I will always have a soft spot in my heart for FF:MQ. It is one of the very few video games my mother ever played (starting with my Atari 2600 onwards), and the only one she ever completed front to back with no help (pre internet walkthroughs). She was by no means a "gamer". I walked in from school one day just in time to see her walking up to the final boss. Felt kinda proud of her.
Similar memory. Mom would level me up after I went to bed and liked to watch me progress in the game. My first turn based rpg and I have a real soft spot for it. Moms right?!
The game is full of enemies who can one-hit kill you on their first turn and there's nothing you can do about it. No matter how hard you grind, how well you prepare, you might get OHKO'd on round one for no good reason. What makes it super easy is that you can continue right at the start of the battle, no need to load up a save point or anything.
This game has perplexed me for so many years. On one hand, many write it off as some horrible black sheep of the series but on the other hand it's just a simple straight and narrow role playing adventure that I look back on fondly. I cant help but wonder what it would have been like if it was a fully fleshed out Final Fantasy game that looked and played like FF4 with the ATB and everything. Music is killer too.
Even a FF1-3-style turn based would have worked if the difficulty was higher, only mechanics I think were truely "problematic" were the battle retry feature, and the feature of white magic doing stuff when used against monsters (Exit acts as a kill-all that works against ALMOST everything).
@@roymerkel8008 true and it could have been unique in the sense of being a SNES entry with the NES classic turn based system. Either way, I'm happy this video showed me the game is still alive in speedrun form
The game was what it was supposed to be. A beginner’s RPG. RPGs weren’t as popular in the West at the time, and the thought was that they were too difficult for Western audiences (western console gamers were younger than their Japanese counterparts due to the NES being advertised as a toy, not as a video game system; the advertisements for the SNES continued down the same path). This is also why FF4 was nerfed in its original US release and why FF5 wasn’t originally released here (we got Mystic Quest instead). It wasn’t until FF6 that Square finally gave the Western market a fully realized FF on the SNES that wasn’t nerfed. Mystic Quest was simply made for younger audiences. And with that in mind, it was a decent game for what it was made for, even though it was a bit insulting that Square made it that way.
I didn’t care when I was five years old that mystic quest was babies first RPG. Now that I’m 33 I still don’t care because it has some bangers for tracks
Ahh FFMQ. Some people love to hate on the game but I have very fond memories of it as a kid. I had played through the original FF, the Dragon Warrior games on the NES and FF II on the SNES before jumping into FFMQ but I still really liked it. I'm still fond of it even though I had to send my cartridge back to Square and get a replacement due to a hard lock issue in the Wintry Cave area. I still have one of the original model SNES's and the initial shipping version of FFMQ would hard lock whenever the music that's in the Wintry Cave area was played.
I still have one of those bad cartages. I figured out about the music also, the tunnel Phoebe's father is digging can also become unresponsive. Fortunately it doesn't lock all the time, so I was able to play through those sections, I just had to reset a few times.
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
@@jaimereupert4247 yeah those things are so neat. It's a fun, weird combination between Final Fantasy and Legend Of Zelda that somehow didn't appeal to fans of either.
While they called it a glitch, I quite liked that you could use white magic offensively. The life spell acted like doom on living enemies, and the heal spell could place a random status effect on an enemy, similar to the dragon claw. Cure hurting the undead was standard of course.
@@DemiImp to be fair the enemy had to be vulnerable to a status for it to even work. I remember silencing wizards and blinding ninjas. It could also fail, I don't know if the enemy resisted the effect, or if heal just picked a status effect that the enemy was immune to.
Sounds similar to how you can use Tents in battle in Final Fantasy 9 to inflict status ailments on enemies (but also heal their HP/MP because it's a Tent).
The Initial story of misinterpretation of data is a perfect example why you should always consult a domain expert in data science. I might use that in a future presentation.
for as much shit as this game gets, it has a few neat things, equipment having overworld uses, the monsters sprites changing as the fight goes on and the overworld itself changing as you progress.
I Also loved how every item and piece of gear had a cool graphic instead of just a name and how each piece of equipment had stuff like extra resistances instead of just boring stat upgrades.
Definetly. TAS benefit immediately from game data because they have no problems hitting inhuman executions. It furthers their runs. Regular speedrunners then take this info and experiment seeing if a human could do it. While they could look at data that time might be better spent actually speed running and refining techniques so they dont drop runs
I just found this game in my snes collection, I believe I tried to play this when I was like 5-6 and couldn’t really grasp it without any guidance. I saw the title and thought “huh, they’d probably get sued by FF if they used this title these days” and then I saw a red FF2 cartridge. Needless to say the last 8 hours have gone to me navigating to Windia. Still figuring out a few new things like I can group heal and even use healing on enemies. If anyone has any suggestions or tips plz let me know!
Holy smokes... thank you! This explains a lot of things that I went through as I worked on a personal FFMQ project. I remade FFMQ, entirely in RPG Maker MV, from start to finish and tried to stay as close to the original formulas as possible. It's full and done, but the formulas are off all over, because this inconsistency and headscratching is *exactly* what I ran into as I tried to transcode the game. I did not realize the frames were being used. But, even if there are frame things, this game is just incorrectly documented in a lot of places. In particular, I found the Wizard's spell formula is NOT correct on any of the Wiki's and I couldn't solve it. Eventually, I decided to just release Memeal Mantasy Fystic Quest and I am happy... but you brought up a lot of coding PTSD LOLOLOL
I really need a good remake of this game in my life in the not too distant future. It was the first RPG I played back in the early 90s and I've been a fan of this genre ever since. It's really basic and all, but that's exactly what I (and probably many others) needed at the time.
Old video games speed running is a display of innovation. Reverse engineering a game that was thought to be random and finding patterns or bugs in algorithms that were used by programmers with limited memory space. It also is magic because not every game was coded the same way so different techniques of code writing have different outcomes when reverse engineering for a speed run and optimization.
This is absolutely hilarious for Super Conflict because of how damage calc works. You can kill whole ass battleships and carriers with standard infantry 😆 "Pew pew pew!" *BRIGHT BLINDING FLASH* _mushroom cloud_ It's just for fun though because _infantry have the longest attack animation_ (firing rifles, ejecting magazine, inserting a new one) making the trick useless for running Don't remember exactly how it goes but both penetration and damage are frame based, _but calculated separately_ which can lead to battleships firing upon those same infantry _doing no/1hp damage_ then dying to the retaliation. (Each side gets 3 attack attempts per encounter, making many misses in a row wreck speed runs) Unlike how the animation looks, everything is decided during the initial roll up, so you immediately know if you're boned, _not a good feeling when you miss that Mark 57 stages in!_ 😖
I often find people often let their pride as a "hardcore" gamer get the better of them when judging this and many other more casual jrpgs. This one definitely being more harshly criticized because of how tailor made it was to be easy to appeal to a western audience. People read it as Square looking down on the western gamers, treating them as stupid, etc with it's design decisions. People often read game developers decisions as malicious when at worst they tend to be thoughtless. It's turn that Square felt that western gamers were put off of traditional jrpgs and the numbers and difficultly that it entails. However that isn't a malicious take. Moreso that is general business decisions. To break into a foreign market you do two things. You either tap into an existing market or you introduce a new market to consumers. MQ is the latter. Introducing gamers not families with the FF series with the elements and Staples of the series without the more intense elements that turn people off, ie random battles stats and numbers and the need to grind. Of course the hardcore crowd would feel patronized but for people who wanted to get into the series but was turned off from the before mentioned elements this would have been a good starter.
Underrated comment. Well said indeed! It’s definitely the more devoted JRPG communities that were offended, and I think they have to understand that developers were not trying to cater to them. It was indeed an attempt to introduce the JRPG category to new audiences that may of not played a JRPG-which was the majority. It all probably could of been strategically done better, but I don’t understand why they felt it was a malicious remark about Westerners… but I suppose my lack of understanding is due to thinking that if a game isn’t meant for audiences as me, I don’t mind, it’s just not for me, lol!
Absolutely. I've played plenty of JRPGs since FFMQ, and I still play this one now and then because you can beat it in an afternoon. It's fun to burn through when you feel like playing a FF but don't want to devote weeks of your life to it.
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
Yes! My name is in a video, if not just briefly for SRC. This is a really fun speedrun and hearing about the rotating RNG tables is quite interesting and more complicated than I thought. Great video as always!
Mystic Quest was one of my favorite games of the Snes. Still loving it. The boss theme is marvelous, Phoebe is cute Yes, the game was easy but seriously, i would love a remake of this game ... one day.
There is a difference between Knowing something and Understanding something. We now know how this game works... time to try and understand what it all means.
This vid nearly makes me want to disassemble and reverse engineer this game! While Lufia 2 was my first JRPG _ever_ , Mystic Quest was my first _Final Fantasy_ ever. And I got to play it by pure chance... while actually hunting for Lufia 2. You see, I gave the basic description of Lufia 2 to a friend: battles are turn based, you can see encounters in the level, there's an overworld map where you can go from town to town or dungeons, there's a tower that's central to the game's plot, there are vehicles you can use in the overworld, and you can use weapons outside of battle to solve puzzles. He said: "oh, I have this game!", and lend me his... Mystic Quest cart? And for a moment I questioned myself if Lufia even existed; if it wasn't just Mystic Quest all along. It just turns out that Mystic Quest is eerily similar conceptually to Lufia 2!
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
@@jaimereupert4247 well the weapons outside of battle is from the mana games...the only other game with good sprites was romanceing saga but no damage sprites I'm surprised that never caught on
It is a bit different from games like FF1-3. Playing such games on an emulator and playing with save states, you find you can completely manipulate the encounters. Take a step, get an encounter, load state, wait a bit, take step, get the same encounter on the same step as before, and it will never change despite waiting. However, load state and do something like using a potion will change the encounter, and when it will come. You can load state through a whole dungeon with almost 0 encounters if you wanted. But here, TIME manipulates the RNG? That is both easier due to not needing to consume something to trigger it, and harder because you would need some way to track what your RNG table currently looks like. It will happen eventually though.
Well we found that the monster encounter table is frame based... Accomplishing frame based manipulation is very difficult to pull off. One example is trying to do a final fantasy 4 speed run, you get your starting seed by the frame timing of the game power on and sets at the first input. Most people use a timer or sound queue to get the timing. The seed can only be set as the game starts and determines encounters. It may be for FFMQ that the value of the frames are stored between battles, or reset as the map screen loads, or they even might even be influenced by some other value (eg: NPC movement or inputs or even RNG, we won't know until it is routed). I think I recall long ago, hearing that a manipulation for the first split is possible, but didn't save any time. But, without finding the Pazuzu floor manip/skip no one will want to run FFMQ anyways, it really sucks the fun out of running so I've heard.
Pretty cool!. I love Mystic Quest. Where lotta people complain about how simple it is, that is what I love. It is a no nonsense charming game with a no nonsense story and a world that feels bigger then it is and mysterious. Lots of current JRPG are convoluted and have many tedious parts and even many old JRPGs had that. I love ChronoTrigger, but so many areas in that game are such a slog to get through that I lose interest halfway most replays...
My cousin had this game. He was like a decade older than me, so eventually it passed down to my hands. Not gonna lie I thought there was some lore or actual secret being uncovered that was missed for this long... instead of a mechanical understanding being unlocked. Darn. Oh well.
It's cool to see a video about this game. I have a copy of it, and two SNESs. One SNES is damaged in some way, and it only effects this game. It makes the first battle in the game unbeatable. It's very strange.
If all that can be determined and chosen, I wonder if anyone would try a "Worst Possible Encounter%" where you gotta go into every battle with the most and/or worst monsters called into those fights, being ambushed everytime, etc.
reminds me of playning Shining force 2 on the Switch...where you can go back in time before an action is made...and you realize that you have to go back to a specific distance(longer than the animation) to, like, keep a critical hit from being made, or just change behaviors
Interesting video. I beat this game in my early 20s and I still thought the layout was massively weird compared to other FF games. I know this is truly the "black sheep" of the FF family. Keep up the good work documenting it's SR history!
sip of coffee that's kinda like water? man do i appreciate your time dr... remind me of a friend from early childhood i would play who first showed me earthbound. :) i think i was 7 or 8 years old, 35 now
Played the game like 25 years ago and had no idea there was any secrets involved. Everything was pretty linear except going back to the main place at the game.
This wasn't a secret to me at the age of 5 years old. I played this game a lot and felt like I could time critical hits and get them at least four, maybe five, out of seven tries. Of course I haven't played or booted up this game since then.
Fascinating I've never heard of a game basing pseudorandom mess on frame count before. That implies that there's a theoretical ideal frame perfect best run. I'm really surprised no one has datamined/disassembled the code and published all the tables, frame counts, etc. I can just image playing the game to a stopwatch.
The problem with this, is doing it for almost _two hours_ and never making a single mistake. Heck, 5ms lag on a button press would screw the entire run.
@@Dhalin Yah, it wouldn't be easy. It would be interesting to see how long someone could keep it going, though. And missing the clock wouldn't automatically be a run killer. It would be interesting to know what the theoretical best possible time is, though. I'm really just thinking through this, now. With proper timing, every attack would crit (assuming there's always at least some crit chance). Quite probably outside the realm of human accomplishment. But it catches my imagination.
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
I remember playing FF7 and being able to critical hit on every attack. Not sure if it worked on one every character... This memory makes me wonder how this happened. I thought it was connected to hitting the L1 & R1 triggers while attacking but maybe I was just using D. Blow with the right weapons...
Omg! This is the first time ive heard the term "framebased crit" and I KNEW I WASN'T CRAZY! You see, i played more than 300 hours of Persona 3P and i noticed this verry peculiar thing where i could almost always land a crit if i presed the buttons on a certain timing. At first i thought it was just superstition but ibstarted to get gooder and gooder at this timing and knowing other details surrounding this technique and how it works behind the curtains. Again, i can still be wrong and everything couod be just a verry veeeeerry big coincidence amd honestly im scared someone just coming to this comment and saying that yeah im totally wrong 😂. But i swear i can "feel it" when i can land a crit and bend the chanves of it happening in that game.
This reminds me of the weird things people do in dragon warrior 1 and FF1 for nes to change the rng. Makes sense seeing as how some of these old rpg's used a lot of the same mechanics
I enjoyed this game a lot when I was younger, it was fun to play something easier. I think the biggest downside was the Mario Bros. 3 style overworld, I can't see how that improves anything. Anyway nice video maybe I'll watch some runs of the game
I love how people talk about it being the "easiest RPG ever released in the West" but fail to mention that's only if you abuse mechanics in way they were not meant to be abused, like Benjamin's Cure spell on the final boss, or using Life as a heal spell which I'm fairly sure was not intended, but was a programmer's oversight. Try fighting the last boss without casting Cure on it, and without using Life as a heal spell and come back and tell me how "easy" FFMQ is. Heck even some of the earlier bosses can be more difficult if you stick to Cure and Potions for healing. And author said it himself, sometimes the game can just decide "you die now." and you have zero chance in hell. Thankfully the Retry option lets you get around that, but still. To be honest, the worst sin this game commits, is the freaking encounters. So. Many. Encounters. It takes hours to get through a dungeon, and thankfully you can save anywhere, but the slog grind of just trying to finish some of the game's dungeons, especially also when combining that with complex puzzles (Pazuzu's Tower... nnnngh), have you fighting hundreds of battles before you finally get to where you're going. That, and Benjamin is always weak, he can rarely kill an enemy with one hit and many encounters have 2 enemies so it's always going to take 2 turns which makes it feel slow until you find the weapon you're supposed to get in that dungeon (and even then that's only sometimes it lets you kill enemies with 1 turn).
The first part of your video reminds me of when I was a kid playing this game, I painstakingly went through the game using the Life spell to record everything's max HP and also tested every enemy's strengths and weaknesses, It was surprising to me that certain enemies were weak against things like wind in areas before you get the Aero spell, etc
Interesting fact here. If you bomb the pile of bones at the bottom of the screen at 9:52 the game becomes UNBEATABLE. You can now never latch onto the hook lol.
Truth be told, this was my very first rpg and i played it to completion that i loved it so much. It is very much what got me into rpgs and the games that followed it, those being Lufia 1, FF2/4 and Super Mario RPG, which were certainly much harder in comparison, but it did prepare me for what to expect. It gave me a nice comparison between an easy rpg that i still like to this day, and a more involved one that ended up being beloved. Rather then start with something beloved and then going into MQ to which i would have compared it to. 🙃
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
I personally don't understand speedrunners who do more luck based games, it seem demoralizing. I like a little RNG to keep things spicy but alot seems awful
I can think of a few reasons. - It could simply be a game they love. And they just want to speedrun it. - It could be a game with a run that used to not be luck-based, but it became luck-based if you want a WR because of risky time save strats. And they simply stick with it. - At some point, in a purely skill based run/game you reach a physical/mental limit to what you can do (reflexes, mashing speed, muscle memory, simply getting older, etc.). That personal limit might not be enough to compete and that can be even more demoralizing. Especially if the game is relatively optimized, a single mistake would lead to a reset since a WR would then be unachievable. - If a run is RNG heavy, it becomes a run more about the player's decision ability than just execution. Lufia II Ancient Cave runs and Azure Dreams runs would fall in that category. But yeah, if it's a run where an hour and a half in you basically flip a coin to see if you can continue it or not... Or if the run is pure rng... Then that's definitely awful.
FFMQ. A classic game to me, and one I have fond memories of. It's interesting to see just how much of the game is RNG based, and how only now, near 30 years later, we're discovering ways to crack the secrets of that to make the game bend to our will. I definitely learned a lot here with the limited info we have, such as the Pazuzu chase in his tower being RNG what floor he'll end up on, or how Accuracy affects the frames you have to not only get a hit, but also a crit. even something so simple as a defense command can alter something in the game, like in Medusa's fight. Loved the vid.
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
I'm surprised it took this long for them to notice the scripting. I noticed that back when I was a wee lad, mostly because they ALWAYS did specific behavioral things like Riddle oh Phoebe. Though I did replay the game a few hundred times because I had literally nothing else to do. This does explain why crits seemed so wildly different, there were times when I'd crit almost every attack and other times I'd never see a crit for the longest time.
Go for it. Just make sure you pay attention to what NPCs tell you. Cause a lot of times they'll only tell you once. And the game can be a tad (a lot) confusing if you don't know where to go.
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
Dear lord. I remember my friend and myself getting this in late '92 while we waited for 6, thinking it had to be somewhat close to being as good as 4 😂
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
This is fascinating as usual! 😄 I have a request though: when you take screenshots of Discord or other webpages, could you please zoom in on the text first with the browser features (like Ctrl+scroll wheel)? This'll make it much easier to read the conversations when watching on a phone (or several feet away from the TV)!
Ah, FFMQ... My first FF... Fond memories and with such masterful music scores... What can I say about this game that wasn't already said by you or every other person commenting here? The only thing I want to ask is: What about Pazuzu and 6F skip? What is that? Cause it's been so long since I've played it that I can't remember it.
Comment below if you drank water at the end of the video
I just brushed my teeth so gimme like 10 and I got you
Drinking juice while hitting the like button. E
I did!
Not immediately after, but will do!
omg i finally drank water and I am INSANELY HYDRATED.
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for FF:MQ. It is one of the very few video games my mother ever played (starting with my Atari 2600 onwards), and the only one she ever completed front to back with no help (pre internet walkthroughs).
She was by no means a "gamer".
I walked in from school one day just in time to see her walking up to the final boss. Felt kinda proud of her.
For real, that’s really sweet
Similar memory. Mom would level me up after I went to bed and liked to watch me progress in the game. My first turn based rpg and I have a real soft spot for it.
Moms right?!
The best way to hide a secret in this game would have been to make it so the player would have to lose a battle in order to discover it.
Ouch lol
Earthbound.
Dark Souls does this
The game is full of enemies who can one-hit kill you on their first turn and there's nothing you can do about it. No matter how hard you grind, how well you prepare, you might get OHKO'd on round one for no good reason.
What makes it super easy is that you can continue right at the start of the battle, no need to load up a save point or anything.
The first Digimon World game had some specific evolution requirements like that.
This game has perplexed me for so many years. On one hand, many write it off as some horrible black sheep of the series but on the other hand it's just a simple straight and narrow role playing adventure that I look back on fondly. I cant help but wonder what it would have been like if it was a fully fleshed out Final Fantasy game that looked and played like FF4 with the ATB and everything. Music is killer too.
FFMQ with actual JRPG mechanics would have been really interesting to see
Even a FF1-3-style turn based would have worked if the difficulty was higher, only mechanics I think were truely "problematic" were the battle retry feature, and the feature of white magic doing stuff when used against monsters (Exit acts as a kill-all that works against ALMOST everything).
@@roymerkel8008 true and it could have been unique in the sense of being a SNES entry with the NES classic turn based system. Either way, I'm happy this video showed me the game is still alive in speedrun form
The game was what it was supposed to be. A beginner’s RPG. RPGs weren’t as popular in the West at the time, and the thought was that they were too difficult for Western audiences (western console gamers were younger than their Japanese counterparts due to the NES being advertised as a toy, not as a video game system; the advertisements for the SNES continued down the same path). This is also why FF4 was nerfed in its original US release and why FF5 wasn’t originally released here (we got Mystic Quest instead). It wasn’t until FF6 that Square finally gave the Western market a fully realized FF on the SNES that wasn’t nerfed. Mystic Quest was simply made for younger audiences. And with that in mind, it was a decent game for what it was made for, even though it was a bit insulting that Square made it that way.
The game is just really confused about who its audience is. It's an RPG for people who aren't that into RPGs.
I didn’t care when I was five years old that mystic quest was babies first RPG. Now that I’m 33 I still don’t care because it has some bangers for tracks
Most games could only wish to sound like MQ!
Ahh FFMQ. Some people love to hate on the game but I have very fond memories of it as a kid. I had played through the original FF, the Dragon Warrior games on the NES and FF II on the SNES before jumping into FFMQ but I still really liked it. I'm still fond of it even though I had to send my cartridge back to Square and get a replacement due to a hard lock issue in the Wintry Cave area. I still have one of the original model SNES's and the initial shipping version of FFMQ would hard lock whenever the music that's in the Wintry Cave area was played.
The music from FFMQ is quite solid.
I still have one of those bad cartages. I figured out about the music also, the tunnel Phoebe's father is digging can also become unresponsive. Fortunately it doesn't lock all the time, so I was able to play through those sections, I just had to reset a few times.
It taught me so much about RPGs
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
@@jaimereupert4247 yeah those things are so neat. It's a fun, weird combination between Final Fantasy and Legend Of Zelda that somehow didn't appeal to fans of either.
While they called it a glitch, I quite liked that you could use white magic offensively. The life spell acted like doom on living enemies, and the heal spell could place a random status effect on an enemy, similar to the dragon claw. Cure hurting the undead was standard of course.
I didn't know about heal. That's really cool
@@DemiImp to be fair the enemy had to be vulnerable to a status for it to even work. I remember silencing wizards and blinding ninjas. It could also fail, I don't know if the enemy resisted the effect, or if heal just picked a status effect that the enemy was immune to.
Sounds pretty standard
Sounds similar to how you can use Tents in battle in Final Fantasy 9 to inflict status ailments on enemies (but also heal their HP/MP because it's a Tent).
@@gaminggoddess85 sneaky snakes...
The Initial story of misinterpretation of data is a perfect example why you should always consult a domain expert in data science. I might use that in a future presentation.
for as much shit as this game gets, it has a few neat things, equipment having overworld uses, the monsters sprites changing as the fight goes on and the overworld itself changing as you progress.
I Also loved how every item and piece of gear had a cool graphic instead of just a name and how each piece of equipment had stuff like extra resistances instead of just boring stat upgrades.
The secrecy and frame based nature of luck in this game is why you go to the TAS community for help IMO.
What kind of absolute madman is TASing FFMQ
Definetly. TAS benefit immediately from game data because they have no problems hitting inhuman executions. It furthers their runs. Regular speedrunners then take this info and experiment seeing if a human could do it. While they could look at data that time might be better spent actually speed running and refining techniques so they dont drop runs
I just found this game in my snes collection, I believe I tried to play this when I was like 5-6 and couldn’t really grasp it without any guidance.
I saw the title and thought “huh, they’d probably get sued by FF if they used this title these days” and then I saw a red FF2 cartridge. Needless to say the last 8 hours have gone to me navigating to Windia.
Still figuring out a few new things like I can group heal and even use healing on enemies. If anyone has any suggestions or tips plz let me know!
Holy smokes... thank you! This explains a lot of things that I went through as I worked on a personal FFMQ project.
I remade FFMQ, entirely in RPG Maker MV, from start to finish and tried to stay as close to the original formulas as possible. It's full and done, but the formulas are off all over, because this inconsistency and headscratching is *exactly* what I ran into as I tried to transcode the game. I did not realize the frames were being used. But, even if there are frame things, this game is just incorrectly documented in a lot of places. In particular, I found the Wizard's spell formula is NOT correct on any of the Wiki's and I couldn't solve it. Eventually, I decided to just release Memeal Mantasy Fystic Quest and I am happy... but you brought up a lot of coding PTSD LOLOLOL
You're incredible, thank you for that meme fantasy :D
I really need a good remake of this game in my life in the not too distant future.
It was the first RPG I played back in the early 90s and I've been a fan of this genre ever since. It's really basic and all, but that's exactly what I (and probably many others) needed at the time.
Old video games speed running is a display of innovation. Reverse engineering a game that was thought to be random and finding patterns or bugs in algorithms that were used by programmers with limited memory space. It also is magic because not every game was coded the same way so different techniques of code writing have different outcomes when reverse engineering for a speed run and optimization.
This is absolutely hilarious for Super Conflict because of how damage calc works. You can kill whole ass battleships and carriers with standard infantry 😆
"Pew pew pew!" *BRIGHT BLINDING FLASH* _mushroom cloud_
It's just for fun though because _infantry have the longest attack animation_ (firing rifles, ejecting magazine, inserting a new one) making the trick useless for running
Don't remember exactly how it goes but both penetration and damage are frame based, _but calculated separately_ which can lead to battleships firing upon those same infantry _doing no/1hp damage_ then dying to the retaliation. (Each side gets 3 attack attempts per encounter, making many misses in a row wreck speed runs)
Unlike how the animation looks, everything is decided during the initial roll up, so you immediately know if you're boned, _not a good feeling when you miss that Mark 57 stages in!_ 😖
I often find people often let their pride as a "hardcore" gamer get the better of them when judging this and many other more casual jrpgs. This one definitely being more harshly criticized because of how tailor made it was to be easy to appeal to a western audience. People read it as Square looking down on the western gamers, treating them as stupid, etc with it's design decisions. People often read game developers decisions as malicious when at worst they tend to be thoughtless. It's turn that Square felt that western gamers were put off of traditional jrpgs and the numbers and difficultly that it entails. However that isn't a malicious take. Moreso that is general business decisions. To break into a foreign market you do two things. You either tap into an existing market or you introduce a new market to consumers. MQ is the latter. Introducing gamers not families with the FF series with the elements and Staples of the series without the more intense elements that turn people off, ie random battles stats and numbers and the need to grind. Of course the hardcore crowd would feel patronized but for people who wanted to get into the series but was turned off from the before mentioned elements this would have been a good starter.
Underrated comment. Well said indeed!
It’s definitely the more devoted JRPG communities that were offended, and I think they have to understand that developers were not trying to cater to them. It was indeed an attempt to introduce the JRPG category to new audiences that may of not played a JRPG-which was the majority. It all probably could of been strategically done better, but I don’t understand why they felt it was a malicious remark about Westerners… but I suppose my lack of understanding is due to thinking that if a game isn’t meant for audiences as me, I don’t mind, it’s just not for me, lol!
Absolutely.
I've played plenty of JRPGs since FFMQ, and I still play this one now and then because you can beat it in an afternoon. It's fun to burn through when you feel like playing a FF but don't want to devote weeks of your life to it.
Thanks for including some of the amazing music in the video. It really was the main reason I would play the game over multiple times.
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
Yes! My name is in a video, if not just briefly for SRC. This is a really fun speedrun and hearing about the rotating RNG tables is quite interesting and more complicated than I thought.
Great video as always!
So THAT'S why you were Eye'ing me this week when I talked about FFMQ!
Very interesting video. I wonder if we ever unlock the secrets of FFMQ.
Mystic Quest was one of my favorite games of the Snes.
Still loving it. The boss theme is marvelous, Phoebe is cute
Yes, the game was easy but seriously, i would love a remake of this game ... one day.
Phoebe gang.
Did you know that if you stay Hydrated you can increase your good RNG by about 50%
It's...Mystic Quest is...IT'S AN ACTION RPG ALL ALONG.
There is a difference between Knowing something and Understanding something.
We now know how this game works... time to try and understand what it all means.
Here's hoping someone figures out a way to make it happen!
This vid nearly makes me want to disassemble and reverse engineer this game! While Lufia 2 was my first JRPG _ever_ , Mystic Quest was my first _Final Fantasy_ ever. And I got to play it by pure chance... while actually hunting for Lufia 2. You see, I gave the basic description of Lufia 2 to a friend: battles are turn based, you can see encounters in the level, there's an overworld map where you can go from town to town or dungeons, there's a tower that's central to the game's plot, there are vehicles you can use in the overworld, and you can use weapons outside of battle to solve puzzles. He said: "oh, I have this game!", and lend me his... Mystic Quest cart? And for a moment I questioned myself if Lufia even existed; if it wasn't just Mystic Quest all along. It just turns out that Mystic Quest is eerily similar conceptually to Lufia 2!
Possum is also a Free Enterprise legend! Much respect to the Matrix marsupial!
Best monster sprites in any game
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
@@jaimereupert4247 well the weapons outside of battle is from the mana games...the only other game with good sprites was romanceing saga but no damage sprites I'm surprised that never caught on
It is a bit different from games like FF1-3. Playing such games on an emulator and playing with save states, you find you can completely manipulate the encounters. Take a step, get an encounter, load state, wait a bit, take step, get the same encounter on the same step as before, and it will never change despite waiting. However, load state and do something like using a potion will change the encounter, and when it will come. You can load state through a whole dungeon with almost 0 encounters if you wanted.
But here, TIME manipulates the RNG? That is both easier due to not needing to consume something to trigger it, and harder because you would need some way to track what your RNG table currently looks like. It will happen eventually though.
Banger video Doc, keep it up, and congrats on 10k!!!
Thanks a ton my dude. That 17.5k also looks SPICY on you
Well we found that the monster encounter table is frame based...
Accomplishing frame based manipulation is very difficult to pull off. One example is trying to do a final fantasy 4 speed run, you get your starting seed by the frame timing of the game power on and sets at the first input. Most people use a timer or sound queue to get the timing. The seed can only be set as the game starts and determines encounters.
It may be for FFMQ that the value of the frames are stored between battles, or reset as the map screen loads, or they even might even be influenced by some other value (eg: NPC movement or inputs or even RNG, we won't know until it is routed). I think I recall long ago, hearing that a manipulation for the first split is possible, but didn't save any time. But, without finding the Pazuzu floor manip/skip no one will want to run FFMQ anyways, it really sucks the fun out of running so I've heard.
This game was one of my faves as a kid. It's so fun and brings me great memories
Sounds a lot like how Zelda handles some of it's RNG.
Pretty cool!. I love Mystic Quest. Where lotta people complain about how simple it is, that is what I love. It is a no nonsense charming game with a no nonsense story and a world that feels bigger then it is and mysterious. Lots of current JRPG are convoluted and have many tedious parts and even many old JRPGs had that. I love ChronoTrigger, but so many areas in that game are such a slog to get through that I lose interest halfway most replays...
My favorite FF.
I vaguely remember Benjamin's cure hurting King of Darkness, but Phoebe's healing him.
My cousin had this game. He was like a decade older than me, so eventually it passed down to my hands. Not gonna lie I thought there was some lore or actual secret being uncovered that was missed for this long... instead of a mechanical understanding being unlocked. Darn. Oh well.
I learned something new regarding the encounters + first strike etc ...but I was still underwhelmed as there was no ground breaking conclusion.
It's cool to see a video about this game. I have a copy of it, and two SNESs. One SNES is damaged in some way, and it only effects this game. It makes the first battle in the game unbeatable. It's very strange.
I played it a few years ago and the tutorial boss kept getting crits on me ending the run. It was hella annoying.
@@azinyefantasy4445 that's exactly what was happening to me as well. I wonder what the cause is
people using that life bar thing instead of hp fractions bothers me
If all that can be determined and chosen, I wonder if anyone would try a "Worst Possible Encounter%" where you gotta go into every battle with the most and/or worst monsters called into those fights, being ambushed everytime, etc.
10:42 to my deathbed I will recognize the masterpiece that is the Panzer Dragoon Saga OST
reminds me of playning Shining force 2 on the Switch...where you can go back in time before an action is made...and you realize that you have to go back to a specific distance(longer than the animation) to, like, keep a critical hit from being made, or just change behaviors
I used to borrow this game from a friend at school. I ended up buying it a few years ago with the box and manual.
Yeah speaking of boss AI, Gidrah always does turn 1 Para Breath on Kaeli. I just queue Heal on her turn 1 to counter.
Interesting video. I beat this game in my early 20s and I still thought the layout was massively weird compared to other FF games. I know this is truly the "black sheep" of the FF family. Keep up the good work documenting it's SR history!
sip of coffee that's kinda like water? man do i appreciate your time dr... remind me of a friend from early childhood i would play who first showed me earthbound. :) i think i was 7 or 8 years old, 35 now
Wait. How do you do 24,000+ damage at lvl4
Yeah they should have explained that part yo!
Played the game like 25 years ago and had no idea there was any secrets involved.
Everything was pretty linear except going back to the main place at the game.
Interesting analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
As a kid i remember beating the game once with reuben in my party and once with pheobe. I can not find anything on ending with alternative allies.
So, the last secret is that the RNG is not actually RNG, it is a frame game.
Nice video. Another speedrun I need to come back to some day
This wasn't a secret to me at the age of 5 years old. I played this game a lot and felt like I could time critical hits and get them at least four, maybe five, out of seven tries. Of course I haven't played or booted up this game since then.
Fascinating I've never heard of a game basing pseudorandom mess on frame count before. That implies that there's a theoretical ideal frame perfect best run.
I'm really surprised no one has datamined/disassembled the code and published all the tables, frame counts, etc.
I can just image playing the game to a stopwatch.
The problem with this, is doing it for almost _two hours_ and never making a single mistake. Heck, 5ms lag on a button press would screw the entire run.
@@Dhalin Yah, it wouldn't be easy. It would be interesting to see how long someone could keep it going, though. And missing the clock wouldn't automatically be a run killer. It would be interesting to know what the theoretical best possible time is, though.
I'm really just thinking through this, now. With proper timing, every attack would crit (assuming there's always at least some crit chance).
Quite probably outside the realm of human accomplishment. But it catches my imagination.
how could they? impossible for anyone.
What is the best way to level up in final fantasy mystic quest?
These videos are getting better and better. Keep up the good work!
Been waiting to watch this since I learned about it a couple hours ago
The REAL Secret of FFMQ Legends is that It is actually a *GOOD* Game, despite what some people say!
True!
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
@@jaimereupert4247 I *totally* agree
aaaah good times one of my favorite childhood games
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
I remember playing FF7 and being able to critical hit on every attack. Not sure if it worked on one every character... This memory makes me wonder how this happened. I thought it was connected to hitting the L1 & R1 triggers while attacking but maybe I was just using D. Blow with the right weapons...
Omg! This is the first time ive heard the term "framebased crit" and I KNEW I WASN'T CRAZY!
You see, i played more than 300 hours of Persona 3P and i noticed this verry peculiar thing where i could almost always land a crit if i presed the buttons on a certain timing.
At first i thought it was just superstition but ibstarted to get gooder and gooder at this timing and knowing other details surrounding this technique and how it works behind the curtains.
Again, i can still be wrong and everything couod be just a verry veeeeerry big coincidence amd honestly im scared someone just coming to this comment and saying that yeah im totally wrong 😂.
But i swear i can "feel it" when i can land a crit and bend the chanves of it happening in that game.
There's a lot of us who get that feeling, it can be both a blessing and a curse.
I'm just here to point out you used Legend of Dragoon music and for that, you have my respect.
Games of the era might use framerate to help seed a RNG, but not usually rely directly on it.
This reminds me of the weird things people do in dragon warrior 1 and FF1 for nes to change the rng. Makes sense seeing as how some of these old rpg's used a lot of the same mechanics
I liked this game. It was easy and cheesy. But that was the point and it's charming.
0:04 Most other games and I would say "Man look at the perfect platforming" :D
I enjoyed this game a lot when I was younger, it was fun to play something easier. I think the biggest downside was the Mario Bros. 3 style overworld, I can't see how that improves anything.
Anyway nice video maybe I'll watch some runs of the game
this is like resetting pokemon encounters but for survival, not capture for team builds.
Glad I served as a conduit to possum! Great vid
0:17 29 years, 2 months, and change
I love how people talk about it being the "easiest RPG ever released in the West" but fail to mention that's only if you abuse mechanics in way they were not meant to be abused, like Benjamin's Cure spell on the final boss, or using Life as a heal spell which I'm fairly sure was not intended, but was a programmer's oversight. Try fighting the last boss without casting Cure on it, and without using Life as a heal spell and come back and tell me how "easy" FFMQ is. Heck even some of the earlier bosses can be more difficult if you stick to Cure and Potions for healing. And author said it himself, sometimes the game can just decide "you die now." and you have zero chance in hell. Thankfully the Retry option lets you get around that, but still. To be honest, the worst sin this game commits, is the freaking encounters. So. Many. Encounters. It takes hours to get through a dungeon, and thankfully you can save anywhere, but the slog grind of just trying to finish some of the game's dungeons, especially also when combining that with complex puzzles (Pazuzu's Tower... nnnngh), have you fighting hundreds of battles before you finally get to where you're going. That, and Benjamin is always weak, he can rarely kill an enemy with one hit and many encounters have 2 enemies so it's always going to take 2 turns which makes it feel slow until you find the weapon you're supposed to get in that dungeon (and even then that's only sometimes it lets you kill enemies with 1 turn).
I get overpowered. No issues then finishing it
I for one do not miss the days where this game was called bad because it was too easy and had a silly story
The first part of your video reminds me of when I was a kid playing this game, I painstakingly went through the game using the Life spell to record everything's max HP and also tested every enemy's strengths and weaknesses,
It was surprising to me that certain enemies were weak against things like wind in areas before you get the Aero spell, etc
Interesting fact here.
If you bomb the pile of bones at the bottom of the screen at 9:52 the game becomes UNBEATABLE.
You can now never latch onto the hook lol.
Damn that would suck yo!
Truth be told, this was my very first rpg and i played it to completion that i loved it so much. It is very much what got me into rpgs and the games that followed it, those being Lufia 1, FF2/4 and Super Mario RPG, which were certainly much harder in comparison, but it did prepare me for what to expect. It gave me a nice comparison between an easy rpg that i still like to this day, and a more involved one that ended up being beloved. Rather then start with something beloved and then going into MQ to which i would have compared it to. 🙃
Whilst not a secret. I was being silly and decided to heal the final boss... and it worked out for the best 🤣🤣🤣
One of my favorite games of all time.
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
Ty for using Legend of Dragoon music
I personally don't understand speedrunners who do more luck based games, it seem demoralizing. I like a little RNG to keep things spicy but alot seems awful
I presume that it’s like gambling.
I can think of a few reasons.
- It could simply be a game they love. And they just want to speedrun it.
- It could be a game with a run that used to not be luck-based, but it became luck-based if you want a WR because of risky time save strats. And they simply stick with it.
- At some point, in a purely skill based run/game you reach a physical/mental limit to what you can do (reflexes, mashing speed, muscle memory, simply getting older, etc.). That personal limit might not be enough to compete and that can be even more demoralizing. Especially if the game is relatively optimized, a single mistake would lead to a reset since a WR would then be unachievable.
- If a run is RNG heavy, it becomes a run more about the player's decision ability than just execution. Lufia II Ancient Cave runs and Azure Dreams runs would fall in that category.
But yeah, if it's a run where an hour and a half in you basically flip a coin to see if you can continue it or not... Or if the run is pure rng... Then that's definitely awful.
FFMQ. A classic game to me, and one I have fond memories of. It's interesting to see just how much of the game is RNG based, and how only now, near 30 years later, we're discovering ways to crack the secrets of that to make the game bend to our will.
I definitely learned a lot here with the limited info we have, such as the Pazuzu chase in his tower being RNG what floor he'll end up on, or how Accuracy affects the frames you have to not only get a hit, but also a crit. even something so simple as a defense command can alter something in the game, like in Medusa's fight.
Loved the vid.
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
@@jaimereupert4247 I wouldnt mind it, if it were done right.
There is a chance where you can die from the first encounter you fight which is the behemoth.
I'm surprised it took this long for them to notice the scripting.
I noticed that back when I was a wee lad, mostly because they ALWAYS did specific behavioral things like Riddle oh Phoebe.
Though I did replay the game a few hundred times because I had literally nothing else to do.
This does explain why crits seemed so wildly different, there were times when I'd crit almost every attack and other times I'd never see a crit for the longest time.
Now I want to play FFMQ. Not a speedrun of course 😜 but just a regular playthrough. 😍
Go for it. Just make sure you pay attention to what NPCs tell you. Cause a lot of times they'll only tell you once. And the game can be a tad (a lot) confusing if you don't know where to go.
i love mystic quest!! this is a really great and interesting watch
Thanks for taking the time to watch, gamer
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
Its 2021 either I'm watching a video from the future or you stated the wrong year
Commenting to feed the algorithm- love you work!
Thanks gamer
I used to match the moment when I attack with the bottle music a d I got the críticas and instant death
Nice video! I'm hoping one day we will have a strat for a guaranteed floor 6 pazuzu. Until then this game is rather painful to run :D
I'd love for someone to find out how to make floor 6 Pazuzu manip RTA viable. I'd come back to the game if that were the case!
MQ was a speed run before speed runs were a thing. EVERYBODY beat that game on their first day.
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
I wish I was better at math and computers. Then I could help. Although I would have to understand all this first.
Basically it all boils down to bigger number, better gamer
I'm just commenting so the alogorithm likes your videos as much as I do
I appreciate it!
Dear lord. I remember my friend and myself getting this in late '92 while we waited for 6, thinking it had to be somewhat close to being as good as 4 😂
Always enjoyed this game
I still say this game needs an authentic hd version. Look at some of the things this game implemented, damage graphics for when the enemies started loosing hp you could see them get weaker (Ice Stone Golem comes to mind and the Flamesarus Rex), the ability to use weapons outside of battle (like Legend of Zelda) and it had awesome bgm. 😍😍😍😍
This game has a great OST.
Never played this through, this game that easy?
Like mash A button to end easy or what?
I played this game when I waited for ff anthology
This is fascinating as usual! 😄 I have a request though: when you take screenshots of Discord or other webpages, could you please zoom in on the text first with the browser features (like Ctrl+scroll wheel)? This'll make it much easier to read the conversations when watching on a phone (or several feet away from the TV)!
The reason it wasn't good for most ppl because they played in auto mode instead of manual
This is not the mystic quest I remember.
Oh Wow I rented this!
Ah, FFMQ... My first FF... Fond memories and with such masterful music scores... What can I say about this game that wasn't already said by you or every other person commenting here?
The only thing I want to ask is: What about Pazuzu and 6F skip? What is that? Cause it's been so long since I've played it that I can't remember it.
I liked this game musics.