The Final Fantasy Mystic Quest "review"| Jason Graves | EVERY SNES RPG #9

I forgot to put in the time to beat. It was 11 hours 32 minutes!
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[@theredknight1757]

My son at age 4 or 5 had a VTech and asked me for a "reading game", IE a game with reading. Mystic Quest was his first real video game and he *loved*. Once he beat it, he moved onto Pokemon: Platinum. Now he's 21 and in college studying video game design. ^.^

[@bridgetdowning7819]

I played it at 4 years old and it was one of my favorite games as a kid. My mom would play it with me and I played it until i was old enough to play FFVI. Great soundtrack tho

[@dcrock8978]

My identical story, awesome 👏🏻

[@loganhayse8771]

I was 7 and this is what got me into rpgs. Just watching the enemies crumble and change as they get damaged was awesome imo

[@hezekiahramirez6965]

My friend had this game as a kid and she loved it. She let me borrow it once and I thought it was okay. It's not a bad game. It's a kids' game. We both grew up with adventure games on NES so we'd played RPGs. She had the first two Final Fantasy games, in fact. So she was already a fan of the franchise and she did not consider it a stain on the legacy of Final Fantasy or anything like that. I thought it was a fun lil RPG for kids. That's all it really wanted to be and it did a decent job at the time

[@Demonskunk]

Mystic quest does some things that I wish more games did. Enemy graphics changing to reflect their condition and exploratory abilities like jumping or the axe in particular. It's a shame those kinda things didn't become part of the main FF series.

[@davidarndt9765]

I thought the game was pretty fun. Finished it 3 times or so in my early teens. I loved the music, and the high-energy music in the opening scene made me want to start a new playthrough. Tristan’s theme was great, and I liked the feel of the battle animations like his throwing stars or your battle axe hitting enemies. I loved chopping down all the trees and jumping around levels collecting shinies. Compared to FF4 (a much better game), it had nicer graphics and eye candy, with changing enemy sprites and all, so I think that helped make it a decently fun experience for me.

[@rafetizer]

I rented this back in the 90's and beat it over the weekend. That was the only time I ever played it. It looks like they accidently inverted the list of enemies that the "life" spell was supposed to eliminate.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

Maybe, though I always viewed the life spell used on enemies was meant to be like using doom or death spell on the enemy since those spells weren't in the game. Especially since if I recall correctly, I don't think cure has that same bug.

[@VulpesVvardenfell]

I will always love Mystic Quest, because it was the first RPG I ever played, and really it was the only one I could manage at that age. I wasn't able to finish until a couple years later though because my inability to read kept me from figuring out how to get past Fireburg. At five years old, I thought it was amazing.

[@mattirealm]

I am quite a bit older than you are, and I was in high school when this one hit the market. I don't have a problem with it. I am a guy that has played a lot of the "good" JRPG's: Dragon Warrior 1-3, DragonQuest VIII, FF1-10/X-2, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, Sword of Mana series, on and on. So it isn't like I am not experienced in good RPG's, because I am. I like this one because it is simple. Sometimes you want to play something older, but don't feel like the grind of FFIV, but on emulation, Mystic Quest can be pretty fun. Just get a USB SNES controller, map it, and, fun!

[@Dorelaxen]

I've always liked Mystic Quest. It's forgettable for the most part, but holy god that soundtrack is absolutely top tier.

[@coolmancool]

I might be weird, but I love this game. Might be in part because I have a lot of nostalgia for it (my cousins had it, so when I bought my own SNES last year, I had to get it) and in other part because I'm really bad at RPG, other than Pokemon(only the recent one tho, I think its a farming problem I have) and action RPGs like Nier Automata and Skyrim. Plus the OST is awesome and one of the best on the system imo.

[@JasonGravesPoser]

You're definitely not alone. The music helps a lot

[@dcrock8978]

Same here, absolutely love this game.

[@nicholaszacharewicz693]

Thanks for another awesome video about odd and unremarkable places! Please keep 'em coming!

[@Dhalin]

RE:Bugs: Seeing that chart, it seems like they had a bit flipped. Life should have worked on zombies and skeletons, and not the rest. Someone typo'd a 0 and 1 in the wrong spot, and so the yes/nos are all flipped to their opposite values. Also, another fun fact, is that casting Cure on the Dark King does damage to him, however, this effect is entirely bugged to do MANY TIMES more damage than it should, so you can do 5-digit damage with the Hero and since Phoebe has more magic than the Hero, it will overflow the integer value and heal him instead if she does it. Also, Life healing your health to full is an oversight. It's only supposed to do that if you were dead, but they forgot to have the game check for the death status before applying the full heal. When I play FFMQ, I refuse to abuse Life in that way, because it removes any challenge from the game.

[@Hausbrauen]

The Cure spell is often an even more powerful weapon than Life in this game. Using the main character and given the expected level, the Cure spell on the final boss does nearly 18,000 damage from the start. Using the same spell on the final boss's second form does nearly 30,000 -- enough damage at this point to finish it off outright. The entire final boss fight should take only 3 turns total doing this. Although strangely, curing the final boss with Phoebe will instead heal the boss, so this trick only works with player character. Funny how this game teaches you in a roundabout way to experiment JUST enough, to make things incredibly easy.

[@binipped]

I played it as a teen upon release. I knew it was supposed to be a Fisher Price My First RPG when I played it and I finished it in a weekend (rented it). I remember laughing at how simple it was but at the end of it all I wasn't upset with the experience, I just hoped it would get people interested in the genre.

[@DSan-kl2yc]

I can tell you who the audience was from real world experience. People who played a final fantasy game and thought this would be one too.

[@auellaitaela8035]

The power metal soundtrack straight-up fucks tho

[@dannyhartwig7595]

still love it today.. in germany it was hard to get any rpgs for snes. so it was welcome.

[@MrNoobed]

Ingot this game as a kid because ff2 was sold out everywhere for months and this was the only thing I could find

[@tayto2k12]

Love the series, if you build it they will come!!!

[@rossdixonellis]

It's great because you can jump and go SHOONK* with the axe. Also Ryuji Sasai's music is god tier.

[@Nathan-rb3qp]

Cure actually works on the final boss.

[@PaganPoet]

this is the first Final Fantasy I ever played, so I can't help but have a soft spot for it in spite of how lazy it is. The fact that we got this instead of Final Fantasy V is insulting though. The OST is legit amazing though.

[@JasonGravesPoser]

In that way it was a success. I'm sure it was a lot of people's first, it helped build the brand, got the FF name out there.

[@Marinanor]

@@JasonGravesPoser Well, to be honest, even though the philosophy of this game was flawed, I loved the music.

[@David-uc4hc]

Mystic Quest genuinely has a great soundtrack for being so uninspired.

[@thequestingbunny]

You wanna know something? I was that kid this game was made for. I was six, and I was playing Legend of Zelda first. I picked it up because I liked the cover art, as it reminded me of Link holding up a sword. I rented it over a weekend and enjoyed it. Now I have a full Final Fantasy sleeve tattooed on my right arm. I'm the biggest fangirl for Final Fantasy and JRPGs in general. After I rented this, I rented FF2 (Cecil's game's American release) and I was SO into the story. It was so much better than Mystic Quest, but if I hadn't tried Mystic Quest who knows who I'd be as a gamer now? I went back to replay Mystic Quest as an adult, and I felt nostalgic for it, but that's about all I felt. The story isn't even paper-thin. I like tree hippy girl Kaeli, but more because my dad and I imagined that she was a tree hippy girl. Not because the game did anything special with her.

[@lancemagmer9701]

You should of went over the out of combat item use. Aai remember having a time moving around with a hook shot

[@michaelfraser7010]

"Affirming that they were still toys" got a laugh from me. You're good!

[@alexchrist1020]

It's funny to see someone play these games for the first time...most of us did 20 years ago haha so it's a certain kind of nostalgia

[@ManillaHeep]

That OST is hella sweet The CRT filter looks good also

[@mo_musashi_284]

I have memories playing this for a minute.

[@JasonGravesPoser]

FF 2: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qaXZqZaMr6l9fZo&ab_channel=JasonGraves FF 3: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gGHQf3ycqdt_r6c

[@RoninCatholic]

Funny thing, my introductory RPG was the first Dragon Warrior (the GBC version with better experience and gold yields and Firebal/Firebane actually being worth casting unlike Hurt/Hurtmore). On paper, Mystic Quest is way more complicated - two simultaneous party members, different MP resources for different spell types, consumable item to refill MP, status effects other than Sleep and StopSpell. But Dragon Warrior 1 had some teeth - dying takes half your money and dumps you back at the castle (much more forgiving than "continue from your last save" as Final Fantasy does, but a penalty especially if you lost progress in a dungeon you were exploring and expended resources on herbs, keys, and torches to get there) In terms of tone and writing, I like Mystic Quest more than any Final Fantasy game after the NES original. In terms of aesthetics and music, it's one of my favorite SNES RPGs. But at the same time, objectively it's just not very good. The out of battle use of items (axe for chopping trees, bomb for blowing up rocks, claw for climbing walls) is really good. What it was missing was a projectile like a bow or a boomerang for hitting switches out of reach and triggering first strikes on those enemies placed in the map, along with enemies having movement patterns and some having projectiles to first strike _you_ with. The bones of a great RPG are here, but instead it's just an okay one I happen to like despite its flaws. Now, take note of the enemy types you CAN'T kill with the Life spell. See a common theme? Skeleton, Red Bone, Zombie, Mummy, Ghost, Spector, Skuldier...these are enemies you would EXPECT to be killed by Life. Simply put, they got their flag check for "Life causes instakill" inverted. Now imagine if this game had a proper tutorial with an NPC somewhere who tells you the Spell of Life can bring rest to the living dead, indicating that tough zombies and ghosts can be slain with that spell... I hold that the plot twist the final boss pulls in this game regarding the prophesy and how _little_ Benjamin cares about it is one of the all time great story moments in RPGs.

[@RoninCatholic]

​@@itdudeyt The battles in Dragon Warrior 1 are set to a good frequency and difficulty level if you're playing as intended (grinding a little where you know it's safe, occasionally poking into an area just outside your comfort zone for a fight or two to see if you can make it there, pushing forward if you succeed well). The in-game guidance for hints is basically perfect, when it comes to the non-combat advancement of key items. Thinking of the game as a guided tour through a fantasy story will leave it a sour experience indeed, as would expecting certain other games to open up and allow you to explore or feel things out for yourself. Dragon Warrior's _generous_ death mechanics - simply respawning at the castle with half your current gold missing - considerably softens the blow compared to a Game Over as you'd get in many other games of the genre. For what it's worth, I played the Game Boy version where the talk/check/general interact was all mapped to the A button and stairs were automatically used when stepped on, like most later RPGs. This version also had a blunter (but less fun) localization of the text, doubled the power and cost of your offensive spells, and roughly doubled the experience and gold of enemies. I went back and tried playing the NES version later and found its interface very cumbersome, which explains to me why Final Fantasy caught on in the USA at the time and Dragon Quest remained niche despite being more popular in its home region. Context-sensitive interact button and a separate open the menu button, it really comes down to that. If Mystic Quest had a death system that simply cut out a chunk of your resources (say, a bunch of those healing items you get out of self-refilling treasure chests) and reset you to earlier in the dungeon with monsters respawning rather than just asking if you want to try the same battle again and see if the RNG works in your favor this time, that'd be both a better mechanic and a better introduction to what the genre is like. Likewise if they simply toned down the huge array of status afflictions - something like having Silence, Paralysis, Confusion or Blindness(but not both), and Poison but not also Stone, Death, Sleep, etc. and instead of having Wizard spells just be Black Magic, But Stronger having _them_ be status moves or buff conditions that turn the tide of a long battle. Conditions where it's clear what they're doing, clearly worth curing, but possibly worth just powering through. These are thus a good short list for an introductory RPG - Sleep is more beneficial when you use it but also more debilitating to face from an enemy, and in Mystic Quest you can only even ATTEMPT to use it (on an opponent who is probably immune or going to be hit with several other things) when attacking with a Claw weapon.

[@crakermac3818]

I liked final fantasy mystic quest, but I was a child in the 90s starved for RPGs 🤣

[@vxicepickxv]

This game has an amazing soundtrack. That is exactly the best quality it has.

[@CresCoJeffToo]

The Life spell cheese doesn't work on undead but does on most anything else? Someone reversed an equivalency XD

[@MarvinMr305]

I use it as a beginner rpg for someone that wants to start playing them.

[@muntdouken9841]

Damn you've finished 4 games in the time I've been slowly hacking away at 7th saga.

[@JasonGravesPoser]

Can't wait to get to that one myself, the premise looks interesting. I don't have a grand secret, I just make sure to touch the game/video every day. Even if it's just for a few minutes sometimes, eventually they get done.

[@KCUFyoufordoxingme]

It really wasn't that bad. Zedla series complexity and dragon quest difficulty. It just has a lot of fat trimmed. Just fine. People hate it becuase it is a lense on other games sans some bullshit show they were not much to begin with.

[@Manobaru]

1:42 - lol it's Higan, not Haigen

[@drcidd8153]

I liked mystic quest when it was current. But I didn't pretend it was anything more than what it was. A fairly simple and fun RPG.

[@marcst3199]

I really loved it back then, but I've been maybe the main audience

[@pedromaia6059]

Man your chrono cross video is amazing, this channel should have more subscribers, but i need a haircut And i really laughed in the 100% male

[@JasonGravesPoser]

lol glad someone caught that! Once and awhile it'll say 1-2%, so sometimes a female sneaks in here

[@RegalPixelKing]

The best part about this game was that it was a combination of Zelda and Final Fantasy sort of. The dungeons, although not great by any means have puzzles, and you can only progress through some environments by switching to the correct weapons like the axe cut down trees, or the claw to climb walls. That, and being able to jump over annoying npcs were both great additions that I feel would have made some great games if those mechanics were lifted. From what I understand Mystic Quest was a failure. Not just as a baby's jrpg, but also in terms of critical reception and sales; it just failed in every aspect. That might have been an important wake up call for Square at the time. After that failure we got FF6 and Chrono Trigger with mostly unbutchered scripts and all the content still intact which you can't say about FF4 for example. After that FF7 onward was uncensored and close to the indented original Japanese experience.

[@markdelz299]

Right, when it came out Mystic Quest was dismissed as a sort of strange port of Final Fantasy Legend on the Game Boy. It was a game to rent, not buy.

[@TheRumpletiltskin]

TBF, I was one of the few people who never played a FF RPG and got into the genre because of this shitty game. Sidenote: It looks like the list of enemies that can't be killed by life are all "undead". so it's possible that the trigger for that is set backward.

[@JasonGravesPoser]

That's the reason, they reversed a check of some kind

[@flameguy21]

14:29 ha joke's on you I'm 22

[@JasonGravesPoser]

Get off my lawn!

[@GribbleGob]

Mystic Quest is the video game version of a sarcastic response to someone and I love it for that. sucks ass though.

[@TiffanyStarrxxx]

So...I'm still gonna stream this game

[@jsh357]

34 here :p Keep up the good work

[@jsh357]

Also, I loved this game as a kid, but I had planned Ff6 and mother 2 already so it wasn't a tutorial for me. I was hungry for any rpg at all back then!

[@anthonydelfino6171]

so I actually got this game when I was like 11 as my first JRPG, and I gotta say. When you analyze it for what it is, something meant to introduce young, western gamers to the idea of a JRPG, I do think it works. I won't say it's a great game, it's not. But it does hold that special place for me as being my first JRPG. And yeah, I wouldn't give it to someone even today as a first JRPG, there are a lot better games since then to start on.

[@elchicharron9503]

I enjoyed it upon release, but would have preferred DQ5. It was too short of a game.

[@lswhere40]

Story time from back in the 90's: Friend back when, rented this game called FFII. I made fun of the battles so hard, because I was into Super Mario World. Fortunately, I got sucked into the plot pretty quickly, you spoony bard! This not really Final Fantasy game Mystic Quest came out later on and I played it. That's about all I can say, I played it and jumping is fun. Ok, that's my tangent.

[@GrampaSheevie]

Mystic Quest's audience is little kids downloading random roms off the internet in the 2000s. That's why I played it.

[@DoubleDragonGaming]

lmfao @ 6:34 . Dude you did really well with this video. I cant believe how much time and effort you spent on a shit game like this one lol. I mean I LOVE Final Fantasy and have been playing the games since I was a kid and I am now 39 years old. I have played FF IV, VI, VII, VIII,X, FFII, Tactics, Crisis Core... what Am i Doing I cant even list them all lol. But this one never even came up on my radar and now I can see why. Funny, informative and well scripted video. I Gave you a like and subscribed! Keep up the awesome work dude I really enjoyed this one! Lmfao I lost the tutorial battle lol

[@danootto6382]

I found you right, but totally wrong. I enjoy going back to this from time to time. There are far more deserving games to rank on. The Japanese certainly didn't get us back then, but you missed the point of this. It's a fun mockery. I enjoy it. And your sad sack review didn't tarnish my nostalgic love of it. Go back to picking on Elmo. Your age really did blind your review. I hope someday you'll get the sense of this game as it came to grow on me.

[@GribbleGob]

Lmao this game is fundamentally bad and it will never be good. grow the hell up

[@enderspider15]

I’m sorry you weren’t able to properly enjoy peak snes gaming.

[@Zarathustra-rj4yz]

It's SaGa 4.

[@mauricesteel4995]

If you want an RPG that is: Easy Has Linear paths uses Autobattle well. is very enjoyable Play Miitopia.

[@Dhalin]

@5:00 I *highly* disagree with the subject of Ease vs Forgiveness. If a game is EASY, then you will learn nothing because you can do _almost_ anything and succeed. If a game is forgiving, when you make a mistake, it will be clear you F'd up and you're given another chance to try that again, and you won't pass until you do that battle without so many mistakes, forcing you to adapt (or win by luck, but that doesn't happen very often as only misses and critical hits are RNG). FFMQ almost forces you to engage with most of the game's systems, while easy RPGs let you just mash attack attack attack and win battles that way, you can skip most of the game's systems, and that teaches you nothing about RPGs. The Retry option lets you quickly retry the battle, while the Save Anywhere makes it so that if you enter a battle under unwinnable conditions, like you're out of potions or MP, you can instead give up, and load your game up and back out and restock and come back. Also, the final boss, is *BRUTALLY* hard if you don't abuse the game's bugs, it acts like a final exam, testing to see if you learned how to play the game and if you can beat the final boss without abusing any of the game's bugs, you're prepared to take on pretty much any turn-based RPG ever released.

[@Dhalin]

RE:The Fire Hydra: The reason you were dying is because you beelined bosses, lol. If you were actually exploring the dungeons, you would have found a helmet with Fire resistance which would have made it impossible for the boss to kill you in two turns. Several dungeons earlier in the game rewarded you items by going off the beaten path, which taught you that you should check everywhere in a dungeon for those red chests (which is why they made them look different than the wooden consumable chests!) with equipment, and ALL armor in the game is VERY important, and the game teaches you that early. Also I disagree with you with the point about the chest in the Bone Dungeon; if you miss that chest and end up stuck, you may eventually decide to go back into that dungeon and then see the chest you missed and that'll be a pretty big "Pay attention, dumbass" message the game sends you. I would think that the only improvement to be made here, is when you check the sand coin door, maybe your hero goes "hmm, this door is yellow, maybe I should explore that dungeon again, I must have missed something". Again, the game is Forgiving, not Easy. If you make a mistake, the game will tell you all about it. It won't, however, hold your hand. It will let you make a mistake, and then tell you that you made a mistake, and expect YOU to go fix that mistake. The only point I agree with you on, is that very first battle should be scripted that you always win since you do only have 1 option. However, playing Devil's Advocate here, maybe that first battle is teaching you that sometimes.... sometimes luck just isn't on your side and you can just try again. Which is a fair assessment in many RPGs, I have seen worse BS in some RPGs, and in THOSE RPGs, there is no Retry. You get sent to the Title Screen and back to your last fixed save point.

[@Dhalin]

Actually, on second thought, I think the game's ridiculous critical hit system, and how fast enemies can send you to the Retry prompt is a lesson unto itself: You're supposed to try to adapt to this, by trying to plan ahead for such contingencies. Like... "crap I keep dying because of these cheap ass critical hits... maybe I should fight some extra monsters, make sure I'm well stocked, and don't take unnecessary risks" ... the fact your NPC partner prioritizes healing over offense lends some credence to this, the game is teaching you that taking risks in RPGs can go south in a hurry and you probably shouldn't do it unless you really know what you're doing. And this is true in many RPGs, I see youtubers making ridiculous mistakes that have me rolling my eyes, sometimes they whine that the game is too hard when I see them going with the attack option at 30% health remaining or something, I'm like "wtf, are you crazy?" and then they get get killed because they got crit when they thought they could survive the next attack, which they would have if they only healed instead of going on full offensive. And/or foregoing healing and defense for more offense. I see that a lot, too. I think FFMQ does an excellent job of teaching you why playing defensively is important.

[@TheLabecki]

This game actually led me to give up on SNES releasing any more good RPGs, which led to me missing out on those that came later.

[@shinkalson8339]

I didn't like this game has a child. I played ff4 and I got excited wt this...disappointing. ff4 is my introduction to RPG. The hard bosses I had to grind a lot to beat them, I couldn't figure out they were strategy to win. Ex: fire bad for undead, healing bad. Water base bosses lightning bad etc... I learned watching an older kid, ohh I didn't really speak English. If I didn't watch him, i would not have known to beat Ashura was to cast wall on her, rubicante, delta sisters, etc...

[@jimllc]

Time for the unpopular comparison but this game sounds a LOT like Swsh.

[@lucasnassar2778]

This game is a failure,my health is going down because of this game!!!!!Love the soundtrack,but these Nintendo games with that thing of prevent the player from getting records and tons of deaths really shows how Nintendo sucks and I don't get why people like it,even why I got into it And plus I spent hours of my life with the stress caused by the fights without completing the game.The enemies force me to die a ton,spend every hour until win a boss,mainly the Ice Golem,force to go into battles many and many and many times,looping that music again and again No,I'M OUTTA THIS!!!!!!Master System games are better than this pretty long shit,people are losing time of their life with trash like this,while they could spend 30 minutes with Fantasy Zone 3,or 9 minutes of Quartet,that's why I didn't uploaded something from other platform but Master System yet.Master System made part of my childhood and the gameplay is short and easy. One day if I find a simple longer RPG which is possible document a run,I will bring to my channel

[@allenyates3469]

❤️