Reviews from

in the past


this game is good! it gets a bad rep because it was made because square thought americans were stupid so they simplified the gameplay a lot. But they are all good changes! you have enemy sprites changing to show how much damage they've taken. you have overworld abilities like a giant axe and a crazy grabbing claw. and the music is just awesome!

While overall pretty fun and charming in it's own right, like goddamn that music, the amount of battles in the final stretch, plus the easiness of most battle do make this somewhat tedious. At least it's short.

Square thought that western kids were dumb so they made a retarded version of FF so american kids could enjoy.

They didn't.

Very chill introduction to JRPGs. The RNG can get crazy though.

This was the first Final Fantasy game I ever beat. It is definitely a departure from the other classic Final Fantasy, but that was done purposefully. This was designed to be an introduction to the genre to help popularize it in western civilization.

The story is really basic. The world is plummeting into chaos because the Crystals need saving. Go do the hero thing.

You only ever have one party member accompanying you at a time to help keep battles simple. And it can be even more beginner friendly by setting their battle mode to Auto.

As I said enemy RNG can get kind of ridiculous and they love to spam status effects, but that's okay. As I said, it's very beginner friendly so you can retry after every game over. Also if you fully explore dungeons and beat all of the battle arenas along the way, you will get equipment that makes you immune to status effects.

The battles can get really repetitive, but I still really find this game charming. It's a fairly short adventure. The art style is very cute. The monster designs are kind of funky and I love them (the shocked Medusa sprite when she is at low HP is my favorite).

The music in this game was really fun, although it doesn't feel anything like the other Final Fantasy games at the time. This isn't a super complex JRPG so if you are looking for a big challenge and super bosses, this isn't really it. This was totally designed to be accessible to people who had never touched a JRPG before. I think they accomplished that goal.

It'd be cool to see this one remade like the Pixel Remasters one day, but I don't think enough people liked this one for Square Enix to want to invest in that.

This game is a neat little part in gaming history. If you are interested in trying it out, I say go for it. But remember it is kind of it's own thing and brace yourself for repetitive battles.


the final fantasy mystic quest defender has logged on. i admit most of my fondness is nostalgia but i give it immense credit for having jumping and tools at a time most rpgs kept you glued to the ground

Is there any reason to play this after any regular final fantasy game experience? I see nothing here. Some of the music slaps but you can listen to OST's on youtube..

Well... uh... as much as I hate this phrase, "it is what it is."

If you're looking for a traditional JRPG experience, you will not find it in this game. The puzzles are rudimentary, the writing is bland, and the story is unimaginative. The maximum party size never grows beyond two characters, and the second slot is reserved for a cast of rotating guest characters. The music is actually pretty solid, and the main character's sprite has a couple of well done animations, but that is the extent of positives that I can write about this game.

This is a game that would be forgotten to history if it wasn't for the words Final Fantasy emblazoned on the cover. That said, if you're interested in playing the first true (not SaGa or Mana) Final Fantasy spin-off it's worth taking a look at. This is the game they elected to give westerners over Final Fantasy V, so I think it's worth playing to kind of try to figure out why they went that route.

If you have no interest in the history of Final Fantasy, there is no reason to play this. The music is great though!

This is the world’s most inoffensive worst game.

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest is the iconically easy JRPG made for a dumb western audience, I think by now everyone knows the origin story of this game.
The game itself is alright, it’s not bad by any means, it’s just really, really, really easy… Easy as in each usable item chest in the wild automatically respawn after leaving the area, easy as in you can restart any fight after you die, easy as in the item that refills this game’s version of MP is really common and restores ALL of it, easy as in your party member will always be stronger than you are, I can keep going but you get the point, they perfectly crafted it so that the dumbest of idiots can actually get through the end of this game.

But is it truly something bad? Well to any gamers with self respect, yes, we feel insulted, but to children it’s pretty nice, it’s a JRPG for toddler and you wouldn’t even know I’m not talking about Pokémon! I wouldn’t really recommend this game to anyone other than curious final fantasy fans, it’s easy (if you couldn’t tell already), and it’s short as well, took me less than 10 hours.
If you’d like a full fledged review you should watch Projared’s video about it.

There’s one thing that really suck about this game and it’s the speed of the game, god it’s slow, and I mean SLOWWWW! I had to use the x5 speed option on retroarch to make this game somewhat fun, otherwise it’s a terrible slow as hell slog…

TLDR
+ The soundtrack
+ it’s easy
- Slow slog of a game
- it’s easy
- broke my ego as a JRPG player

Game is ass, but why did they go so hard on the OST? It's unnecessarily BANGER

Best way to explain how funny this game truly is, is to tell you that the final boss takes 15-30k damage from a single Cure spell, and dies in 3 hits total. Beautiful.

It's definitely a beginner RPG, but it was pretty fun for its time. Also, teaching first-timers about weaknesses by making the final boss weak to a quick-kill is a great idea...if you're a beginner RPG.

I'm currently listening to Benjamin Hoff's The Tao of Pooh and I had some pretentious monologue revved up about appreciating the simple things, but honestly, this game is garbage. It is the most braindead simple JRPG you'll ever play, punctuated by a host of frustrating mechanical decisions that twist the game from repetitive into frustrating. I hate that the player character is too weak to ever one-shot monsters the second party member always can. The overworld is a tedious, lifeless TRPG-esque map, so the meat of the game is a one-dimensional dungeon slog with sporadic villages and the most meaningless story beats woven through.

But man, I love that overworld. The artistic direction makes progressing through the game feel like more than it is.

Gameplay and story is shifted every time we move to a new primary location by a rotating cast of characters meant to lead you through new locales, and that establishes this weird sense of camaraderie and excitement that "something new" is around every corner. It makes me wonder that maybe a problem with modern JRPGs is distance, spending too much time with characters I once loved means I grow tired of them and take them for granted.

It's just cozy. I have frankly returned to this game more than any other Final Fantasy title. Yeah, it's so stupidly simple it should only appeal to people who don't play video games, but it's so chill it has a character all its own. Fun as hell to pick back up and binge for 4 or 5 hours while watching a new show -- or just to enjoy one of the best OSTs on the Super Nintendo and in the Final Fantasy franchise -- and shelve for another few years. There's an inexplicable charm to these simple, streamlined JRPGs -- the uncovered block.

Um jogo que falha em ser um bom RPG, e falha em sua própria proposta.

Contextualizando primeiramente: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest é um RPG americano. Foi lançado em 1992, nessa época os JRPGs ainda eram bastante inacessíveis, poucos tinham o privilégio de sair do Japão. Mystic Quest é um jogo americano que diz: "Ok, americanos, esses joguinhos japoneses de turnos são bem complexos né? Que tal um bem simples e rápido pra introduzir vocês a esse tipo de jogo?". Com isso, incluiu alguns elementos de ação mas sua base ainda é JRPG.
Então seria injusto analisar esse jogo tendo como base os dias atuais, que JRPGs daquela época já não são considerados complexos, e agora provavelmente todos já jogaram algum Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest... Mas eu digo que FF Mystic Quest falha de uma forma, que nem se colocando no contexto da época esse game funciona.

Inicialmente, já fica clara essa ideia de "JRPG iniciante". Ao invés de um mundo livre, existe um mapa com "estágios" como Super Mario Bros 3. Itens de baús reaparecem após sair e voltar numa área, sendo facilmente farmáveis. Inimigos estão colocados no mapa, não existem encontros aleatórios (ponto positivo). A party é composta apenas pelo jogador, e um personagem que varia de acordo com a história, e é possível fazer com que o controle desse personagem seja feito pelo jogador, ou automaticamente.
Não é uma história complexa, é simples: Você é tem que pegar quatro cristais pra poder derrotar o chefão, cada cristal tá numa dungeon protegida por outro chefão.
Caso você pare de jogar nas primeiras horas, vai assumir que esse game realmente cumpre o que foi prometido, é uma experiência simples. E realmente, os primeiros momentos são até que divertidos, a trilha sonora é ótima, os sprites são bonitinhos...
Algumas dungeons apresentam puzzles como empurrar blocos para criar uma plataforma, usar um gancho para grudar num pilar distante... Esses elementos são apreciados, trazem um ar de Zelda à gameplay.

Em geral, acabaram as coisas boas para dizer. Quando mais tempo você joga o jogo, mais suas falhas começam a aparecer. E uma das mais perceptíveis é: Seu parceiro é sempre mais forte que você. Não, não é uma questão de farmar ou criar uma boa build, eu fiz quase 100% desse game, eu abri quase todos baús, eu completei todas arenas de batalha, eu peguei a melhor armadura, a melhor arma... Mas sempre, o parceiro será mais forte. E isso criará um padrão óbvio: Ele mata inimigos em 1 hit, e você em 2. Você seguirá esse padrão o jogo todo, de uma forma que chega a ser monótono. Você sempre conseguirá matar o inimigo médio com 1 hit (parceiro) ou 2 hits (jogador).
Sim, entendo, é pra ser um jogo fácil, mas o problema é: Não é NADA fácil. Esse jogo é absurdamente difícil (as batalhas são, o game em si nem tanto, já falo sobre), e parece contraditório, baseado no que acabei de dizer, porém é esse o problema. Chega a ser muito difícil, mas nunca é porque os inimigos passam a ter bastante vida, ou dar bastante dano, não, isso nunca acontece, você sempre irá matá-los em 1-2 hits e eles sempre darão uma porcentagem semelhante de dano. Porém primeiramente, errar um golpe é MUITO comum. A taxa é alta demais, você vai errar milhares de golpes o jogo todo. Para compensar, a taxa de crítico também é relativamente alta, porém o mesmo se aplica aos golpes do inimigo.
Segundamente, mais pro late game, cada inimigo tem de dois a três golpes diferentes que todos aplicam um status diferente: Dormir, paralisia, petrificação, veneno, cegueira... Tudo que leva é um inimigo petrificar ambos seus bonecos, e é game over. Você pode iniciar uma batalha com dois inimigos, eles pegam o primeiro turno, e imediatamente petrificam ambos membros da party, sem o jogador nunca ter tido nenhuma opção ou chance de fazer qualquer coisa. Você talvez pode iniciar uma batalha, atacar o inimigo, mas seu golpe errar por causa da taxa absurda já mencionada, e os inimigos aplicam petrificação, ou confusão, ou paralisia...
Você vai morrer bastante, e TODAS suas mortes serão por falta de controle. Não é por você ter errado, mas sim porque o dado disse que os inimigos vão aplicar confusão em ambos personagens, e os dois irão se matar. E irei repetir que eu completei todas arenas de batalha, peguei todos os melhores itens... Ou seja, era pra meu personagem estar muito bom.
Mas o mais estranho é que não há punição real quando morre, apenas reinicia a mesma batalha do início. Não há nenhuma perda. O que faz o jogo falhar em tudo: Não tem como dizer que é um jogo desafiador, porque não há perda alguma quando morre. E não tem como dizer que é um jogo justo, porque toda morte é injusta e aleatória. O resultado então é apenas tempo perdido, é irritante morrer, voltar do início da batalha, e isso acontecer diversas vezes.

A história é simples, o que é apreciado, porém além de simples é bem ~vazia~. Os personagens apenas existem para ditar o lugar que o jogador deve ir. Certos eventos acontecem rápido demais, de uma forma que nem dá pra entender o que aconteceu, e por qual motivo aconteceu daquela forma.

As dungeons são extensas e tem um layout confuso, são muitos caminhos, muitos desses caminhos tem dezenas de inimigos, e apenas levam a um baú que dão algum consumível qualquer. O sistema de XP e nível é estranho, você pode ficar muito tempo sem upar, e as vezes upar dois níveis de uma vez (é , tipo, acabou a batalha e você vai do 27 ao 29).

E por último, é beeem demorado. Mesmo tendo aproximadamente 15 horas de duração, o que é pouco para um JRPG, parece que demora muito mais. E por isso eu agradeço à opção de acelerar o emulador, eu teria desistido sem isso.

we stan benjamin mystic quest.

This is a game for literal toddlers so shitting on it doesn't feel great, but this is the toast sandwich of video games.

Little too late for training wheels.

It may be 'Baby's First RPG', but that doesn't make it a bad game in and of itself. It is definitely an easy game, especially compared to a lot of the other grindy RPGs of the time. There isn't much of a story to speak of, especially considering what would follow in the Final Fantasy series. But I really don't remember anything that made it -bad-.

The bosses get visibly weaker as you start to wear them down, a cool touch that I hadn't yet seen at the time. The soundtrack is quite good, with the battle and boss themes certainly being among the best of the SNES.

Overall, this isn't a game to play for any real challenge, or to witness a gripping story, but it has its own charm and isn't one to avoid just because "lol, easy".

Good introduction rpg back then. Its alright.

A baby RPG. But is still a fun time if you dont take it too seriously. Good music, limited graphics (could pass for an Nes game) and a decent combat system. Check it out if you are a begginner or want a short RPG experience.

Babby's first role-playing game. Hardcore fans and people desiring more from RPG's need not apply, just play FFV instead which is what we should have gotten in the West instead of this tripe. It's not a terrible spinoff but very watered-down and lacking in flavor or substance... with that said however, some of the heart and soul of the franchise is still carried by the game's colorful graphics and presentation- and the OST is undoubtedly on-point. This battle theme deserves a better game to go with it.

Played this as a BABY and was my introduction to Final Fantasy and JRPG's as a whole back on the SNES. Coincidentally I can remember owning 2 SNES Final Fantasy games and trying to decide which to play first, This or Final Fantasy II (IV) and I chose Mystic Quest because I assumed it was the first one and I couldn't start with the one that had 2 in the title.

I don't know man I liked it as a literal child, the game was aimed towards kids like me and even if I was to go back today I think I'd be able to get at least something out of it, even if it's not the deepest thing in the world.

A childhood favourite, but not much worth revisiting aside from nostalgia and solid music. An intentional by-the-numbers production, it is enormously charming in a simplicity that is, ultimately, dull and lacklustre.


Every game was designed with a purpose. What was this games purpose? To be a person's first RPG. It's simple, fairly short, and holds your hand quite a bit. Do I think it did its job? Yes. Does that make it good? Eh. The plot and characters are basic and there's plenty of more modern RPGs that are also easy to get into that have better stories. I will however say I like how monsters were on the overworld (most SNES RPGs are random encounters) and that monster sprites change while getting close to death.

"Baby Final Fantasy!"
– Lucca's Note For This Game On The JRPG Index

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha proof that SquareSoft thinks Americans are complete idiots.

Mystic Quest - a Final Fantasy spinoff made for beginners and originally released in north america, is an ultra-brief and ultra-streamlined tour of classic JRPG stereotypes: Somnolent pace, one-note frontview combat, limited magic system, RNG-reliant difficulty, temporary allies, etc. It stands out only for its quick weapon-swapping ability (also available mid-battle) and a basic action-adventure approach to dungeons (utilizing the abovesaid tools plus map-based encounters and a jump button), neither of which were particularly exciting.