Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, Chapter 2: I Have Returned

What sort of bard would I be if I didn't have music to accompany my ramblings? Today I bring you a piece from what many believe is Final Fantasy Mystic Quest's only redeeming quality, its soundtrack. Here is the opening music, as well as a playlist that will appropriately accompany this post.

A familiar face to nerds everywhere.

Why start my post on FF: MQ with a Magic card back? Well, somewhere around late February I decided I wanted to get back into one of my middle and high school obsessions, Magic: The Gathering. I played mostly during my grade school years, with a short stint back in 2011. For the most part, getting back in to the game has been great. It's a fun, challenging pass time. Also, creating decks and sorting cards are rewarding tasks outside of playing the game itself. Giving what was going on in my life at the time, it was the perfect way to relax and decompress outside of work.

Source.

However, I'm not really one to have hobbies; I have obsessions. I dove back in to Magic full bore, spending hours and hours simply sorting cards. It's been fun, and I plan to continue playing, but this blog was stuck in the back of my mind.

So that's what I've been doing. My Magic obsession has slowed down a little, and it's time to get back to a more balanced schedule.

Battlefields dot the overland map. Here the player can fight a series of ten battles for a reward, in lieu of random encounters.

I've also spent some time thinking about how to make this blog as sustainable as possible. While I really liked the idea of challenging myself to write in character stories, it's been very difficult and hard to keep up with. I don't know how Raifield does it on his blog, Talos bless him.

I think I'm going to focus more on general impressions and information from the games, so I can write from a stream of consciousness. If I have any other regular readers out there, please chime in on what approach will get you the most out of my blog. 

When last we left Benjamin, he had arrived at the Level Forest. There he moved a boulder for an older fellah, then followed the path to the forest town of... Foresta. The townsfolk tell him that a great beast is draining the energy of the forest, which also has the effect of turning children into old folk.

To keep things simple for us Westerners, Benjamin can have only one companion at a time. In the course of the Level Forest, Ben meets two of them. They are Kaeli, who wields a mean axe that can chop down trees, and Tristan, who has bombs and throwing stars. The axe and bombs become Ben's possessions as the story progresses.

Besides the obvious Knight of Prophecy quest to defeat the evil beast and save the forest, and save the world, Benjamin also ends up wanting to recover an item called the Elixir to save Kaeli. While helping Ben chop his way through the forest, she was poisoned by the minotaur there, who was occupying an evil tree... or something like that.

Tristan is a treasure hunter, who don't give an F about any poisoned flower girls. The allowance joke gives an idea what level of humor we're talking about with Mystic Quest; it is just shy of being a complete groan fest.

Playing his part, Benjamin slices, chops, and explodes his way through the Bone Dungeon, the lair of the evil beast of Earth. The dungeon's namesakes are ubiquitous, along with shifting sands. At its heart, Ben faces Flamerus Rex. A red-boned dinosaur with "flame" in its name is kind of strange for the boss of Earth. However, Rex is also undead, which keeps a tenuous link to the original Final Fantasy's earth boss, Lich.

One of Mystic Quest's best features is that enemies gradually become more pathetic looking as they lose hit points.

With Flamerus defeatedus, Benjamin has restored peace and love to the beautiful and majestic Level Forest. After delivering the Elixir to Kaeli, multiple folks point to Aquaria as being the next destination of the Knight of Prophecy, which MAY have something to with the element of water. Kaeli seeks a man named Spencer there, and the mysterious, cloud-riding old man tells Benjamin he should seek help from Phoebe.

What a guy!

Comment to gain Gil and influence my playlist!

2 Gil to Raifield for comments!