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I feel like this is a good opportunity to post one of my favorite Game Boy tunes from Bionic Commando.

dsheinem wrote:I finished up Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (SNES) this morning and really enjoyed the shit out of that little doofy game. It has a charm all its own, especially if it can be read as a sort of parody/critique of the mainline FF games. There's a lot more of FFMQ's type of ideas in more recent FF games than there is ideas from the other SNES outings, and so I think the game's legacy will grow in time.

The team that did MQ also did FFLIII, and you can see a lot of the same mechanics in both games. I'd recommend you give FFLIII a try if you've got time; unlike the first two games it's more of a traditional FF game, and then layers the transformation stuff on top (and if you don't like it you can always work your way back to your base).

Legend III was always my favorite of that trilogy. I had no idea it was the MQ team that did it.

Yeah, FFLIII came out in 91 in Japan, then MQ came out in 92 in the US, and then they were each localized for the other territory in 93.

Yeah, just the presence of that jump mechanic clued me in. I still have yet to finish FFLIII, though.

Reading through the comments, it seems like one common thread uniting FF spin-offs is that they seem to do some things brilliantly while faltering at others. I'm still stumbling my way through FF Tactics: War of the Lions, and mostly enjoying it. I'm glad I opted to play it on PSP due to the fact that I'm not sure I would have made it through otherwise. It's a game that requires some significant time investment. I'd be interested to calculate my average time per battle, but I'm guessing it would be somewhere around 5 minutes (at least). Last night I hit a difficulty spike that I managed to finally skate through on luck after losing the same battle 4-5 times (and once again we're talking at least 5 minutes per attempt here). I'm honestly not sure whether I hadn't dedicated enough time to the grind beforehand, or whether I'm just still not grasping the finer points of the job/ability system. Probably both, lol!

It is a fun and thought provoking game though. I think I've come to the conclusion that it has the best written dialogue of any FF game I've played. And although the story beats have been fairly telegraphed thus far, it's supremely satisfying to see them unfold. I'm still getting huge Game of Thrones vibes all over the place!

I won't lie though, this one might take some perseverance for me to see it through to the end. I would really like to though.

noiseredux wrote:Legend III was always my favorite of that trilogy. I had no idea it was the MQ team that did it.

Check out the similarities in enemy artwork.

Both games are rad.

When I renewed my PlayStation plus subscription for the month I found that I had War of the Lions fore free. I’m going to download it and give it the old college try (which if going by my college experience, means 95% of the time trying not very hard, followed by 5% trying really hard while panicking and telling my wife I’m going to fail everything).

ESauced wrote:When I renewed my PlayStation plus subscription for the month I found that I had War of the Lions fore free. I’m going to download it and give it the old college try (which if going by my college experience, means 95% of the time trying not very hard, followed by 5% trying really hard while panicking and telling my wife I’m going to fail everything).

That's awesome! I suspect your mileage may vary depending on your experience with/enjoyment level of SRPGs. I had long since convinced myself that games with heavy focus on tactical strategy elements just weren't my thing, so this is actually my first SRPG for which I'm really making a concerted effort. And I'm rather enjoying it to my surprise! But I also think it's the strength of the story that's really keeping me going. If I was trying to get through it on gameplay elements alone I'm not sure I'd make it, which isn't to say the gameplay is bad(!), only that I'm still fighting my long held preconceptions regarding tactical strategy games. If you enjoy getting into the nuts and bolts of party/character management and feature rich job systems, you'll find a lot to enjoy in War of the Lions.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

So a big part of the appeal of FFMQ was the short length.

Are there other spinoffs people enjoy that can be beaten in 10-15 hours or less?