Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Replaying Mystic Quest, Part 1

What the hell is Mystic Quest, you ask? It's an old Game Boy game from 1991, which is better know as "Final Fantasy Adventure" in the US and A or "Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden" in Japan. I'm a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and I played this game as kid, because it was the most similar game to Zelda LA on the Game Boy.

Though it has its flaws, you can actually save yourself into death resulting in an ultimate game over. This is something, that happened to me as a kid in Davia's Mansion, I accidently saved with low health and there was no possibility of dealing with the enemies in that dungeon. In addition you couldn't leave the dungeon to buy healing items. You know, when you save in Link's Awakening or later installments of the Zelda series, you will start at the dungeon entrance with at least 3 hearts filled up. This did work much better for me, especially if you consider, that I was like 11 years old and my little gaming experience was reduced to the Game Boy system. But now, 10 years later, I thought I could give this game a second shot and I'm going to make sure, that I won't fail again. I even have beaten Davia's Mansion as I speak, to be exactly.

But one thing, I've noticed, it really doesn't live up to Zelda LA. It's just running from dungeon to dungeon, which all look the same. Heck, even when you go into that Airship, the inner part looked exactly like all the other dungeons just with some grates on the floor. Give me a screenshot of any screen in Zelda LA and I can tell you exactly, where this place is located in the game. It's not even hard to do so. But in Mystic Quest, it happens a lot, that I totally get lost, because everything looks the same. Same goes for the overworld, nothing but trees and rocks everywhere, yay. The villages always have the same three types of shops, just with different offerings and items...

But, I've only seen like half of the game, so I don't want to speak of the devil. However, it has its nice parts, too. It's a really nice hybrid between RPG and Action Adventure and the weapons are actually quite cool... but I will talk about items in the next part, it's getting late here.

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