Thursday, June 12, 2008

Replaying Mystic Quest, Part 2

So, played another hour of Mystic Quest today and it was actually quite fun. I went through the Golem Cave and finally got the Morning Star. With the help of this useful weapon I can destroy walls and bricks, so I could finally get rid of those Mattocks. Because in Mystic Quest mattocks of course instantly break after you've swinged them once, like they do in real life *sarcasm*. That's why you're always forced to carry a bunch of them with you. It's the same with keys, unlike in Zelda you can't find any keys, where you need them the most. That's why you have to buy them outside of dungeons. Too bad, if you're missing any keys or mattocks and got locked up in a dungeon, because you have to spend like forever killing larger enemies hoping, you get some of the needed items from them. Thanks to the Morning Star one of these two problems is now solved, feels good. And you luckily don't need too much keys, unless you get totally lost in dungeons. Because the main problem is, when you leave the area, the walls and doors get closed again...

Another problem is, that the space for normal items is very limited. You can't keep everything you find, that's why you have to discard or sell your items from time to time, to make room for new ones. While this isn't a problem for the weapon or magic menus, the item menu is always chock-full. Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but something, which is also bugging me is talking to people. The character does that automatically, when you get near to a person, even if you don't want to speak to anyone. And like this isn't worse enough, the text is very slooow. In case, a person is blocking the path, this is getting very annoying. Luckily you can kill people, but this takes its time.

But I don't only want to talk about the bad things, so one of the good things are definitely the weapons. This is an option I really miss in Zelda games. You know, if you're really lucky in a Zelda game, you get something like a hammer, ball & chain or a two handed sword as a secondary melee weapon. In Mystic Quest you have next to different swords the Sickle, which can cut plants and does some kind of whirl attack, the Battle Axe, which can cut trees, the Chain Fail, which works like the hookshots in Zelda when you use it on poles, the Wind Spear and finally the Morning Star, I've mentioned above. All of those are fun to use and deliver a liking sense of variety.

Well, in the game after beating Davia's Mansion I finally could go through the poisoned regions, kill a giant Metal Crab, walk through some mountains with annoying, jumping monsters and enter the Golem Cave, which has the same kind "if you take the wrong direction, you will be warped back to the entrance"-puzzle as known from Zelda. There you fight a Cyclops for the Morning Star and finally a Golem for the Lit Spell. After that, you reach a bridge, which crumbles and you're taken back to where it all began. The Dark Castle. I stopped playing here, so see you next time.

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