Current Events > Squaresoft: You're too dumb for our games. Start with this one.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/5/3/AABfkMAAEokh.jpg

I always knew it was a dumbed down "entry level" game, but didn't know how frank the advertising was.

It was "easy" in the super Nintendo era which means it is today's medium difficulty. Have you actually played it? It's quite tough if you don't know what you're doing. You can still die

Lmao give them credit for honest advertising

Todays games journos would still struggle with it and complain that there isnt an easy mode though, so Id say Square wasnt entirely wrong in their advertisement here.

the best part about all of this is that the 'make this game easy for dumb babies' choices read as quality of life in 2023. no random encounters and you can just re-start any fight you lose.

i've always thought there was a little more possibility to wring out of mystic quest. like, switching weapons on the fly is really neat. they could've had you leverage that against the speed of your current partner.

Revisited posted...

It was "easy" in the super Nintendo era which means it is today's medium difficulty. Have you actually played it? It's quite tough if you don't know what you're doing. You can still die

I had fights in the game where the enemy paralyzed my party and killed me before I could make a single move.

Yes the game was supposed to be super dumb easy so I dunno why anyone even used that as a critique.

I had fights in the game where the enemy paralyzed my party and killed me before I could make a single move.

they could only have fights that deadly because of the restart-on-loss thing. but yeah some of them pound-for-pound are harder than what you'd see in a typical ff game.

or like going back to swarm-of-cockatrices in ff1 stuff.

Even the final boss was easy as fuck LMAO. Although I think someone told me killing the last boss with Cure was a glitch.

Mystic Quest is the best game in the franchise...

VeggetaX posted...

Even the final boss was easy as fuck LMAO. Although I think someone told me killing the last boss with Cure was a glitch.

He's not that hard even without the glitch.

$39.99

Where that narrative that games cost thr same and never went up?

Ted Woolsey said in an interview that Square basically didn't think Americans were ready for FFV, and that's why we never got it. So they made Mystic Quest as a way to train Americans for a real RPG.

WingsOfGood posted...

$39.99

Where that narrative that games cost thr same and never went up?

Inflation is an ugly thing, just sayin.

WingsOfGood posted...

$39.99

Where that narrative that games cost thr same and never went up?

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/07/the-return-of-the-70-video-game-has-been-a-long-time-coming/

WingsOfGood posted...

$39.99

Where that narrative that games cost thr same and never went up?

Games varied wildly in price back then. Like Phantasy Star IV was close to $100 from what I remember.

Pazuzu would fuck you up. Thats the only boss id say that can be hard in the entire game....

It was still a fun game imo.

What's weird was square acting like RPGs would be too complicated when westerners were what really started "RPGs" in the first place.

LordMarshal posted...

Pazuzu would fuck you up. Thats the only boss id say that can be hard in the entire game....

Zuh was even harder but that makes sense since he's literally just a beefier version of Pazuzu.

Do modern gamers really think random battles is too complicated? LMAO

And with FF16 theyve come full circle. I love the game, but its definitely true.

ArtiRock posted...

What's weird was square acting like RPGs would be too complicated when westerners were what really started "RPGs" in the first place.

Yeah, the reason they weren't popular at the time was because...they just weren't yet. They were just a niche until the PS1. FF7's graphics and the commercials for it were what finally got the genre some attention.

VeggetaX posted...

Do modern gamers really think random battles is too complicated? LMAO

MQ didn't have any random battles.

But now we say turn based is bad because you just spam your strongest move. Like you do in many many games.....

Hayame_Zero posted...

Yeah, the reason they weren't popular at the time was because...they just weren't yet. They were just a niche until the PS1. FF7's graphics and the commercials for it were what finally got the genre some attention.

Cgi and story telling were big, but they also date it all. A lot of the motivation for playing and trudging through the screen was to get to the next cutscene

FF4 also successful in US because they dumbed it down.
And then FFV is skipped because they think it's too hard for US audience.

At least NA got some RPGs.
Europe was known for "only liking soccer games" and missed most RPGs.

ellis123 posted...

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/07/the-return-of-the-70-video-game-has-been-a-long-time-coming/

And yet that doesn't change the fact that every $70 video game hasn't been worth the price. It's like they love bloating budgets for trash.

MQ is one of the few FF games where I ever got a game over. It also has top tier music.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Capcom started it iirc with the DMC titles being harder in NA(might be wrong but I know DMC3 definitely was). I believe Konami also made the Metal Gear Solid series harder or added new difficulties to EU.

ArtiRock posted...

What's weird was square acting like RPGs would be too complicated when westerners were what really started "RPGs" in the first place.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/2/AAZaD9AAEpGu.jpg

We got examples of both Nes and Snes games that were made both easier and harder in NA.
I wonder if we can tie it to specific genres or developers...

Oh, and Rare made Battletoads easier in Japan.

SerperiorThanU posted...

The reverse happened too. Partners in Time...

I mean by the time partners in time came out, the concept was definitely dead. But in early NES/SNES days, there was definitely a divide depending on who was making the game.

SerperiorThanU posted...

Fire Emblem PoR was released around the same time and had its hardest mode in the Japanese version removed in place of an easier than easy mode for the international release. Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days was made easier too. It does seem like it mostly stopped after 7th gen though.

KH is a surprise. But wow, didn't know about PoR. How silly.

the hardmode hack of it is dumb. it's just 'everything does every status effect'.

also the one playthrough i liked of the illegal remaster is off of youtube.

Goldice posted...

KH is a surprise. But wow, didn't know about PoR. How silly.

For PoR, Maniac was removed because the difficulty was bad, and replaced with Easy, Normal, and Hard, and Hard from ours is sorta harder in some sense but it's also more balanced than the JP difficulty. There were actually people back in the day blogging about how annoying PoR Maniac was.

I get why people dislike Mystic Quest, but I've always had a soft spot for it. It was one of the first RPGs I played as a kid and I was young enough to not care or even notice how easy it was.

I didn't often beat games back then, so being able to finish Mystic Quest was pretty sweet.

a-c-a-b posted...

I get why people dislike Mystic Quest, but I've always had a soft spot for it. It was one of the first RPGs I played as a kid and I was young enough to not care or even notice how easy it was.

I didn't often beat games back then, so being able to finish Mystic Quest was pretty sweet.

Hell I was in my late 20s when I first played it and didn't have a problem with it because I didn't feel I had to prove anything to the world.

Just a fun simple game.

Mystic quest had a decent sized instruction manual. That was funny to me.

Then there was Working Designs who'd make games harder and grindier when they localized them.

Jagr_68 posted...

Lmao give them credit for honest advertising

This. At least they didn't lie about it like 99.9999% of adverts

ArtiRock posted...

What's weird was square acting like RPGs would be too complicated when westerners were what really started "RPGs" in the first place.

Exactly

ArtiRock posted...

What's weird was square acting like RPGs would be too complicated when westerners were what really started "RPGs" in the first place.

Could square rpgs or jrpgs in general really be classified the same thing as westerner rpgs? Fallout, baldur's Gate and plane escape torment are remarkably difference from final fantasy and dragon quest