Collection essentials #187: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (SNES)

In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, RPGs were absolutely huge in Japan, possibly the most popular video game genre. But the same wasn’t quite true in other countries. I don’t really know why, and I’m not sure if there’s a clear answer. Squaresoft thought that difficulty and complexity may have been what turned off American gamers, a theory that did make sense, especially considering that most American gamers were children. And so, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest was developed as a beginner’s RPG with overseas markets in mind. The game advertises itself as such right on the box. It was developed in Japan, but released in America first and not in Japan until nearly a year later.

So as you’d expect from a beginner RPG, Mystic Quest is pretty simplified compared to other Final Fantasy games. There’s not much to the story, which mainly revolves around one character rather than a cast of developed characters. Combat is pretty simple too, and not very challenging. You can even retry as many times as you like when you die, rather than going to the last save point as is the norm. You only ever get one other party member at a time, and they’re computer-controlled. 

Did this game succeed in popularizing RPGs in the West? Well…nope. Sales were disappointing, and the game’s reputation among RPG fans wound up being pretty bad. Now, this game does have some redeeming qualities. The music in particular is very well done, which is important for an RPG. The game includes some action adventure elements to make the dungeons more fun, which is cool. For example, you can jump, and there are tools you can use to interact with things in the environment. There are no random battles and instead you engage with enemies on the map, which I prefer. But if I’m being honest, yeah, this game is not all that good. It’s just not very ambitious, and really it’s not necessary to have a simple game like this to introduce new players to the genre.

I thought about leaving Mystic Quest off my essentials list, but there is something very significant about it to me personally. One time as a young kid, I saw the game at someone else’s house. I can’t remember who had it, and whether or not I played it or watched someone else play it, but it was probably the first time I had ever seen an RPG before. I was intrigued by it, but I didn’t recall what it was for a very long time and never owned it as a kid. It wasn’t until my family got the internet as a teenager that I saw the game again and thought, “Oh yeah! So THAT was the game I saw all those years ago!” And by then, I already had some RPG experience and had little reason to play Mystic Quest. So I haven’t spent very much time on the game in my lifetime. But that one childhood memory does mean something to me, and it would feel kinda incomplete to have the other Final Fantasy games on the SNES but not this one. And so, I am gonna go ahead and consider this an essential.