I guess to a neophyte the Final Fantasy series might be a little intimidating. Ridiculously convoluted storylines, lots of characters with obvious flaws, and sometimes obtuse battle mechanics might be difficult to grasp. So, what do you get if you take all of that out? You get something like Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is kind of a ‘beginner’s RPG’. And what that means is that it’s got all of the features of a regular RPG pared down to its barest elements. They story? Something about saving the world, but without all the normal twists and turns. Party management? Only two characters in your party, max. Battles? Streamlined to the point where you can win most of the time by holding down the ‘A’ button to accept the default commands. Oh, and your partner is so powerful that you’re going to have to try real hard to lose.
Since I had the experience of a few Final Fantasy games under my belt, I fully expected that this game would be easy, and I was mostly right. You’re pretty much always told exactly where to go and what to do to proceed. The battling amounts to just holding down ‘A’ until you win, so you just kind of meander around the game taking in what passes for the story… Until you get to the end.
The last boss of the game, for some bizarre reason, is a lot tougher than anything else in the game. Duh, I know, it’s supposed to be. But this one was far and away tougher than anything else in the game, and a genuine challenge. I actually had some trouble beating him… but I did beat him. After that I found out that there’s a glitch(?) that allows you to cast Cure on him to do ludicrous damage and win without much effort. Which kind of seems anticlimactic… unless you just played through the game a second or third time and want to get right to the ending real quick.