that... "WTH?!" gesture. It's pretty funny to see. Anyways, let's take a look at the Focus Tower. It looks something like this!
The Focus Tower, as you can see, features four gates that you can open as you proceed through the game. Since I restored the Crystal of Earth, I can exit through the first door and continue towards Aquaria. There's nothing to do or fight in the tower, so it's a quick run through it. When I come out on the other side, there's a couple battlefields waiting for me. I quickly and easily fight through them and then I find myself at the Libra Temple.
Inside there, I meet a lady. She says something about Aquaria being frozen, and she's worried about her grandfather. She seems to think that things are hopeless. Keeper inquires about Spencer, and she says that he is her grandfather. Keeper jumps up at this and exclaims that we should go save them! The lady claims she can't because she's going home now. Keeper asks for her name, and as it turns out, she is Phoebe. TIME TO JOIN UP! PHOEBE JOINED THE PARTY!
With Phoebe's help, I blast through a pair of Battlefields before heading into Aquaria. This is one snow-laden village going on here. Everything is frozen and icy, so there's not much we can do right now. The Inn is still available though, so I rest to recover real quick before moving on. I head to Phoebe's house, and she explains a couple things. Spencer is stuck below the house right now. He was digging a hole and then the ground froze up around him. He's stuck there for now, and we can't unfreeze the place until we get the Wakewater from the Spring of Life. The Spring of Life is located in the Life Temple which is only accessible through the Libra Temple.
Of course, things can't be that simple. A monster stole the Libra Crest from Temple and is hiding in the nearby Wintry Cave. Therefore, we are heading for the Wintry Cave! A couple Battlefields later, I'm in the Wintry Cave and searching for whatever monster stole the Libra Crest. I quickly fight my way through the temple, but we have a bit of a setback when the ground collapses beneath us. Keeper falls to the floor below, but Phoebe manages to catch herself using her weapon, the Cat Claw. She tells me how to use it and then gives it to me. Yay for a new weapon!
We continue through the cave with my fancy Cat Claw. Also, Phoebe now wields a bow which does a lot more damage than me with Cat Claws. What's that? MORE SCREENSHOTS? Of course.
Back to the game at hand, the monsters in this area are fairly tough, and they seem to have no plans to just give up. I never truly lose either character in battle, but it's no cake walk by a landslide. The funnier thing to me is the ridiculous variety of monsters that I'm finding in this "Wintry Cave." There are centaurs, turtles, birds, scorpions, worms, frogs, and a few more that I can't remember right this moment. Either way, the assortment is nice but also kinda stupid if you ask me. However, I don't have too long to complain about that because BOSS BATTLE TIME!
Oh no! It's a giant squid and his bird cohorts. Whatever shall we do? I just slayed the birds first, and then I went after the squid. There's really nothing to add about this battle. He didn't deal out too much damage, and he didn't seem to have any major status effect abilities either. This... barely qualifies as a boss battle really. He has quite a bit of HP, but other than that, it was like fighting a slightly longer battle than normal. Just be sure to have healing items and magic, and you should be fine.
With our quick victory, we earn ourselves the Libra Crest. With that in hand, it's time to return to the Libra Temple. Wait!... Another Battlefield unlocked, aaaand it's gone. We get to the temple, use the Crest, but find that the Spring of Life seems to be dry. However, the mysterious old man is there as well, and he gives us a bag with the last of the Wakewater. It's all that is left, but he says we should use it to revive Aquaria. Then he takes off... and we take off to Aquaria.
Back in Aquaria, Phoebe takes the Wakewater and revives the fancy plant in the middle of Aquaria. As it turns out, that didn't do anything. Phoebe figures we'll have to go and restore the Crystal of Water at the Icy Pyramid. Feel like we should have done that first, but whatever, let's go! The Icy Pyramid is located at the top of a nearby frozen waterfall, so we have to go through there first. The frozen waterfall is not a very big area, but it's got a small puzzle to it. There are ice pillars that you can push around and use as platforms, and that's really all there is to it. It's possible to mess up, but all you have to do is leave and come back. I continue through the frozen waterfall and come up to a GIANT SNOW CRAB! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
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And that wasn't a challenge at all. With his defeat, I'm able to leave the waterfall and continue to the Icy Pyramid. Also, Phoebe upgrades my bombs to Jumbo Bombs. The upgrade is simply so that they do more damage, but it's totally worth it. I hit up another Battlefield and clear it out. Time for the ICY PYRAMID!
In the Icy Pyramid, I learn that the sword has an out of battle use! You can use it to activate switches that are inside of holes. At the entrance, you have to activate a switch inside a statue with it. One strange thing about the pyramid is that I can't see the enemies around here. They're clearly still positioned in places, but I can't directly see them. It's... weird. Compared to previous dungeons, this one is fairly large though. It's maze-like enough that I felt like I was lost several times. I was going to throw up a few screenshots showing it here, but I forgot to take them. ANYWAYS!
The order of the Icy Pyramid goes something like this. It's a maze of going up and down over and over. You climb to near the top, and then you drop back down to below the ground floor. I do acquire a "Knight's Sword" while I am down there. It's an upgraded sword that does WONDERS compared to the Cat's Claw I was using. Along the way, there's a random huge enemy just sitting there.
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I go talk to him, and he says something about "enjoying our little game". Then he teleports away, and I have to run up the tower. You have to climb back up again but through a different route that takes you to the TRUE top of the tower. When I hit the top, he's there again....
All he has to say here is "You think you're a Knight? BWAHAHA! BOSS BATTLE TIME!
For this boss battle, I'm facing off against the ICE GOLEM!
He's not going down without a fight. Compared to the previous bosses, he was actually a decent challenge. He had a good number of strong attacks to back up his sassy talk. Another cool bit (that I didn't get screenshots of) was how he was slowly melting as we were depleting his health. Just imagine the image above slowly melting and being less and less golem and more and more puddle of water. Outside of his attacks, he also had a magic blizzard attack which dealt damage to us while it simultaneously healed him. Regardless, as long as you have healing, you can easily get through this. Just keep after him, use a few spells, and just beat his face in.
Upon his defeat, the Crystal of Water appears and is fully restored. Woo! Phoebe immediately leaves the party to return to Aquaria, and I'm left to climb down the tower by myself. Now, like I said earlier, I can't actually see the enemies here, so I was unable to clear them all out. The enemies were a decent challenge with the two of us. I was not looking forward to the climb down. Luckily, I seemed to clear out most of them on the way down. The few of them that I ran into did quite a number on me, but I did survive. Now let's head on back to Aquaria...
And holy crap the place is quite a bit better. I forgot to get a screenshot of the area before, but the area after is AMAZING now!
It was all white and iced over before, so this is quite an improvement. TO AQUARIA! As you may realize, it's also defrosted and alive now. I go beneath Phoebe's house and find Spencer hard at work at digging the cave. Keeper explains to Spencer about what happened with the Crystal of Water and all the ice. Spencer thanks him and offers up the Knight's Shield as a reward.
Of course, the Knight's Shield isn't here right now, but it is located up in the Focus Tower. He goes on to say that the shield was found by a Captain Mac. Keeper remembers that Captain Mac has been mentioned before (by the old man), and this leads to a bit of backstory about him. Captain Mac was researching the prophecy when he found the shield. That leads to his ship being randomly stuck on a cliff, and that's why Spencer is digging below his house right now. (Yeah, it really does jump topics like that.) Spencer also says that there are earthquakes in Fireburg. So... I guess that's where I'm heading next. Spencer stays behind to continue digging though. This is where I'm ending the post.
Yes, I realize it's sorta sudden, but this game isn't very long as is. I figure I'll cover the rest of the game in about 10-12 hours (at most), and that will take place over like 2 to 4 more posts. It might sound like I'm being erratic about what I say, but I'm actually covering 90% of the conversations that go down. It's a really simple game, and lots of things are kept short and sweet. I've played the game before (not fully), but I can say that I really like how simple this game goes. It's got good humor, simple system, combat is quick yet awesome, and it's just a lovable game.
Thanks for your patience with this post. I was planning to have it done yesterday, but then I got distracted. I've been juggling games recently because I'm trying to finish everything before more games drop down. I have a PlayStation 4 reserved, so I've got a lot of things coming up to play in the future. HOWEVER! I will still keep my RPG playing near the top of the list. The biggest break I'm going to take is this upcoming weekend when Pokemon X and Y drop. I've taken the weekend off just to play the crap out of it! So... don't expect anymore content until Monday. However, I have considered writing a small review of Pokemon X and Y, so look forward to it. That's all I got. Thanks for reading! KEEPER OUT.
Ending Point - Aquaria.
Current Party -
- Keeper - Level 17
Goals Accomplished - Started Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Destroyed the evil tree in Level Forest. Obtained the Elixer for Kaeli. Restored the Crystal of Earth in the Bone Dungeon. Made it through Focus Tower to Aquaria. Made it to and through the Icy Pyramid. Restored the Crystal of Water which restored Aquaria to not being frozen.
Next Goals - Find and restore the next crystal. Save the world!
**Considering the next SEVERAL titles will have screenshots of some sort. I'm including a screenshots link to the IMGUR albums I'll be uploading for them. I'll still include some of the screenshots in the post of course, but the album will contain ALL of the screenshots I take.
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
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