YMMV / Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

• Angst? What Angst?: Benjamin seems more disgruntled than anguished about his village's destruction at the start of the game.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Dark King, who can be effortlessly obliterated with a few Cure spells. Although if you don't exploit that glitch, it's actually a suitably epic final encounter.
• Awesome Music: While the game is not widely loved, everyone agrees the music is fantastic and the best part of the game, even with a relatively limited track list. Most praise focuses on Ryuji Sasai's use of electric guitar, and several of the tracks that resulted (which is the three battle themes, "Lava Dome and "Doom Castle"). The soundtrack even came with three remixes that combine battle music in one track, and "Doom Castle" and "Lava Dome" in the other, to a crescendo of awesome. It probably says something that the game's first recognition in a spin-off title was in Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: At one point, the Old Man will ask Benjamin for money for a cup of coffee, then depart without saying another word or waiting long enough to hear Benjamin's answer, leaving Benjamin to shrug.
• Breather Level: The final level is one. Doom Castle is much shorter than the last few dungeons, and with Phoebe as your partner and plenty of Seeds, almost every encounter can be cleared on the first round with a Flare/White combo.
• Cliché Storm: The plot. Find the Crystals. Defeat the evil dude. That's pretty much it, though it somehow manages to be good despite its simple premise. Mostly thanks to being accompanied by a great soundtrack.
• Critical Backlash: The game has been hit hard with criticism of how laughably easy it is, but many people that play have admitted its reputation has been exaggerated, since functionally it works perfectly well and it's easy because it's designed to be easy, not because of exploitable flaws in the game. It also had some interesting gameplay features not seen in other Final Fantasy games, such as the ability to jump across gaps and use weapons on the dungeon map to interact with things (such as using the axe to cut down trees or the sword to poke switches concealed in statues, to say nothing of the bombs and the Dragon Claw), as well as the fact that all of the enemies show damage as they are weakened, a feature seldom seen in Final Fantasy games, particularly the sprite-based ones.
• Demonic Spiders: Particularly in the late-game, enemies can use the expected Status Effects including Instant Death, Petrify, Paralysis and Confuse, and such enemies can attack in pairs or even trios; you have only two party members, Benjamin can't get armor to resist Petrify until the final dungeon and Confusion until Windia, and while his allies have some resistances to those statuses, no one resists them all. This makes such encounters a Luck-Based Mission since enemies can incapacitate you for several turns or just kill you outright.
  • Particular mention to a Battlefield accessible after clearing the Lava Dome. Most encounters are against Iflyte or Stheno, usually in pairs and often in ambushes, and the Stheno can use all of those mentioned status ailments. It is not merely possible, but actually probable, that they will get a first strike and instantly inflict one of those statuses, probably killing at least one character and preventing the other from taking their turn and they'll get killed after that. At least the game lets you retry battles endlessly without penalty, which you'll have to do until they give you a chance to fight back.
  • Thanatos, the Palette Swap of Dullahan, has a good amount of HP and can use Cure, meaning that the only reliable way to take him down is to have both party members' attacks land right after each other.
• Epileptic Trees: Surprisingly, a few exist. One's around Tristam and whether or not he was supposed to be in the "party" longer - since his robe nulls Doom attacks but you don't meet a monster which uses that until he leaves. Bigger questions come from the back of the US box, however, which among other things showed Phoebe in the party... in the Great Tree, with the name "Tea" and wielding a morning star.
• Fanon: Tristam is often speculated to be from Windia, given his white-grey color scheme and the fact that you don't pick up anyone new there.
• Fridge Brilliance: Phoebe has a Cat Claw and Jumbo Bombs, which seems random at first, but later you find out that Claws raise Magic when equipped and Spencer is implied to use bombs in his digging.
• Fridge Horror: Playing through Castle Exdeath in FFV can prompt questions about the history of this game's early-game level, the Bone Dungeon.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Seeds are a cheap purchasable item that completely restores the heroes' magic points. Once you get spells like White and Flare, spamming magic is made easy.
  • Not to mention the Life spell that almost always defeats any non-zombie monster instantly, akin to a highly accurate One-Hit Kill spell. Revive Kills Zombie inverted.
  • Once you get the Dragon Claw... well, it has a 50% chance of inflicting Petrify with every hit, which is an instant kill on any enemy not immune to it. (Those who don't get Petrified, on the other hand, get hit with every other status effect in the game, more than making up for its (comparatively) low attack power!)
• Gateway Series: The game was designed to make RPG novices interested in the genre. However, it backfired, due to the game's hand-holding putting off old-school fans and newcomers alike.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • Cure damages the Dark King because it overflows the target's hit point restoration, turning what would be healing into damage. This also explains why Phoebe's Cure spell doesn't do the same thing — her Magic stat is so high that the overflow occurs twice, turning from healing to damage back into healing.
  • In a really strange glitch, party members will retain the element and status resistances of the one who last joined so long as you refrain from saving and restoring from said save, whereupon they're reset to their correct values. That said, you can use this to your benefit if you want to give Reuben resistance to things besides fire, for example.
  • Out of bombs? No problem, apparently Benjamin can blow up rocks with his fists. Out of Mega Grenades? Still no problem, apparently Ben can do this at range. Basically, the only thing you need the explosives themselves for is their use in battle. (Try to use them there when you're out, and Ben'll just slug the enemy with his bare fists. This, surprisingly, has little effect.)
  • If you're okay with setting Phoebe to Auto control in her second recruitment, she gains access to Aero, despite it not being in her spell list.
  • Someone apparently forgot to double-check the boss flags for the Skullrus Rex and Stone Golem, as both are vulnerable to two status ailments you wouldn't expect: petrification and Exit's expulsion.
• Ho Yay: The characterization is a little thin, but certain people people have noted that Tristam's actions toward our hero come off as... rather interesting.
  • He is also the only character to join Ben on Captain Mac's ship in the ending...
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The original US release, to the point it's the game's major flaw reviewers are likely to point out. Enemies are pathetic (ProJared demonstrated in his review that you can beat enemies by just pressing the A button repeatedly), the game is very generous with healing items, chests with them refill whenever you leave an area so you can farm them without effort, you get access to two One-Hit Kill White Magic spells, all the equipment you need are found in dungeons, and all enemies are visible on the map and can just be avoided if you like. The only times the game actively gets challenging is when it starts pulling Fake Difficulty and a few fairly elaborate puzzles on the dungeon maps. The Japanese version beefs up enemies and nerfs the party a bit, so the game is more difficult.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The other flaw detractors will discuss. Mystic Quest can be beaten in about six hours, ten if you actively search for every monster lair, weapon, armor, and spell.
• Mis-blamed: This game had nothing to do with Final Fantasy V not getting an international release, it was a common myth that Square decided to localise this one.
• Spiritual Successor: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is actually more like a spiritual successor to the early SaGa games. It was made by the same team that made Final Fantasy Legend III, and its basic combat mechanics are taken directly from that installment, while its world (four separate areas connected by a giant tower with the dark lord at the top) heavily resembles The Final Fantasy Legend.
• That One Boss: A few late-game bosses at least try to give you a challenge.
  • Medusa simply uses a lot of status attacks like Paralyze and Stone, making her a slog to beat.
  • Gidrah and his flunkies also throw out Stone and Paralyze, making them dangerous opponents.
  • Pazuzu can reflect your Aero spells by using PsychShield. It so happens that he is weak to wind, and damage bonuses from weaknesses are applied before the spell is reflected. If you order both characters to use Aero and Pazuzu goes first and uses PsychShield, you just lost.
  • Zuh is Pazuzu's Palette Swap; he has slightly less HP, but still has PsychShield and adds in Doom Dance, a One-Hit Kill attack.
• Woolseyism: Done by the man himself.
  • Every playable character, as well as Spencer, went through a Dub Name Change. "Zash" to "Benjamin", "Karen" to "Kaeli", "Rock/Lock" to "Tristam", "Faye" to "Phoebe", "Red" to "Reuben", and "Jack" to "Spencer".
  • The Japanese version of the game appears to mention the final boss in the first conversation in the game whereas this knowledge is held back to be a twist in the English versions of the game.
  • The enemy names zigzag between this and "Blind Idiot" Translation. For Woolseyism, we have "Gatlinga" becoming "Sting Rat", "Pterygotus" (a sea creature) to "Phanquid", and "Bloodsucker" to "Fangpire". On the other hand, "Phoenix" become "Hot Wings", and "Cockatrice" became "Stoney Roost".

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