FFMQ Cheerleader Challenge Part I

Note that I streamed this variant on my Twitch Channel. For the VODs relevant to this part of the challenge, check here and here.


Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was released first in the US, and made for western audiences. It is also known as Final Fantasy USA in Japan, or Mystic Quest Legend in Europe. Made by the same team that designed Final Fantasy Legend III (most obvious through jumping mechanics and enemy graphic similarities), it was marketed as a beginner's RPG, and is most notable for its rockin' soundtrack. There are certainly ways to make this simple RPG more interesting, though.

The story is typical RPG fare: when the Vile Four (this game's equivilant of the Four Fiends) steal the power of the crystals and divide the world into four by sealing the doors of the Focus Tower. At that point, it's prophesized that a Knight will appear to save the world and restore power to the crystals. Unfortunately for this Knight, Benny, he's more suited for a supporting role.

The rules of this challenge are simple:
1) Benny may not do anything to harm an enemy monster, unless absolutely necessary
2) The partner character must remain on Auto

Because Benny isn't going to be doing anything but helping and giving the AI his best regards, I call this the Cheerleader challenge!
WE HAVE SPIRIT, YES WE DO!
WE WILL DEFEAT ALL OF YOU!
ALL THE CRYSTALS WILL BE SAVED!
JUST WISH MY FRIENDS WERE WELL-BEHAVED...


As the game begins, we're presented with the first instace of rule number one. Benny fights this Behemoth solo. You have four commands to choose from in battle, as well as running from it.
- Attack will not be getting used, of course.
- Magic casts a spell, Benny will be using White Mage exclusively: Cure, Heal, Life, and Exit.
- Item uses one of the game's four consumable items: Cure potions heal around 1/4 HP, Heal potions heal any status in the game, Seeds restore all spell charges, and Refreshers restore any stat loss.
- Defense can be used to either reduce oncoming damage or cover your ally character.

Anyway, this fight can actually go wrong. If the Behemoth lands a critical hit in this tutorial battle, you're pretty much done unless you roll one as well. Also, check out this game's default way of displaying health. I'll leave it on because it looks sleek, but I'd like to think that it's more complicated for a beginner to understand than numbers are. Each "tick" represents 40 HP, as does the visible health bar itself. A quick indication if you're curious is that Benny's HP is always 40*Level. We can move on and begin the variant after beating him.


The annoying thing about this, as I find out as soon as I get the first partner character - Kaeli - presents itself. The AI itself loves to play a supporting role. She kept trying to heal Benny with Cure potions! I had to wait until they were all used up before I could proceed. Thankfully, she could kill everything here in one hit.

An interesting thing about this is that it chooses its action when its turn comes around, rather than at the start of each round. So it can do things like instantly revive you after you've fallen. If it does that mid-round, your action will even execute after. The flipside of it is for this challenge, it can get caught in a loop of Cure or Heal.


I got Benny up to Level 3 before taking on the first boss: the Minotaur. This wasn't difficult. It only took two battles to to reach level 2, then I left to heal and did the two more in the way to hit that level. His two attacks are Roundhouse (a basic physical) and Scream (a weak attack that lowers defense), which runs contrary to how he's apparently able to poison Kaeli and trees. Kaeli attacked for 30 damage at a time. He has 240HP. Pretty uneventful, and he can't even poison you like the game suggests he can. It didn't take too long.


Things don't get much less annoying in the Bone Dungeon, especially when I try to fight these Roc monsters. They can inflict Blind status on my characters. Not a big deal for Benny, but definitely a big deal for Tristam! I have to retrieve some Heal Potions from the Level Forest to protect against this.

This was also where Benny got his first equipment upgrade: a Steel Shield which provided an extra 5 defense. There was also another available in a Battlefield, the Charm, but it would only provide one extra defense. I decided on skipping it, as I wasn't sure how long Tristam's Ninja Star stock would hold out. Turns out, I overestimated, heh. Anyway, he's the next party member.


Palette swaps of the boss you fought are common in this game, and Minotaur Zombie is one such monster. They - along with the Skeleton monsters - could inflict Confusion status. Not too big a deal since it's uncommon in the Skeletons and you can encounter a max of one Minotaur Zombie at a time, but it would make Tristam use his turn on a Heal Potion.

I managed to make it through the dungeon without serious incident, and fought one more extra battle to get Benny to level 6 before facing the first real boss of the game.


The first of the Vile Four is Flamerus Rex. He was an easy encounter. Benny guarded Tristam almost every round possible, who went to work throwing ninja stars out. He got a ton of criticals, and was able to beat him before Tristam ran out of Lifes. Though I unfortunately wasted a Seed before the battle, thinking Benny might need his Cure charges.

Benny twice was knocked down to a single HP, as shown here. Guess that extra battle helped!! Anyway, it didn't take long before he fell and the Earth Crystal was saved.

By the way, one thing I love about Mystic Quest: enemies' sprites change as they take damage. It's a neat touch.


Next up is the frozen land of Aquaria, home of the Water Crystal! I unfortunately did not fight enough battles, having skipped most of everything, and did not have enough for the Steel Helmet. Not overly important at least, as in the long run, it'll be obsoleted.


Anyway, the wizard Phoebe is the latest party member. The AI is extremely wasteful with its spell charges. She was out of her Fire and Thunder spells halfway through the next dungeon, the Wintry Cave! Instead of using a Seed to restore her, I pressed on.


Note her claw. This is the weakest partner weapon. She used it against that Land Worm on the left there, and didn't even push it into its damaged graphic. I had to have Benny Defend on himself instead of her. Otherwise, she would be caught in a loop of trying to heal him (you might just be able to see the blue healing sparkle there)


Luckily, she hands it off to you after a plot event to allow you to climb walls, and instead takes up a Bow of Grace after. A much stronger weapon! The claw also became Benny's default weapon, due to it giving an extra 5 to his Magic stat. That means more damage healed with Cure.


I suffered my first defeat in the next room against a group of turtles. But in Mystic Quest, you're offered the chance to repeat any battle you lost. So nothing lost at all. Unless of course, you didn't save and end up in a fight you can't run from or win!

At this point, I was very low on resources...but is there a way to conserve what I have left? Yes there is! I found that if I got a Strike First! against the enemies, Phoebe could kill them all without taking a single point of damage. She'd kill one on the first round, another the second, Benny would guard her from the third's attack, which she would kill the next round.


Except then I couldn't get it to work on the Sparna enemies before the boss. I did have to use a Seed there.


The next boss is Squidite, who was accompanied by two of those Sparna enemies. Phoebe took them out without issue, and only he was left. He had a few obnoxious attacks, including that one which really hurt if all the hits connected. Of less concern was its Electropulse attack, which did low damage and lowered Magic power. Unlike with Flamerus, I couldn't just defend Phoebe all the time, because she would get caught in a Cure loop. Took a bit to get the rhythm right.


By the way, check out the dungeon on the world map. That's totally Lavos.


Falls Basin is the next dungeon, a frozen waterfall with some block/jumping puzzles. With some ingenuity, you can actually skip two fights. I did them anyway for the experience, but still.


The Heal Spell is a nice pickup, and it's right there! This spell heals any status ailment, and though irrelevant for our variant, can be used on enemies to inflict status ailments on them.


Snow Crab sucked. He could sometimes one-shot Benny with his attacks, and could confuse the party members too. A couple times, this wiped out the group. Twice he was at very low health, and twice Phoebe shot herself in the face with arrows. Can't blame that one on the AI.


I had enough for the Steel Helm, so I went ahead and picked it up. Now there's another piece of equipment around to get from the Battlefield south of Aquaria: the Magic Ring. It gives 3 defense and protects against Silence status. However, the Silence status never actually works in this game. It exists in the code, and has all its effects in preventing you from casting magic, but it's never actually applied. It's not a high priority to pick up.


This encounter group was in Falls Basin too, but it showed up again in the Ice Pyramid. The AI really sucks against it. Phoebe would wastefully Thunder the Lamias individually, then Fire the Desert Hag. By contrast the alternate group, she would Thunder all the Lamias and kill them.

There's definitely a strategic element to this variant in that regard. Which way to fight each encounter? Which encounters to fight, and which to reroll? Defend Benny, or Defend the partner? For this reason, I picked up the technically optional Magic Mirror to see what's coming up, since I don't have them memorized.


Anyway, besides those two which showed up in the previous dungeon, this place has a lot of annoying enemeis. Mages could Cure themselves if not one hit killed, probably the weakest of them. Stony Roosts could petrify, which thankfully only happened once. Sphinxes could not be one shot with Phoebes arrows and could confuse, and Gathers could blind, making Phoebe miss or use Heal instead of attacking. The latter would at least sometimes kill themselves, and the Sphinxes would use Heal on themselves if Phoebe's bow procced blind.


There was a great armor upgrade here though in the Noble Armor! Protection against water (including ice) and poison. The former definitely was nice for here.


I had to use my one remaining Seed when I got to this bottom floor. The Lamias would not roll into anything but two Lamia/one Desert Hag, meaning Phoebe wasted several charges on the two in the way. On the bright side, I did pick up this. While weapons are useless for Benny from an offensive perspective, holding this in-hand gives him an extra 5 speed.


The last encounter before the boss, a two Sphinx/one Gather group proved highly annoying. I got it done after Phoebe killed one of the Sphinx on the first turn, and the Gather Self-Destructed.


Ice Golem has a variety of attacks. The most annoying three I found are Stomp Stomp, which did 294 to Benny - over half his health - and made Phoebe use Cure on him, Sleep Lure which does as you might expect, and Snowstorm, which targets both party members and heals him. With the spiffy new Noble Armor, he resisted this along with his trademark Ice Block attack. His other physicals didn't push Benny over half HP, which is when Phoebe would Cure him.

It took two goes at this battle before I won it. I came close the first time, and made a miscalculation the second time - I was trying to get Phoebe to heal herself, but she was out of white magic spell charges, so she didn't stand a chance at the end. Third time was the charm though; Phoebe rolled around 6-7 crits on the monster and put him to rest.

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