Mystic Ark (1995)

Mystic Ark, for SNES

Rating: 6.0/10; Above Average

Not recommended but decent enough to not be a complete waste of time

Mystic Ark is a Jrpg made by the same developer as 7th saga. It can be seen as a slight iterative improvement with many of the same core mechanics. As a fairly traditional Jrpg you will be exploring towns, dungeons and the overworld from an isometric perspective, engaging in random turn based combat, and managing equipment and items using an inventory system with limited slots per character to handle equipped gear, consumables and quest items.

The game starts off with choosing your gender, which does have some effect on the main character's stats. Regardless of gender, he or she will be your typical master of all trades hero. You start in a small hub world and each chapter of the game is a different world accessible from a portal in the hub. The worlds have their own self contained stories and are certainly unique; to the point of being more interesting than the main story, which is pretty much non-existent until the end game. Seriously, I would like to find out more about cat pirate world, the world where people live inside giant fruit, the abandoned world with all the kids and the 2 ancient technology worlds. Each of these worlds could be an entire game but here they feel more like snow globes. Each world rewards an ark upon completion, which is the main goal of the game. 2 of the arks can be infused into the other characters to create a party while the others can only be put into equipment for bonuses. The first world is a solo experience and its ark allows you to bring 1 person into battle. The other party members have a brief backstory in the opening sequence but otherwise have no dialogue or character development whatsoever. They are treated like the lifeless wooden statues that they are stuck as, and might as well not even have names. The protagonist does not speak or develop either.

The party members serve a purely tactical purpose and the game breaks rpg conventions by allowing characters to gain xp and level up regardless of being in combat. You can freely swap party members outside combat so it is a very flexible system that allows you to make use of everyone and micromanage the best party for the current situation. The only caveat is that if a party member dies, they no longer gain xp nor can you access their inventory until you return to the hub world and pick up their statue again. Quite a fair system. Each character has their own class with a combination of techs (moves which cost nothing and include the basic attack), magic and equipment. The characters have preferred equipment types and can use others with a penalty; for example both the hero and ninja can use swords but the ninja is better with curved while the hero is better with straight. Magic features typical damage, healing, status cures and buffs, and comes with helpful descriptions of what each spell does. As do the many offensive and healing items. Techs on the other hand have no such descriptions and force you to figure out through trial and error. Most techs can be ignored in favor of basic attacks because they are only situationally better. A few stand out though; multi target attacks and the pure magic users who come with things like mana restore and sleep. Combat is simple; at times trivially so. There is not much variety in enemy types, such as types that are weaker to a specific character. A few enemies have nasty spells but combat is pretty much apply damage until enemies are dead. At around the mid game the enemies were doing 1 point of damage per attack and did not use magic. This was incredibly boring and combat did not pick up until like 2 worlds later when the enemies started using magic (their regular attacks improved a bit but were still not a threat). By this point most battles required healing afterwards and it was a pain. You either have to use the hero's valuable mana, healing items from your limited inventory or switch an active party member to the healer (the wizard also has a heal). You can't use their magic unless they are an active party member, so healing up is a very tedious process. It also means the healer can only heal the hero and herself until the 3rd party slot is unlocked.

To go with the dull story and combat are plenty of inane puzzles. From classic block pushing, chess and jumbled photos to slide, to mazes, one way conveyors and invisible crap. Some of it is optional. Some is easy while much is obnoxious and will have you rolling your eyes and scrambling for a guide. On top of that are the sometimes obscure things you need to do to progress; talking to specific characters in a certain order or number of times and the like. There is also a tech you can use to capture enemies for use in an arena mini game, or place bets on the monsters of others; neither of which feel like they belong in the game and seem to only be there because of the trope that Jrpgs always need gambling and mini games.

Mystic Ark is a dull paint by numbers Jrpg which only manages to be slightly better than 7th saga because of the latter's ludicrous difficulty. Mystic Ark goes the other way of being mostly too easy with combat and too annoying with its adventure aspects. Boring story and gameplay, with a few genuinely interesting things that are sadly not used to the fullest potential, relegate the game to forgotten obscurity.

Pro

• Some tactical differences for protagonist gender
• Good descriptions for spells and usable items
• Great techs, especially effective mana restore for the 2 casters
• Pretty good balance for the party members
• Inactive party members still gain xp
• Swap party members anywhere outside combat
• Interesting setting

Con

• Item descriptions do not show who can use what
• No descriptions for techs
• Menu closes after casting a spell or using an item outside combat, making it even more tedious to heal up
• Limited inventory
• Enemy health bars only show during your attacks
• Poorly balanced, dull, mostly too easy combat
• Silly and obnoxious puzzles
• How to progress the plot is sometimes obscure
• Save points
• Dull story
• Complete lack of character interaction and development

Beat without much trouble using a walkthrough. I found the game to be not particularly engaging and too many parts were obscure enough to make me want to look up the solution. The early game was somewhat fun as I tried to conserve resources by using party members until they were near death, usually ending with the black mage or priestess for bosses. This game does party members right, with everyone getting xp regardless of if they fight and being able to freely swap outside of battle; a huge pet peeve of mine for other rpgs. Would have been nice to be able to swap in battle too, and not have to swap to access healing magic in the field.

By the mid game the enemies were doing such low amounts of damage that combat was trivial and boring. Late game brought the pain though and I often had to swap the priestess in for heals after battle. My main team was Reeshine the monk and Lux the robot, switching Lux for Meisia the priestess for tougher boss fights. I liked Reeshine because she hit hard and Lux for his decent damage and high defense. The other characters I found a bit less effective because they took more damage which would lead to more tedious swapping for heals. For bosses I had Meisia buff power and speed, healing as needed. I really liked how the 2 magic users have useful moves, especially the one that restores mana.

I found the optional brain teasers incredibly obnoxious and gave up on the stupid sliding puzzles. I did not fool around with the monster arena and prizes but I had so much money by the end that I could just buy whatever I wanted. I also did not feel like going back to the synthesis machine to get some of the best gear. While this game is a bit better than 7th Saga, it dragged on too long and I wanted to get it over with. Boring story and characters, lots of little puzzles, not much tactical depth to combat and god damn limited inventory were the main flaws.

Final stats for the characters I used

Main: level 38 with death bringer imbued with fire ark, royal armor, royal crown imbued with wood ark, crystal shield imbued with water ark, magic buckle.

Reeshine: level 35 with flame bow imbued with light ark, solar uniform, shackles of silence.

Meisia: level 34 with oz staff imbued with darkness ark, rosen robe, tricorn hat, star earrings.

Lux: level 35 with gauntlet, steel armor, hard cross, shabby boots.