Introduction

In 1991 or so, a little company called Square had a slight problem. They made great games, but the whole "JRPG" thing just didn't seem to be sticking with American audiences. Enix figured that JRPGs were too easy, thus giving rise to 7th Saga, and Square took the opposite approach, crafting an easier, more accessible RPG. Known as Final Fantasy USA in Japan, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest was released here in 1992, and in Europe as Mystic Quest Legend. Featuring a much simplified story and basic party, magic, and equipment mechanics, the game was intended to ease our simple, western minds into how RPGs work.

Mystic Quest is now on the Virtual Console (PAL/NA). Now you can play along!

So why Mystic Quest? Didn't Nakar already do this?

There's a couple of reasons behind this. First of all, yeah, he did. You can check out his run here if you're so inclined. Now, there's not a whole lot of ground to tread in Mystic Quest, so I'm going to be differentiating it by taking a more technical approach to it. I absolutely adore this game (it's one of my favorite SNES rpgs, second only to FFIV), and I know it inside and out. So while I may not have the artistic flair or funny writing of some people (you'll have to excuse the occasional joke I attempt to make), I will be doing one of the most unnecessarily technical runs imaginable, given this game.

So is this going to another "Let's horribly break _______" thread?"

Well, yes and no. The game mechanics are so simplified that it's very difficult to NOT "break" the game simply by playing it, and even when you know the mechanics, it's either very difficult to actually abuse them or not worth it to begin with, given the game in question (a majority of them will fall into the latter category). That said, I will be showing off several glitches and programming oversights and such. We won't actually reach the point of straight up cheating, but we'll be taking advantage of everything we can in-game. It's probably better described as "Let's make Mystic Quest our bitch" rather than "Let's horribly break Mystic Quest," but in the end, either title would be appropriate.

I don't get the topic title.

Well this game is very, very easy. Arguably broken (in your favor, of course), so the designers figured they had to insert some challenge somewhere in this mess. Their method was to give everyone and their mother confusion, paralysis, petrification, or some unholy combination of all three. By the end of the game, it won't matter, since we'll be the rough equivalent of a fully powered Samus Aran taking a casual stroll through Brinstar, but until then, we get to deal with the status effect jamboree. Seriously, it's terrible how many monsters have status effects in this game. and made worse by the fact that most of the effects actually work.

I heard this game has an absolutely bitchin' soundtrack.

You've heard right. In fact, there will be a soundtrack listing later in this very post. It's got a fairly good soundtrack for the time (certainly not up to Uemetsu's stuff), but it has a handful of songs that are singlehandedly responsible for the game's reputation as a killer soundtrack. It helps that two of them are the most common songs in the game.

Music

Hill of Destiny
World Map
Foresta
Level Forest/Alive Forest/Giant Tree
Battle Theme
Boss Battle
Sand Temple/Wintry Temple/*insert something here* Temple
Tristam's Theme
Bone Dungeon/Mac's Ship
Focus Tower
Aquaria
Wintry Cave/Ice Pyramid
Falls Basin/Spencer's Place/Mine
Fireburg
Rock and Roll
Volcano/Lava Dome
Rope Bridge/Mt. Gale/Pazuzu's Tower
Windia
Doom Castle
Dark King

Let's Really Break Mystic Quest! with 13/f/cali

Fanart and shit

Shaezerus personifies the Alive Forest level design:

The Let's Play Archive

Mystic Quest

by Artix74

Introduction

Table of Contents

Music