The black sheep of the Final Fantasy family.
(SNES)
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is the black sheep of the Final Fantasy family. Mystic Quest is designed to be an entry-level RPG, and was released between Final Fantasy II amd III in North America.
Story --- Mystic Quest begins on the Hill of Destiny, were you the hero of the game's village has been disappeared, and the hero meets an old mysterious man that tell him an old prophecy That "the vile four will steal the power, and divide the four behind four doors, at that time the Knight will appear." The mysterious old man then tell the hero that the prophecy has come true, and four monsters has stolen the keys and locked the doors of the Focus Tower. The monsters are also draining the light from the 4 crystals of the Earth, thus throwing the world into chaos. Then the mysterious old man tells the hero that only he can save the world.
Graphics --- Mystic Quest was inferior graphically to Final Fantasy II, but this isn't saying that the game was bad looking, because this is a good looking game (but not even close Final Fantasy II's graphic level).
Sound --- Mystic Quest was the first Final Fantasy that didn't have a Nobuo Uematsu musical score. Ryuji Sasai and Yasuhiro Kawakami composed Mystic Quest and it was Final Fantasy worthy.
Game Play --- As an entry-level RPG mystic quest did away with a lot of the original Final Fantasy formula, thus making a simple and easy RPG. Some of the changes includes doing away with random battles, which was replaced with battlefields where the hero will battle until the fields are cleaned out. After cleaning out certain battlefields you will gain a prize, and the battlefields are the best place to level up. Mystic Quest didn't feature a job system instead your magic spells were limited to four "White Magic," four "Black Magic," and four "Wizard Spells." There was also an option to let the computer control the actions of your party member. The biggest change was the length of the game, Mystic Quest is quite short compared to many other Final Fantasy games.
My Opinion --- This was my first RPG that I played, and I will say that I truly enjoyed this game. As a kid the story was easy to follow, the battle system wasn't confusing, and the puzzle soving was fun. But now that I'm older, and a more experienced gamer I find that Mystic Quest was way to easy and simple, but I didn't miss the random battles!
Mystic Quest was made to bring in new players to this great genre, but many RPG gamers don't realize this. All I can say is that it worked for me. After playing this game I've been an RPG fan, and anytime someone asks me a god RPG to start with my answer will be Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.