It seems like ever since I got into emulation, and then video game communities in general I've been hearing about how terrible a game Mystic Quest is. How it's a beginers RPG for children.
I was at EB, oh ages ago, before the Hurricanes and most of their snes stuff was marked down to $5 on top of another buy two get one free sale. So I picked up FF Mystic Quest, Yoshi's Island, Nobunaga's Ambition: Lord of Darkness, Eye of the Beholder and Actraiser for under $20.
Fast forward to this wednesday and I finally get a chance to test these games. Start playing Actraiser because I've heard so many good things about it, only to discover it sucks. I mean it's a good idea, kind of a cross genre "Black and White" but the platformer bits are genaric and hard as hell.
Eye of the Beholder's ick. I don't know why I bought it, should have learned my lesson from the GBA version.
So I pop in Mystic Quest, one thing I immediately notice is that the script's actually pretty good. Huge contrast to Final Fantasy 4. The characters sound very natural when they talk, you don't see that often in comercial 16 bit games. The game's also uses a lot of bold bright colors, but I rather like them. The world map navigation's odd to say the least, like Super Mario World, but it's not the first game I've played to use that system (see Crusader of Centy). Combat system is more Dragon Warrior like then Final Fantasy but hey I like Dragon Warrior.
The difficulty level at first seems "broken" the game likes to give you these partners that are at a higher level then you are and consequently do a lot more damage, but around the time they join your party the monsters tend to become stronger so I find it actaully evens it's self out and I've found a couple battles where I died a few times.
Money's kind of a joke I'll admit, you can raid chests in town and they "refill" as soon as you leave. Needless to say I never have less then 99 of bombs or cure potions.
I really like the Zelda elements. Your character can "jump", push blocks, use bombs, pull switchs, climb walls.
I guess I could say the game's really built around all these different little features (when you die in battle you can immediately restart the battle minus any items you used before you died) some of which pan out (you can search out optional "monster lairs", complete 10 battles and gain additional magic, exp, items and money) and some of which don't (while I hate random battles, monsters apoear on the screen and are stationary, once you kill them they're gone and the dungeon is empty.) But I wouldn't go as far as to say the game's terrible. It's different, and I'm sure if Square hadn't experimented on titles like one the games most people do love probably wouldn't have been the same.
I was just expecting something a lot worse I suppose.