7th March 2003, 5:13 PM
Mystic Quest is different for a very large reason. Mystic Quest was specifically made to cater to American RPG newbies. Not even general Americans here, just the people who never played an RPG in their life. It didn't have random battles by the way, not that it made it any better. You still couldn't avoid them since they were in your path, and since you learned to hate the battle system as you went on (yes, I know saying "you" in a list of instructions or progress is terrible grammqr, but whatever) it just got worse and worse. End that with the ability to kill everything in the game with life and cure spells (even the last boss), and the high number of those you have access to, and the just plain boring gameplay outside of battle, plus the dull story, and you end up with a very boring game. It was MEANT to be easy and simple though. They did that job exceptionally well. However, it was SO easy and simple that it accomplished the opposite of it's goal and got some RPG newbies to hate the genre with their first game.
On the other hand, Crystal Chronicle is not in that situation. Game companies learned that doing something like that is indeed a very bad mistake. It's just different is all. Mystic Quest was only intended to be simple and easy, not "revelutionary". Compairing the two is silly when you realize the only similarity here is that they are spin-offs of the main series. Even then though, Tactics is a spin-off and it turned out great.
On the other hand, Crystal Chronicle is not in that situation. Game companies learned that doing something like that is indeed a very bad mistake. It's just different is all. Mystic Quest was only intended to be simple and easy, not "revelutionary". Compairing the two is silly when you realize the only similarity here is that they are spin-offs of the main series. Even then though, Tactics is a spin-off and it turned out great.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)