FFMQ Low Level Challenge Part I

The low level game is a staple challenge in many video games, but in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, it is somewhat more practical than it is in most other RPGs. The Exit spell, once acquired, can instantly banish almost any enemy from the battlefield, with the consequence/reward of getting nothing from that enemy.

Regardless of this, the game is still fairly interesting low level, and makes it much more decently challenging than it is normally. I named the character down to Ben, since that seems kind of youngish, as in how this variant will never mature level-wise.


So, one of the most important things about this run in the early goings? The experience you get from every battle. Enemies are in fixed locations on the map, but the enemies in battle are not necessarily fixed. In this case, you can fight either three Brownies, or two Brownies and a Slime. The former gives 198 EXP, the latter gives 204. Similarly, two Slimes and a Brownie give less experience.

Minotaur was somewhat tedious, especially due to constant missing, but not dangerous. Level 2 is more or less when you usually fight him. I skipped out using Life because I thought it might be more interesting.


Bone Dungeon has a skippable Skeleton encounter towards the very end. A lot of fights could be reduced to single enemies, including Skeletons and Minotaur Zombies. These were a pickup to be made...although ironically, I never ended up using these three Seeds.


By the way, there is a fairly serious bug in FFMQ that prevents party members' armor from being refreshed when a new one joins your party. This can be a good thing in the case of speedrunning, but it's a bad thing at other times. A quick reload fixed Tristam before taking on Bone Dragon.


Bone Dragon itself could do very heavy damage to Ben, but overall, was not that difficult even with him stuck at level 3.


The Steel Helmet was in the next area, but as before, I couldn't buy it. Not gaining any levels also means not gaining any money, but thankfully, the use of it is scarce in this game.


Heading into the first dungeon of the Aquaria region, Wintery Cave was a simple affair, once Phoebe had her actual weapon. There were a few places where I had the choice of which battles to take - the same general guideline of taking the path of least experience applied. Ben snuffed it against Squidite, but Phoebe solo was still more than a match for it. Her Thunders did 401 apiece, and he couldn't put together a 1-2 punch to bring her down.


In Falls Basin, the unintended shortcut to skip two fights came into play for real this time, skipping a bit of experience. Ice Crab is a particularly nasty battle at low levels (speedruns), but I managed to get it on the second try. Ben died early into the fight, but got off a Fire to kill one of the Desert Hags. Phoebe handled it from there with Thunder, slowly but surely.


Going through the Pyramid without the Magic Mirror wasn't too bad. It was around this time I checked and found a GameFAQs guide on this challenge that helpfully provides all EXP information on encounters. Useful little thing, although flawed in a couple ways - notably in its route through Pazuzu's Tower.

By the way, I had to leave the Noble Armor behind, at least for the time being. Acquiring it would necessitate several extra encounters. Obviously unacceptable for a low level challenge. What about once I got Exit? That would require using a few Seeds. It's not critically important from here anyway...although if it is helpful, I guess I'll have to go back and grab it. Not having it and its water/ice resistance would affect the next boss, of course.


Aside from being able to potato Ben with his Ice Block, Ice Golem wasn't particularly threatening until it started using Snowstorm repeatedly, which would off Ben in short order. After a couple of goes at this, I noticed that so long as it did that, Phoebe could always Cure it off and outpace its healing. So leave it to the boss to start using other attacks...but the same strategy held firm.


The Exit Battlefield had two encounters: one of these Phanquids, or one of them with a Sphinx. These could happen too. Nevertheless, even solo lv10 Ben could beat them with a single Jumbo Bomb. He did this ten times for his prize.

Now to move on to Fireburg and the next dungeon-


Wait what?

Well, see, this is a low level game. As in, a challenge to beat the game at the lowest level possible. So it only makes sense I do everything in my power to avoid experience, up to and including skipping a section of the game with a glitch. What's going on here is that you get 256 of an item by buying 0. Using this item gives you 255 of it changes the item in the next slot. If it's Potions, they become Sky Coins. And then what happens if you buy potions from there? They go into your fifth inventory slot, which doesn't exist/is tied to the rest of your inventory, so weird things happen.

I used this to acquire the Sun Coin before being able to do so normally. With the only thing stopping you from advancing through the Focus Tower being needing to pick up these coins after defeating the bosses of each world, I can use this to advance to the Windia region right away! I also get the Mobius Crest, as this vaporizes the Libra Crest I need to get this. I'll probably do Fireburg itself as a bonus, however. And, it does harm in one interesting way - I won't be able to grab the Life spell because of this.

(Well, actually, I only remembered this after the Giant Tree; but made the necessary adjustments so that I had the proper amount of everything - 25 less GP and 7 less Seeds. Not that it REALLY matters, as Seeds are easy to grind as I'll show)


I used all 255 of those Seeds, on that note. It was a handy glitch for the properties in relation to the challenge, but keeping them around seems a bit much. So I won't, and bought more the "proper" way (this showing the amount that I should've had).

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