Well, may as well get this knocked out
and on with other things.
To start this off, my impression is
that most fans of the main series are not particularly fond of this
game. I can understand why, of course. The challenge and a lot of
the themes from the main series, especially up to the point where
this game came out, were not present in this game. I must say,
though, that I quite like it. Sure, it's not Final Fantasy 4, or 6,
but it's still a good game, especially for the intent behind it.
I've played through this game, I dunno, maybe a dozen times since
1992, and I still enjoy it every time.
With regard to the intent behind the
game, yeah, it was meant as an intro game into the RPG genre for
people who had wanted to get into them but may have been intimidated
by the scope of the other titles on the market at the time. I said
at the very beginning of this that I was so excited about having
another Final Fantasy game come out after 4 that I went right out to
buy this soon as it was available, at least partially unaware of what
it was. Over the course of playing the game again, I remembered that
I was a Nintendo Power subscriber at the time, and was going to check
their website to see if there was something in their archives, like a
back issue or something, with an article about the game. Turns out,
the mag actually went out of publication a couple years back, and
finding that information will probably be a little more difficult
than it needs to be for this particular project. The idea behind
trying to find that quick was to see if I might have known the intent
ahead of time and went ahead anyway.
It would have made buying the strategy
guide doubly foolish if I had, I suppose. At the same time, knowing
me at the age of 15, I might have gone ahead with buying it all the
same, too. I still kind of wish I'd managed to keep that, just for
the hell of it. I'd certainly feel a little less snookered out of
that money, but too late to worry about it now.
One thing I've been saying about a lot
of media lately is that I'm not entirely sure who the target audience
is, who the producers think is going to buy something. That's a line
of thought that applies to this game now more than it did back then,
of course, but it still did to some extent. Back then, I think there
may have been more room for growth amongst people who were not yet
RPG fans, and it made sense to think that maybe there were a few
people out there who were saying “A Final Fantasy game that's not
so intimidating and time-intensive? OK, I'm in!”. And since this
was a good five years, anyway, before Final Fantasy 7 came out the
first time, it was a lot easier to think that way.
At the same time, though, I think they
also understood the power of the marketing they were doing by using
the Final Fantasy brand on this one. Sure, there are a lot of
elements from the main series that show up in this game, but at the
time, there were also two other RPG series for the Game Boy that also
shared the Final Fantasy title: Final Fantasy Legend and Final
Fantasy Adventure. This game borrows quite a bit from the Legend
series, specifically FF Legend 3, which is something I had to look up
to be sure of the details. Just as they were using the Final Fantasy
name to sell those games, which spun off into the Mana and SaGa
series, respectively, if I'm not mistaken, the same could be said of
this game. While it makes sense, I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't
have been just as well off with these games being given other titles.
I guess it comes down to the issue of
staff. Like I was saying last time, I noticed a lot of familiar
names from the main series games that came out either side of this
one in the credits. This next thought is going to show just how
little I actually know about game development. I can't help but
wonder if it would really have been that much more problematic to
just have done Final Fantasy 5 for a global release back then and
have had the Mystic Quest title be its own game, separate from the
Final Fantasy name.
With all that in mind, I guess we can
call this game one of my guilty pleasures. Yeah, this game is really
easy, and stripped down compared to the other games in the main
series, but I still like it all the same. I would recommend giving
it a shot if you get a chance. I think it'll be worth your time,
just for the sake of saying you've played it.
The end stats for this run were that I
had Ben at level 37, which is about average, and pretty close to the
cap level of 41. Not sure how that was decided, but there you go.
The total play time was 16 hours, 43 minutes, which seems about
average as well, far as I can tell, without grinding. My previous,
just-for-fun playthrough had similar stats, with the only really
notable difference being that I managed to get Ben one level higher,
but I don't recall there being any significant differences to that
end.
So, that leaves us with the matter of
where to from here. Right now, I'm thinking I'll at least try to go
back to and finish Final Fantasy 8. I think I left off where Squall
and the others were on their way to the space station, but I'll have
to look that up in my notes again, just to be sure. I'll probably do
a Final Fantasy Tonight when I finally get ready to go on that.
Anyway, until then,
stay safe, have fun, keep gaming, and DFTBA!
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