Make sure to check out Skillshare! The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/austineruption06211 Happy ALMOST 4th of July! What was your first JRPG? Was it as ripe with American passion as Mystic Quest?
my first JRPG was the original Dragon Warrior for the NES, that was my first one. I enjoyed it and that was the one that opened me up to the world of JRPGS
My first RPG was Wild ARMS. It’s so fantastic. If you’ve never played it, it’s a mix between steampunk and Wild West America. So yeah, I guess that counts as having American passion.
My Grandma used Mystic Quest to teach me how to read and write. She loved video games. I still have the cartridge, and I'll never get rid of it. It's a decent game, wish people didn't hate on it so much.
People always shit on Mystic Quest for being too easy and simplifield, but I still think it is a fun little game. Gets more hate than it deserves. The music is bomb, the sprites are great and it is a great introduction unironically for newcomers.
I personally find that Mystic Quest is a good game, it's not bad... but it had such potential to be great but then... it just turned out to be good. I really enjoy to this day still, and I keep going back to it every now and then.
I really don't get the hate. Literally everyone I personally know who has played the game, regardless of whether they're fans of rpgs or not, thinks it's a great game even if it's not perfect. But what game is perfect anyways? I think some of the complaints in this video seem kinda superfluous anyways though. Like complaining about the amount of battles. Not only is that a bit of a strange complaint when you consider the genre but he even addressed the fact that you can avoid most of the battles anyways due to them not being random. Complaints about the art seem kinda pointless as well. Like I get the complaints about the European art but the in-game art looks just fine. And the complaints about the battle system seem to be more a complaint about difficulty than the battle system itself having issues which is kinda missing the point of an entry in the series that was explicitly meant to be an entry level introduction to the genre. At least he had the wherewithal to acknowledge that the soundtrack is fantastic.
I find that people that complain about difficulty forget two things. 1. Its not supposed to be difficult 2. If you want difficulty book a little bit of effort into making it difficult, maybe don't grind every xp you can max out or your items and get all the equipment, also when you die in battle reset the game.
I wish it had kicked off a trend, y'know? There's a place for shorter, lightweight RPGs you can play through on a rainy weekend. But Mystic Quest got buried and that never really happened.
I think this game was a lot more successful than people give it credit for, or that it's sales reflect. Everyone I've ever known who played this game, say that this is the game that got them into JRPGs. Which is exactly what it set out to do. Those people have become lifelong fans and bought far more FF games down the line. So the initial sales weren't great, but they translated into later sales of other games.
That's wild, need to hear more about that. It's almost like the people who were upset with this game were not it's target audience, and I see this phenomenon is reflected in the much older Pokemon fans, who have become older, but the target audience of Pokemon stayed the same.
I can confirm this comment; It was my first ever RPG as well and now I've played pretty much every Final Fantasy game and spin-offs, alongside a whole pletera of other RPGs. There probably would have been other games that would have brought me to where I am now if Mystic Quest didn't exist, but it's a fact for me that the game that shaped my love for RPGs is ironically the one set out to be an introductionary title.
So true...I was a seasoned JRPG kid by that time and was still able to appreciate it. I enjoyed it a lot. I did feel that it was too easy for me at the time, but still had tons of fun with it.I enjoyed the characters, my favorite was Tristan. The music was great. And I dug the world. I would agree that it wasn't for everyone, but its not a throwaway game. It got my little brother into RPGs, not he's a RPG beast.
I played it after playing 6 as a kid. And I enjoyed it for what it was as a kid. I thought it was simple but charming and different enough to be its own thing in my kid mind.
I played this game when I was around 6-7 years old and it was the greatest thing ever, having NEVER played a JRPG or RPG ever. My parents rented this game for me, so I guess that didn't contribute to its sales... But it did lead to me becoming interested in the Final Fantasy franchise overall and eventually becoming a fan.
fun fact, if your magic stat is high enough, you can "cure" the last boss to death. games causes the damage calculator to roll over and you'll damage him instead, thus defeating him with 3-4 cure spells :)
You could kill him with one healing spell. That's how my cousin introduced me to it after 4. He told me to start the fight and cast the strongest healing spell. The boss then said "is that all you can muster?" then transformed into the maimed spider and died. Then he informed me I had just defeated the last boss and I watched as the end sequence played.
Austin - thank you for giving Mystic Quest some credit at the end. I'm not a huge JRPG person, but as a 4-year old in 1997 I went to my grandmother's house and she had an SNES. I spent most of my time flipping between, Zelda 3, Mario World, DK Country, and Mystic Quest. Those 4 games were so formative to my pop-culture tastes over 20 years later. If it weren't for that I would never have tried Golden Sun, or FF Tactics, or Kingdom Hearts even. I know it didn't introduce me to the hardcore Suikodens or Dragon Warrior/Quest stuff - but without it I might have never strayed from Zelda or platformers. So I'll always be grateful for that (also for the time I asked a family member to record the general battle theme looping 3 times without me playing!).
The US version of FF4 was not the same as Easy Type. Easy Type was straight easier than the US FF4. FF4US had changes that certainly made things easier: Remedy being changed to Heal, being the only status recovery item and being significantly cheaper, Ethers were significantly cheaper and available in every shop among other small changes But the removal of the one time use items and nearly all the various characters’ special abilities arguably make some parts of the game harder. Meanwhile easy type went all in on making the game easier with a plethora of changes.
The Snes version of FFII also had mechanical changes, such as bahamuts megaflare only going off every other countdown, also possibly Odiin. It took considerably more grinding to beat FFIV in chronicles, then it did in FFII, which was clearable around lvl 32. As someone who always runs Mt. Ordeals naked, because its the only way to keep the Dark Knight equipment Cecil is wearing at the time, I’ve become very familure on how the game works in the numerous playthroughs I’ve done.
@@chriskoschik391 To me, at least, the best thing about the original version of FFIV and most of the remakes based on it is that you never need to grind. If you just don't run away from every random battle you will have enough levels for the game to feel fair all the way until the final portion of the final dungeon. The DS remake breaks that with multiple difficulty spikes. But yeah, the most egregious one is lunar palace.
If you wanna play a great ROM hack , I’d say do the Ultima one. It’s amazing. Added bosses, huge range of weapons and new spells especially at end; and in the trek to the moon’s center, a whole chain of OP AF bosses a few of which I had to grind more to take down (A red Leviathan that spams Ultima - yes the Ultima spell is in this one - or a spirit that condemns you all from the start and you gotta haul ass to take it out).
Personally, I love this game. It isn't FF4 or FF6, but it was a fun journey and I have fond memories of the game. I still have my cart and I will go back and play this again a few times.
Those FF Pixel Remasters aren't even gonna include all the extra content they added to the various different ports, so Square-Enix continues to botch their FF ports as usual. Perhaps the Pixel Remasters not making it to consoles is a blessing in a disguise...
I have a feeling they're remaking the og FF's for console. Like, not FF7R style but better than FF3 and FF4's 3D remakes. They already sorta did that with FF1/Stranger of Paradise. Tho I think SOP was experimental too and we might still get a proper FF1 remake.
Good god the fonts in "pixel remaster", I want to be sick. Menus that look like mobile ports on spritework games look like ass, and that font is a crime against things that look merely like ass.
Japan: "Deam, dude, I wonder why our RPGs aren't popular in the west. Must be because they're too hard for them". Meanwhile, in the west: "PLYER used CUR3 on FONTN. FONTN is reviv and can SPRNT aganin." - Pivotal moment in the story.
I still like Mystic Quest. It was one of the first JRPGs I ever played, still has kickass music, the pixel art for the time is pretty decent, and gets me nostalgic still thinking about it. I still replay it sometimes. I don't think it was the worst Final Fantasy of all time either. I'd still play Mystic Quest any day over FF1 or FF2. I also remember renting Lufia 1 from Blockbuster shortly after playing Mystic Quest as well after it gave me a taste for turn-based JRPGs (it was another early JRPG for SNES. People only seem to mention/remember Lufia 2 though, but that wasn't out at the time.) Both MQ and Lufia 1 were very important for me in my early formative years as a gamer, getting me into the whole turned based JRPG genre and establishing what I expect from said genre.
I think because RPGs were so much different and also published by Japanese companies makes a difference. That and an RPG typically can’t be beaten in a weekend, so you’d inherently need to rent it multiple times. Just a thought. You’re right though
I wonder if part of it was the people some of these companies were working with. Nintendo thought American kids couldn't handle the actual 2nd Mario Bros even though that game isn't any more difficult than any other common high selling NES game. Someone was spreading some weird ideas about Americans at the time.
@@Etherman7 That's kind of a bad example, since that was probably a very smart decision. I mean, Mario The Lost Levels barely even belongs in the franchise. In retrospect, it was simultaneously way too similar to its predecessor to count as a new game, while being way too unfair in its design to count as the same game (it literally introduced forced soft locks, hidden block punishment, and pixel perfect shenanigans as intentional mechanics). The only games to take after it going forward were ROM hacks and Mario Maker levels. It still sold well in Japan, but it was honestly too "hard" regardless of east or west, given the game it was following and the games that came after in its ilk. Doki Doki Panic, on the other hand, was built from an engine pitched to be used for a Mario Bros sequel that got repurposed to fill a contract on a tight deadline. The amount of DNA in common from that game in future games in the Mario series is staggering. So, in many many ways, Mario Bros 2 (USA) is the more legitimate sequel to Mario Bros 1 than Mario Bros 2 (Japan), regardless of which of the two someone may or may not enjoy more. Mario 3 and Mario World knew it was better to be more clever in design than more punishingly hard. (And Mario 2 USA isn't even easy, anyway.) Last thing the NES needed for its reputation was for the flagship franchise to be churning out what consumers would perceive as cookie cutter repackages at full retail price. That's what killed Atari. The Mario 2 America got was hugely important to Nintendo's marketing strategy as a whole with the "Entertainment System" angle, avoiding the stigma from the great video game crash fresh on everyone's minds. Square was a bit shaky on what they were doing, Nintendo knew exactly what they were doing.
This was my 2nd ever RPG, but it was my very first Final Fantasy, and I beat it as a kid new to FFs and RPGs. It did its job with me. It solidified my RPG fandom. After Mystic Quest, I went on to Final Fantasy Legend 3 and Final Fantasy IV back to back.
Legend 3 was a doozy as a kid. But godamn that music that plays in the talon is so flipping good and catchy. Idk why but just thinking about that song kinda gives me chills.
during my classes in middle school i actually played this game on a site that emulated snes games using flash (i think?) and it was pretty fun because of how easy it was and i didn't have to spend 20 minutes skipping text dumps. First time hearing the soundtrack to this game actually, and it's awesome. i couldn't listen to the music before because, obviously, my teacher would know i was playing video games.
1:40 The disrespect. FFII levelling system is good and inventive. Like, The fire spell won't level up if you don't use it. To get strong, you must feel pain. No pain, no gain. You're not filling up a skill tree. You are training you characters to be better. For that reason alone, I cannot condone this blatant attack on FFII. Stop the hate 🖖
@@xxKrazyKxx I agree I think XV is the worst. One of the more boring combat systems and also an incredibly empty “open” world. Not to mention the soundtrack is pretty mediocre and the story being sold as incomplete without the movie and the DLCs gets a major thumbs down from me. After I beat that game I never wanted to play it again.
When I played these originally the potion/phoenix down against undead mechanic was probably the coolest thing they had. It was a pleasant surprise seeing them bring it back in FFVII-R
Do you just mean the Hellhound? I can't think of any other instance in the game where you can do that, as healing spells generally cannot be cast on enemies.
This is one of the best videos on this game I've seen. It's very fair, especially talking about the potential that seemed to be hiding behind the scenes. Nice job.
I knew something seemed familiar about the assets when I watched my older stepbrother play this. I played legends three and it makes so much sense now. It's kinda weird that legends three was more interesting. Especially since I was like.. 7. The first game I played at the age of 4 was ff4(2). Oddly legends 3 seemed to hit the spot this was trying to hit.
Bruh, Key to the Kingdom was the absolute sh*t when it came to board games. Takes me back about 25-30 years...I'm glad to see someone else remembers it!
This was my first rpg.I had a really hard time learning to read, this was the first time I enjoyed reading, and help me so much. This and secret of mana have a special place in my heart.
I remember my wife playing this a long time ago for nostalgia, and the soundtrack absolutely slapped. I also remember the story she told me about how she was clearing out a battlefield and feel asleep. When she woke up, she found she had cleared it out.
I played this game when I was seven and I remember actually thinking the red two headed dragon boss was hard, I was so proud when I beat it, which is funny to think back on now knowing what this game was made for
The boss theme you showed near the end of the video, man it gave me turtles in time flashbacks from their boss themes…. Man that game was good! I can’t remember how many times that was rented for sleep overs with my friends… it NEVER got old! Not gunna lie that’s like top 5 snes games I think!
MQ is unironically my second favorite Square game behind FFT. 6 year old me wouldn't have gone on to become an RPG addict if not for MQ and I appreciate the hell out of Doom Castle's track alongside the Battle and Final/Boss themes even to this day. On a slightly deeper note, I've also always felt like there was a tinge of overlap between MQ and FFV, I feel like even a couple of animations like that shrug are reused, if my memories can even be trusted. I don't know how much if any of the MQ team worked on FFV, but I can't help but wonder if that wasn't just the general headspace Square was in at that time? FFV does get a fair bit more tense later in the story, but that initial feeling of adventure and fun Bartz is about always kinda felt a lot like the general tone in MQ.
I can definitely see some connections there. Bartz and Benjamin's sprites even kind of look similar, though Benjy is more 'super-deformed' style (larger head).
Key To The Kingdom was my favorite game when I was a kid. I got it for Christmas one year. I wanted to play it all the time, but I could rarely get anyone to play it with me. I wish I still had this game, or could get a hold of a copy. Loved that game.
The A.I. carrying you with heals reminds me of Wild Arms 3. The characters set on auto would even inflict status effects and attack with the right magic for the monster's weakness.
Austin talking about Keys to the Kingdom: "I'm sure nobody knows what I'm talking about." Me: "...HOLY SHIT I HAD THAT GAME AS A KID". Seriously, I had vague memories of having some kind of fantasy board game as a kid and that sleeping giant, but I could never remember the name of it and didn't have enough information to really look for it and boom, here it is, in a video about freaking Mystic Quest.
Devil May Cry 3 must have been a response built up after all these years of getting easier versions of games from Japan. This time the default difficulty level is Japanese's hard mode and the game was well received and was a sales success.
You can see it that way, until you learn it wasn't intentional. Seems Capcom had it's fair share of SNAFUs, because Strider 2 came with a second disc that was the original game, but the labels were wrong. So disc 2 had the Strider 2 art and viceversa. As for DMC3, it's simple actually. And not at all region sensitive, it was Itsuno's way to right DMC2's wrongs and it's justified criticism
I will fight anyone that thinks Final Fantasy 2 was bad when Final Fantasy 3 exists. I don't care if FF3 made the job system, it also nearly destroyed it for all time. Thank god for FF5.
I usually do too, but last play through I fought him legit and, while you can beat him with a cycle of curing each other and casting white on him, he CAN kill you very quickly with status ailments. I actually had to fight him 3 times because of party wipes lol Also, this was clearing every battlefield and every single enemy in the game that appears on the map.
Mystic Quest is such a wonderful little game for what it at least attempts to do. I remember it being my first Final Fantasy game personally, and man it's such a wacky time capsule of a game.
Mystic quest was also my first rpg, and started my love of the genre. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I never understood all the hate that game got, it was unique!
One of my favorite final fantasy games actually it’s supposed to be a gate way into the JRPG Genre and I had fun with it even though it was super easy XD
1' 40" If you keep your expectations in check, and have a basic understanding of what you're getting into, Final Fantasy II is an enjoyable retro experience.
People love to dunk on it for it being different and easier than your typical Final Fantasy, when that was the whole point of it. I still think the music in it kicks ass and I would rather play that than the XIII trilogy and XV.
You just unearthed a memory. My brother bought a MQ SNES cart back when he was collecting them and that's how I played this. I remember hating fighting all the enemies but like you, I'm thorough so I did. Ended up burning myself out. But the battle theme is seared into my brain. It was my absolute favorite thing about all of those battles. Well that and the sprites.
Mystic Quest's music wasn't just in the arcade version of Theatrhythm, it was also in Curtain Call as DLC. Ironically I did play this in 2021 as my first game from the series as I'm gonna play through the whole series now that the pixel remasters are out.
Mystic Quest really looks like a turn-based Seiken Densetsu 1, also in how you have a system of rotating partners that come and go throughout the game. This could probably be a fun game if there's a romhack that re-balances the combat and the amount of enemies you have to face.
Y'know, speaking as a PAL gamer from the long-neglected island of Australia, I'm happy to say most of that horrible character art was left out of our version of the manual. We did get that badass pic of the Flamerus Rex though. This was my first Final Fantasy game too, for the obvious reason you mentioned that _no Final Fantasy games had been released in our country before VII._ Even at the time I could tell that the game was absurdly easy and simplistic, but I still found it oddly compelling- in fact I played through it _several_ times (although I had so few games back then that I spent all my gaming time playing through _every_ game I had several times, often back-to-back). It's impossibly to call "good", but it's charming enough that I still can't call it "bad" either. Plus, I do legitimately think the game is worth playing through for the soundtrack alone. The various dungeon themes and the escalating trinity of battle theme/boss theme/Dark King theme are seriously some of THE greatest tracks on the SNES, and I still stand by my claim that the Dark King theme and the Doom Castle theme are legitimately 2 of the greatest bits of gaming music of _all time._ Regardless, it's a timelessly nostalgic part of my gaming childhood that I'll always have fond memories of.
Playing Mystic Quest with my brother and rocking out to the BANGER soundtrack (We would go back to Dark King just for the music) is one of my favorite memories. Sure its an RPG for babies.....
This my first game into jrpg, into video games in general. It holds a special place in my heart. I remember coming home from school and running to turn on the SNES to play this game. I didn't know what the story was or what I was doing. But I knew I loved every bit of it
great video! very fair commentary. i kinda... inherited a snes from my uncle with a bunch of cartridges and have been slowly making my way through the titles. he has a couple of FF games and when i noticed this didn't have a number in it i thought "oh this must be the first one" lmao. in all fairness, it feels like a FIRST, which i imagine it's as was intended. and i had a lot of fun! it's what made me 'get' how jrpgs are supposed to work/be played and come back to titles i had tried to play and been confused by. it's strange to say i have a soft spot for it since i played it in 2020, as an adult and not very long ago, but, oh, well. that's what happened.
In Europe/Germany our first official Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy 7. We did not got any Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound or Super Mario RPG on the SNES. But I am glad to have imported them anyway and played them on my 50 Hz system with an adapter for the SNES. :-)
this was too my first final fantasy game. i didn't even know this was a final fantasy game until years later. thank you so much for this video. i needed this trip down memory lane.
This game was one of my very first RPG, I was 5 years old and, with the game and the manual, my imagination was really on fire with it. I was teling myself a ton of stories and, more, playing it with my elder brother made me learning how to read. It's clearly a RPG for children - discovering the genre with it led me to appreciate A LOT Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy VII.
1) my dad got me Key to the Kingdom when I was a kid. No one could figure out anything about it. So me n my sis made our rules and played it chaos. 2) I WILL NOT GO TO SLEEP
FF II. Oh man! I remember playing that one on the PSP Remake back in the day and after finishing it, I didn't look back on it. The only Final Fantasy game at the time that I didn't replay. Well, until the XIII Trilogy came out but least the gameplay were fun on those trilogy.
@@lorenzolyleabadia1669 Yeah, I am not a XIII fan at all but at least the gameplay in those can be fun. II is just nothing. A boring grindy RPG with a bad story.
@@Jonasansu 2 has one of the best soundtracks. Also the game is not grindy at all lol, it’s incredibly easy, the only difficulty comes from having a revolving 4th party member that’s always weaker than the rest of your party. It’s not a bad game, just different. I actually enjoyed the story and I think the game overall gets too much flack for being non-traditional compared to other turn-based games of the genre.
So I bought this the day it came out and beat it in like 2 days. I was a huge fan of the series and use to get EGM and was always wowed by the pictures of Final Fantasy 5 & 6 I would see and was mind blown that we were only at 2 in the US. I remember buying the greatest Final Fantasy game 3/6 at midnight at Walmart while having a sleepover at a friend's house (there were 4 of us there) we had to start a timer and give everyone a 30 minute limit. I don't recall us really sleeping at all that night. Just someone might take a nap in between their turns and have to be caught up when we woke them 5 minutes before their turn. Also fun fact, the employees at Walmart had no clue what I was talking about and I made them go to the back and find it. Good times.
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Happy ALMOST 4th of July! What was your first JRPG? Was it as ripe with American passion as Mystic Quest?
I played the hell out of key to the kingdom! I am 39 though.
my first JRPG was the original Dragon Warrior for the NES, that was my first one. I enjoyed it and that was the one that opened me up to the world of JRPGS
My first RPG was Wild ARMS. It’s so fantastic. If you’ve never played it, it’s a mix between steampunk and Wild West America. So yeah, I guess that counts as having American passion.
My first was earthbound
@@NeoMatten I very much enjoy the first 3 games of Wild Arms, to me personally the first 3 games were great games.
My Grandma used Mystic Quest to teach me how to read and write. She loved video games. I still have the cartridge, and I'll never get rid of it. It's a decent game, wish people didn't hate on it so much.
Your grandma was awesome!
Your grandma knew that this game is a gem!!
tbh it's not that bad just a bit simplistic.
she should have used s k i l l s h r e
You must have had an awesome Granny!
People always shit on Mystic Quest for being too easy and simplifield, but I still think it is a fun little game. Gets more hate than it deserves. The music is bomb, the sprites are great and it is a great introduction unironically for newcomers.
I personally find that Mystic Quest is a good game, it's not bad... but it had such potential to be great but then... it just turned out to be good. I really enjoy to this day still, and I keep going back to it every now and then.
I really don't get the hate. Literally everyone I personally know who has played the game, regardless of whether they're fans of rpgs or not, thinks it's a great game even if it's not perfect. But what game is perfect anyways?
I think some of the complaints in this video seem kinda superfluous anyways though. Like complaining about the amount of battles. Not only is that a bit of a strange complaint when you consider the genre but he even addressed the fact that you can avoid most of the battles anyways due to them not being random. Complaints about the art seem kinda pointless as well. Like I get the complaints about the European art but the in-game art looks just fine. And the complaints about the battle system seem to be more a complaint about difficulty than the battle system itself having issues which is kinda missing the point of an entry in the series that was explicitly meant to be an entry level introduction to the genre.
At least he had the wherewithal to acknowledge that the soundtrack is fantastic.
I find that people that complain about difficulty forget two things.
1. Its not supposed to be difficult
2. If you want difficulty book a little bit of effort into making it difficult, maybe don't grind every xp you can max out or your items and get all the equipment, also when you die in battle reset the game.
I wish it had kicked off a trend, y'know? There's a place for shorter, lightweight RPGs you can play through on a rainy weekend. But Mystic Quest got buried and that never really happened.
The music is really good. It makes the game more fun and I agree, the hate tracks with all of my general problems with a certain type of Fandom.
I think this game was a lot more successful than people give it credit for, or that it's sales reflect. Everyone I've ever known who played this game, say that this is the game that got them into JRPGs. Which is exactly what it set out to do. Those people have become lifelong fans and bought far more FF games down the line. So the initial sales weren't great, but they translated into later sales of other games.
That's wild, need to hear more about that. It's almost like the people who were upset with this game were not it's target audience, and I see this phenomenon is reflected in the much older Pokemon fans, who have become older, but the target audience of Pokemon stayed the same.
I can confirm this comment; It was my first ever RPG as well and now I've played pretty much every Final Fantasy game and spin-offs, alongside a whole pletera of other RPGs. There probably would have been other games that would have brought me to where I am now if Mystic Quest didn't exist, but it's a fact for me that the game that shaped my love for RPGs is ironically the one set out to be an introductionary title.
So true...I was a seasoned JRPG kid by that time and was still able to appreciate it. I enjoyed it a lot. I did feel that it was too easy for me at the time, but still had tons of fun with it.I enjoyed the characters, my favorite was Tristan.
The music was great. And I dug the world. I would agree that it wasn't for everyone, but its not a throwaway game.
It got my little brother into RPGs, not he's a RPG beast.
I played it after playing 6 as a kid.
And I enjoyed it for what it was as a kid. I thought it was simple but charming and different enough to be its own thing in my kid mind.
I played this game when I was around 6-7 years old and it was the greatest thing ever, having NEVER played a JRPG or RPG ever. My parents rented this game for me, so I guess that didn't contribute to its sales... But it did lead to me becoming interested in the Final Fantasy franchise overall and eventually becoming a fan.
fun fact, if your magic stat is high enough, you can "cure" the last boss to death. games causes the damage calculator to roll over and you'll damage him instead, thus defeating him with 3-4 cure spells :)
You could kill him with one healing spell. That's how my cousin introduced me to it after 4. He told me to start the fight and cast the strongest healing spell. The boss then said "is that all you can muster?" then transformed into the maimed spider and died.
Then he informed me I had just defeated the last boss and I watched as the end sequence played.
@@StreetofCrocodiles holy shit lmao
Potions did like 50k damage to him too
The bonerex is weak to life in the first dungeon its a 10000 hit wonderful killing .
@@StreetofCrocodiles Your cousin sounds cool
"Why does is Chrono break" made my brain hurt
Austin - thank you for giving Mystic Quest some credit at the end. I'm not a huge JRPG person, but as a 4-year old in 1997 I went to my grandmother's house and she had an SNES. I spent most of my time flipping between, Zelda 3, Mario World, DK Country, and Mystic Quest. Those 4 games were so formative to my pop-culture tastes over 20 years later. If it weren't for that I would never have tried Golden Sun, or FF Tactics, or Kingdom Hearts even. I know it didn't introduce me to the hardcore Suikodens or Dragon Warrior/Quest stuff - but without it I might have never strayed from Zelda or platformers. So I'll always be grateful for that (also for the time I asked a family member to record the general battle theme looping 3 times without me playing!).
The US version of FF4 was not the same as Easy Type. Easy Type was straight easier than the US FF4.
FF4US had changes that certainly made things easier: Remedy being changed to Heal, being the only status recovery item and being significantly cheaper, Ethers were significantly cheaper and available in every shop among other small changes
But the removal of the one time use items and nearly all the various characters’ special abilities arguably make some parts of the game harder.
Meanwhile easy type went all in on making the game easier with a plethora of changes.
The Snes version of FFII also had mechanical changes, such as bahamuts megaflare only going off every other countdown, also possibly Odiin.
It took considerably more grinding to beat FFIV in chronicles, then it did in FFII, which was clearable around lvl 32.
As someone who always runs Mt. Ordeals naked, because its the only way to keep the Dark Knight equipment Cecil is wearing at the time, I’ve become very familure on how the game works in the numerous playthroughs I’ve done.
There are a lot if little historical errors in the video, most of them formerly common misconceptions in the import fandom.
I’ve played the Japanese version of FFIV and it’s honestly not that much harder. The DS version can be fairly nasty though. 2 red dragons? Oh shit.
@@chriskoschik391 To me, at least, the best thing about the original version of FFIV and most of the remakes based on it is that you never need to grind. If you just don't run away from every random battle you will have enough levels for the game to feel fair all the way until the final portion of the final dungeon. The DS remake breaks that with multiple difficulty spikes. But yeah, the most egregious one is lunar palace.
If you wanna play a great ROM hack , I’d say do the Ultima one. It’s amazing. Added bosses, huge range of weapons and new spells especially at end; and in the trek to the moon’s center, a whole chain of OP AF bosses a few of which I had to grind more to take down (A red Leviathan that spams Ultima - yes the Ultima spell is in this one - or a spirit that condemns you all from the start and you gotta haul ass to take it out).
Personally, I love this game. It isn't FF4 or FF6, but it was a fun journey and I have fond memories of the game. I still have my cart and I will go back and play this again a few times.
Those FF Pixel Remasters aren't even gonna include all the extra content they added to the various different ports, so Square-Enix continues to botch their FF ports as usual.
Perhaps the Pixel Remasters not making it to consoles is a blessing in a disguise...
I have a feeling they're remaking the og FF's for console.
Like, not FF7R style but better than FF3 and FF4's 3D remakes.
They already sorta did that with FF1/Stranger of Paradise. Tho I think SOP was experimental too and we might still get a proper FF1 remake.
Good god the fonts in "pixel remaster", I want to be sick. Menus that look like mobile ports on spritework games look like ass, and that font is a crime against things that look merely like ass.
Brings up 'ass' multiple times. Yep, username checks out.
It did inspire Shadows of Adam, so it gets points.
Shadows of Adam is an overwhelmingly better game though. And the part about being inspired by FFMQ made me a little hesitant to get it.
While Current Day Square Enix inspires depression and Rage in me. Guardians of the Galaxy game and we don’t get to play as Groot what the fuck?
Japan: "Deam, dude, I wonder why our RPGs aren't popular in the west. Must be because they're too hard for them".
Meanwhile, in the west: "PLYER used CUR3 on FONTN. FONTN is reviv and can SPRNT aganin." - Pivotal moment in the story.
I still like Mystic Quest. It was one of the first JRPGs I ever played, still has kickass music, the pixel art for the time is pretty decent, and gets me nostalgic still thinking about it. I still replay it sometimes. I don't think it was the worst Final Fantasy of all time either. I'd still play Mystic Quest any day over FF1 or FF2. I also remember renting Lufia 1 from Blockbuster shortly after playing Mystic Quest as well after it gave me a taste for turn-based JRPGs (it was another early JRPG for SNES. People only seem to mention/remember Lufia 2 though, but that wasn't out at the time.) Both MQ and Lufia 1 were very important for me in my early formative years as a gamer, getting me into the whole turned based JRPG genre and establishing what I expect from said genre.
Strange, usually American publishers in those days tried to make games *_more_* difficult in order to combat video rental stores.
I think because RPGs were so much different and also published by Japanese companies makes a difference. That and an RPG typically can’t be beaten in a weekend, so you’d inherently need to rent it multiple times. Just a thought. You’re right though
I wonder if part of it was the people some of these companies were working with. Nintendo thought American kids couldn't handle the actual 2nd Mario Bros even though that game isn't any more difficult than any other common high selling NES game. Someone was spreading some weird ideas about Americans at the time.
There really isn't a clear majority either way, there are many examples of games being both easier and harder.
@@NumberOneHorseDrowner To me, at least, it seems that far more games have been made harder when brought to the US than made easier.
@@Etherman7 That's kind of a bad example, since that was probably a very smart decision.
I mean, Mario The Lost Levels barely even belongs in the franchise. In retrospect, it was simultaneously way too similar to its predecessor to count as a new game, while being way too unfair in its design to count as the same game (it literally introduced forced soft locks, hidden block punishment, and pixel perfect shenanigans as intentional mechanics). The only games to take after it going forward were ROM hacks and Mario Maker levels. It still sold well in Japan, but it was honestly too "hard" regardless of east or west, given the game it was following and the games that came after in its ilk.
Doki Doki Panic, on the other hand, was built from an engine pitched to be used for a Mario Bros sequel that got repurposed to fill a contract on a tight deadline. The amount of DNA in common from that game in future games in the Mario series is staggering. So, in many many ways, Mario Bros 2 (USA) is the more legitimate sequel to Mario Bros 1 than Mario Bros 2 (Japan), regardless of which of the two someone may or may not enjoy more. Mario 3 and Mario World knew it was better to be more clever in design than more punishingly hard. (And Mario 2 USA isn't even easy, anyway.)
Last thing the NES needed for its reputation was for the flagship franchise to be churning out what consumers would perceive as cookie cutter repackages at full retail price. That's what killed Atari. The Mario 2 America got was hugely important to Nintendo's marketing strategy as a whole with the "Entertainment System" angle, avoiding the stigma from the great video game crash fresh on everyone's minds. Square was a bit shaky on what they were doing, Nintendo knew exactly what they were doing.
it seems to be Mystic Quest season. SomeCallMeJohnny covered this recently.
we love to see it 🙏🏽
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
This was my 2nd ever RPG, but it was my very first Final Fantasy, and I beat it as a kid new to FFs and RPGs.
It did its job with me. It solidified my RPG fandom. After Mystic Quest, I went on to Final Fantasy Legend 3 and Final Fantasy IV back to back.
Legend 3 was a doozy as a kid. But godamn that music that plays in the talon is so flipping good and catchy. Idk why but just thinking about that song kinda gives me chills.
during my classes in middle school i actually played this game on a site that emulated snes games using flash (i think?) and it was pretty fun because of how easy it was and i didn't have to spend 20 minutes skipping text dumps.
First time hearing the soundtrack to this game actually, and it's awesome. i couldn't listen to the music before because, obviously, my teacher would know i was playing video games.
1:40 The disrespect. FFII levelling system is good and inventive. Like, The fire spell won't level up if you don't use it. To get strong, you must feel pain. No pain, no gain. You're not filling up a skill tree. You are training you characters to be better.
For that reason alone, I cannot condone this blatant attack on FFII. Stop the hate 🖖
I agree wtf
Couldn't agree more. I contend that FF XIII is the worst Final Fantasy followed very closely by FF XV. I absolutely hate both of those games.
@@xxKrazyKxx I agree I think XV is the worst. One of the more boring combat systems and also an incredibly empty “open” world. Not to mention the soundtrack is pretty mediocre and the story being sold as incomplete without the movie and the DLCs gets a major thumbs down from me. After I beat that game I never wanted to play it again.
When I played these originally the potion/phoenix down against undead mechanic was probably the coolest thing they had. It was a pleasant surprise seeing them bring it back in FFVII-R
Do you just mean the Hellhound? I can't think of any other instance in the game where you can do that, as healing spells generally cannot be cast on enemies.
@@alxjones not sure about healing spells but I remember using phoenix downs on ghosts and the hellhound.
Renting this game as a kid was confusing as heck after playing FF6
21:50 Pazuzu returns as an overworld boss in FFXIV
The game has bitchin music, that alone is enough to play it.
This is one of the best videos on this game I've seen. It's very fair, especially talking about the potential that seemed to be hiding behind the scenes. Nice job.
"most people think it's the worst which is impossible when this exists"
Me: replaces final fantasy 2 box with a case for final fantasy 8
Mystic Quest may be a bit simplified, but I'd honestly take it over Final Fantasy II any day of the week.
Yea because 2 is too hard for you ! Duh!
Sure, let’s go with that
I will never understand why this game only got 2 songs in Theaterhythm: Curtain Call.
I knew something seemed familiar about the assets when I watched my older stepbrother play this. I played legends three and it makes so much sense now. It's kinda weird that legends three was more interesting. Especially since I was like.. 7.
The first game I played at the age of 4 was ff4(2).
Oddly legends 3 seemed to hit the spot this was trying to hit.
Bruh, Key to the Kingdom was the absolute sh*t when it came to board games. Takes me back about 25-30 years...I'm glad to see someone else remembers it!
It was a great game. Sadly my copy got destroyed during a flood.
This was my first rpg.I had a really hard time learning to read, this was the first time I enjoyed reading, and help me so much. This and secret of mana have a special place in my heart.
I remember my wife playing this a long time ago for nostalgia, and the soundtrack absolutely slapped.
I also remember the story she told me about how she was clearing out a battlefield and feel asleep. When she woke up, she found she had cleared it out.
Like she did the thing where you nod off while pushing in a direction, but in this game that got her in fights where the AI then carried the fight?
@@Coreisus Exactly that. Lol
Aw ye, glad to see Austin finally cover Mystic Quest ☺️
I played this game when I was seven and I remember actually thinking the red two headed dragon boss was hard, I was so proud when I beat it, which is funny to think back on now knowing what this game was made for
The boss theme you showed near the end of the video, man it gave me turtles in time flashbacks from their boss themes…. Man that game was good! I can’t remember how many times that was rented for sleep overs with my friends… it NEVER got old! Not gunna lie that’s like top 5 snes games I think!
It's bizarre that the developers of one of the most difficult jrpg series (SaGa) would develop one of the easiest jrpg ever.
Im Waiting for you to play and experience Terranigma and yes the European artworks are also awful
I am playing that currently.
@@louisskulnik7390 Terranigma is my favorite Snes game and one of my Top 5 favorite games! Have you beaten it? And did you like it?
Mystic Quest has some cool ideas
MQ is unironically my second favorite Square game behind FFT. 6 year old me wouldn't have gone on to become an RPG addict if not for MQ and I appreciate the hell out of Doom Castle's track alongside the Battle and Final/Boss themes even to this day.
On a slightly deeper note, I've also always felt like there was a tinge of overlap between MQ and FFV, I feel like even a couple of animations like that shrug are reused, if my memories can even be trusted. I don't know how much if any of the MQ team worked on FFV, but I can't help but wonder if that wasn't just the general headspace Square was in at that time? FFV does get a fair bit more tense later in the story, but that initial feeling of adventure and fun Bartz is about always kinda felt a lot like the general tone in MQ.
I can definitely see some connections there. Bartz and Benjamin's sprites even kind of look similar, though Benjy is more 'super-deformed' style (larger head).
Key To The Kingdom was my favorite game when I was a kid. I got it for Christmas one year. I wanted to play it all the time, but I could rarely get anyone to play it with me. I wish I still had this game, or could get a hold of a copy. Loved that game.
the ronin warriors reference took me back i loved that show
I haven't though about key to the kingdom in forever
19:34 The "cutscene" of the massive tree walking across the forest was like that so you could read the message spelled with tiny tree sprites.
Seriously though .. that’s was a nice transition into the sponsor spot .. well done sir ..
This is my first Final Fantasy too!! I remember when you finally beat Medusa down she would end up bald. Poor gal.
Someone, please don't make me type "anime with the butt lazer" into google
So? We already got butt bullets thanks to Astroboy.
The A.I. carrying you with heals reminds me of Wild Arms 3. The characters set on auto would even inflict status effects and attack with the right magic for the monster's weakness.
Austin talking about Keys to the Kingdom: "I'm sure nobody knows what I'm talking about."
Me: "...HOLY SHIT I HAD THAT GAME AS A KID".
Seriously, I had vague memories of having some kind of fantasy board game as a kid and that sleeping giant, but I could never remember the name of it and didn't have enough information to really look for it and boom, here it is, in a video about freaking Mystic Quest.
Devil May Cry 3 must have been a response built up after all these years of getting easier versions of games from Japan. This time the default difficulty level is Japanese's hard mode and the game was well received and was a sales success.
You can see it that way, until you learn it wasn't intentional. Seems Capcom had it's fair share of
SNAFUs, because Strider 2 came with a second disc that was the original game, but the labels
were wrong. So disc 2 had the Strider 2 art and viceversa. As for DMC3, it's simple actually.
And not at all region sensitive, it was Itsuno's way to right DMC2's wrongs and it's justified criticism
1:04 I remember when Japan was responsible for operation meteor
There are Chocobos on top of the houses in Windia.
It was my first rpg ever! And its very special for me. Still love the music
I will fight anyone that thinks Final Fantasy 2 was bad when Final Fantasy 3 exists. I don't care if FF3 made the job system, it also nearly destroyed it for all time. Thank god for FF5.
actually, Mystic Quest was originally an OneeChanbara title before it was reskinned as a Final Fantasy game
I've never fought the final boss in this game legitimately. I always just cure him to death.
I usually do too, but last play through I fought him legit and, while you can beat him with a cycle of curing each other and casting white on him, he CAN kill you very quickly with status ailments. I actually had to fight him 3 times because of party wipes lol
Also, this was clearing every battlefield and every single enemy in the game that appears on the map.
@@chriskoschik391 Huh. I'm going to have to give it a try legit sometime.
that poor hot dog
I will not stand for this Final Fantasy 2 slander!
Mystic Quest is such a wonderful little game for what it at least attempts to do. I remember it being my first Final Fantasy game personally, and man it's such a wacky time capsule of a game.
Mystic quest was also my first rpg, and started my love of the genre. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I never understood all the hate that game got, it was unique!
Pokemon was my first rpg, but Golden Sun really helped me understand the mechanics better.
Golden Sun got a lot of their influences from Lufia 2 (the overworld abilities/items/puzzles/etc.)
I wish this would get a remake to expand on the story
...read a fucking book.
@@Ponaru if you don’t have anything nice to say…
This was an actually adorable video. Great work, mate.
Quest is a guilty pleasure for me. Its dumb but the overworld items are fun and it has some funny moments
Not gonna lie! I loved this game when I was 8!
It will always have a special place with me. beside my training wheel bike in the attic.
One of my favorite final fantasy games actually it’s supposed to be a gate way into the JRPG Genre and I had fun with it even though it was super easy XD
1' 40" If you keep your expectations in check, and have a basic understanding of what you're getting into, Final Fantasy II is an enjoyable retro experience.
I would have loved this game as a kid. It's perfect for young folk and a great introduction in to RPGs.
Mystic Quest, where the final boss can be killed with a couple healing spells and a resurrection spell.
you take that FFII hate BACK sir >:(
People love to dunk on it for it being different and easier than your typical Final Fantasy, when that was the whole point of it. I still think the music in it kicks ass and I would rather play that than the XIII trilogy and XV.
XV wasn’t so bad though. I liked it at least
who are you kidding?
"It's a game I learned many skills from including basic subtraction & breathing"
All I know is breathing & fine dining..
The boss battle theme is pretty boss, all right.
Hans Moleman voice: I want to play Enchanted Arms...
That “LFG Dunes party” triggered some PTSD.
I loved playing Mystic quest growing up, I was kinda sad that the fan made remaster project got a Cease and Desist a while back
You just unearthed a memory. My brother bought a MQ SNES cart back when he was collecting them and that's how I played this. I remember hating fighting all the enemies but like you, I'm thorough so I did. Ended up burning myself out. But the battle theme is seared into my brain. It was my absolute favorite thing about all of those battles. Well that and the sprites.
On the lonely island that is the Final Fantasy II fandom, I resent that remark. Boo-urns! Boo-urns!
Can't say any FF is the worst when All The Bravest exist
You and Kbash are two of the most underrated channels.
Mystic Quest's music wasn't just in the arcade version of Theatrhythm, it was also in Curtain Call as DLC.
Ironically I did play this in 2021 as my first game from the series as I'm gonna play through the whole series now that the pixel remasters are out.
10:15 The music....it's the biggest highlight of Mystic Quest. Who composed this?
90s RPG without grinding? Suikoden. Didn't grind once.
Mystic Quest really looks like a turn-based Seiken Densetsu 1, also in how you have a system of rotating partners that come and go throughout the game.
This could probably be a fun game if there's a romhack that re-balances the combat and the amount of enemies you have to face.
Y'know, speaking as a PAL gamer from the long-neglected island of Australia, I'm happy to say most of that horrible character art was left out of our version of the manual. We did get that badass pic of the Flamerus Rex though. This was my first Final Fantasy game too, for the obvious reason you mentioned that _no Final Fantasy games had been released in our country before VII._ Even at the time I could tell that the game was absurdly easy and simplistic, but I still found it oddly compelling- in fact I played through it _several_ times (although I had so few games back then that I spent all my gaming time playing through _every_ game I had several times, often back-to-back). It's impossibly to call "good", but it's charming enough that I still can't call it "bad" either. Plus, I do legitimately think the game is worth playing through for the soundtrack alone. The various dungeon themes and the escalating trinity of battle theme/boss theme/Dark King theme are seriously some of THE greatest tracks on the SNES, and I still stand by my claim that the Dark King theme and the Doom Castle theme are legitimately 2 of the greatest bits of gaming music of _all time._ Regardless, it's a timelessly nostalgic part of my gaming childhood that I'll always have fond memories of.
Does anyone know what track plays in the background at 19:55?
Playing Mystic Quest with my brother and rocking out to the BANGER soundtrack (We would go back to Dark King just for the music) is one of my favorite memories. Sure its an RPG for babies.....
20:50 the sound I made when I first played Dragon Quest 4.
This my first game into jrpg, into video games in general. It holds a special place in my heart. I remember coming home from school and running to turn on the SNES to play this game. I didn't know what the story was or what I was doing. But I knew I loved every bit of it
great video! very fair commentary. i kinda... inherited a snes from my uncle with a bunch of cartridges and have been slowly making my way through the titles. he has a couple of FF games and when i noticed this didn't have a number in it i thought "oh this must be the first one" lmao. in all fairness, it feels like a FIRST, which i imagine it's as was intended. and i had a lot of fun! it's what made me 'get' how jrpgs are supposed to work/be played and come back to titles i had tried to play and been confused by. it's strange to say i have a soft spot for it since i played it in 2020, as an adult and not very long ago, but, oh, well. that's what happened.
In Europe/Germany our first official Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy 7. We did not got any Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound or Super Mario RPG on the SNES.
But I am glad to have imported them anyway and played them on my 50 Hz system with an adapter for the SNES. :-)
this was too my first final fantasy game.
i didn't even know this was a final fantasy game until years later.
thank you so much for this video. i needed this trip down memory lane.
It took me 25 years to get that battle theme out of my head and now it may take 25 more
This game was one of my very first RPG, I was 5 years old and, with the game and the manual, my imagination was really on fire with it. I was teling myself a ton of stories and, more, playing it with my elder brother made me learning how to read.
It's clearly a RPG for children - discovering the genre with it led me to appreciate A LOT Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy VII.
Mystic quest is awesome! Always hoped square would give it a remake
18:00 I was stuck on that for years as a dumb kid. I grinded to like level 25 on Mt Kolts and failed.
1) my dad got me Key to the Kingdom when I was a kid. No one could figure out anything about it. So me n my sis made our rules and played it chaos.
2) I WILL NOT GO TO SLEEP
Thank you for also being on the FFII being the worst FF train, it was getting lonely.
FF II.
Oh man! I remember playing that one on the PSP Remake back in the day and after finishing it, I didn't look back on it. The only Final Fantasy game at the time that I didn't replay. Well, until the XIII Trilogy came out but least the gameplay were fun on those trilogy.
@@lorenzolyleabadia1669 Yeah, I am not a XIII fan at all but at least the gameplay in those can be fun. II is just nothing. A boring grindy RPG with a bad story.
@@Jonasansu 2 has one of the best soundtracks. Also the game is not grindy at all lol, it’s incredibly easy, the only difficulty comes from having a revolving 4th party member that’s always weaker than the rest of your party. It’s not a bad game, just different. I actually enjoyed the story and I think the game overall gets too much flack for being non-traditional compared to other turn-based games of the genre.
I love Dragon Quest and yes, more Americans should play it if just so they can’t bitch about the hero in Smash
So I bought this the day it came out and beat it in like 2 days. I was a huge fan of the series and use to get EGM and was always wowed by the pictures of Final Fantasy 5 & 6 I would see and was mind blown that we were only at 2 in the US. I remember buying the greatest Final Fantasy game 3/6 at midnight at Walmart while having a sleepover at a friend's house (there were 4 of us there) we had to start a timer and give everyone a 30 minute limit. I don't recall us really sleeping at all that night. Just someone might take a nap in between their turns and have to be caught up when we woke them 5 minutes before their turn. Also fun fact, the employees at Walmart had no clue what I was talking about and I made them go to the back and find it. Good times.
9:46 "Have Fire? Lose it. Melt the Ice."
The good thing about good ol' Ben, is that he can potentially be immune to all status effects if you find all of the armor and shields.