My Inspirations: Final Fantasy, Round 1.

This was inevitable, of course. I already established that my interests include video games, narrative video games, and genres like RPGs. So of course Final Fantasy was included. However, I've been a fan of the series since the original on the Nintendo, and this is not the first Final Fantasy to get his consideration. In fact, it's not the Final Fantasy anybody expected. The game is, and I'm almost ashamed to admit it, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

Even I find it weird to write that, and I'm writing it! At this point, to be fair, my memory of exactly what other RPGs I played and beat at the point where I played this game. I think there weren't many. I don't even think I beat Final Fantasy 2 (4 for those who care about accuracy and the Japanese numbering,) which many consider to be the best of the series, at least of that era, but I'm not sure. Mystic Quest, by comparison, was the series' idiot cousin.

This isn't really an insult; this was the plan. The console role-playing genre was still pretty dead at this point, so to try and counter this, Squaresoft, Final Fantasy's developers, created an American-specific game. It was vastly easier than other games of the genre, relatively short, and only $20. There were worse deals, especially in that time frame, where console games could cost $60 or more! So it wasn't too hard to get the game.

Mystic Quest is, as I said before, a very simple game. I had a simplistic plot where the simple, personality-free hero had to retrieve four elemental sources of power, and then confront the originally-named Dark King who ran the whole sinister plan. There were only four types of weapons, at least that the player could use, and only three of each, with an obvious advancement path for each one. The same is true for armor, but you never even had to choose the best one for a circumstance. Your party always consisted of exactly two characters, and the second one could even be computer controlled. Spells weren't much better; there were only twelve, and most of them were rendered obsolete quickly enough.

So it was tripe, or at least it was vapid and shallow. Why did it inspire me? Well, for one reason, I was twelve, and thus vapid and shallow. Surprisingly, despite the game's low cost and simplistic gameplay, the presentation was incredible. It included features that are used too rarely today. For example, in combat, the game shows the party members with their backs turned to the camera and the enemies and backgrounds taking up much of the screen, and the backgrounds were often incredible. Some were static, generic images of trees and whatnot, but others, like the overcast desert, were moving and more detailed than I've seen in Super Nintendo games at this point. Also, the enemies were reactive to damage. In other words, when reduced to half their health, they appear wounded, hinting that they were near death. The major bosses had the same traits, but they had more stages of damage to better clarify.

The music was also impressive, again taking advantage of the Super Nintendo's technological jump. Gone were the bleeps and bloops of ancient video game systems, or even the catchy but minimalistic tunes from Nintendo. Some of Mystic Quest's music, well, rocked. Or at least it emulated rock music as best as it could, which was an amazing contrast to the more subdued and ambient music most role playing games used and still use to this day.

It's not that everything I love about the game was so shallow, though. For all its shallow elements, it's simple storyline encouraged both innovation and imagination; you could tell the programmers were eager to give the game hidden levels that were far from necessary. For example, curative magic targets the party by default, and there's no reason to suggest using them otherwise would ever be wise. If you do try it, though, you'd learn that cure spells were effective on undead, that status-curing magic would inflict random statuses on an enemy, and life-restoring magic instantly killed foes! And the constant changing of the single ally forced the game to regularly shift the plot to introduce or force their departures. I am happy most games let you choose your party, but all the same it makes it easy to forget your own allies exist, as there is no story compulsion to feature them again in any way.

There are plenty of other technical details that I loved. They include the surprisingly deep and complex dungeons, the use of items and even a jump button for puzzle-solving (another feature rare even today,) the total lack of random encounters, and replacing tedious and endless monster fights between locations with specific monster-infested squares you were free to ignore or could clean out for treasure. As a result of all these tiny, charming details, the game was revisited several times, much more than longer and better games were. And the simple but fluid world inspired my imagination, making me create new adventures and even characters out of it. Some of these characters, based on little but a monster sprite, remain some of my favorite creations.

The lessons this game taught were myriad. Never underestimate a game, and never let the supposedly unimportant job stand in the way of your creativity. A designer could hide surprising and clever elements of even the most clichéd of games, and those will find somebody who loves them and the game for what it is.