Game:

Mystic Ark (1995)

Duration: 10:59

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Original Air Date: August 4th, 2009

Ah yes... Mystic Ark... this is one of those RPGs people have been begging for a fan translation for almost as long as I can remember (which was eventually released by Aeon Genesis). It's what some would call the sequel to "The 7th Saga" and was only released in Japan. Despite what many believe however, this would not mark the end of the series. There is one last game made in 1999 for Playstation titled "Mystic Ark: Maboroshi Gekijo" which is a sequel to Mystic Ark, but it's very different from either the original Mystic Ark or 7th Saga/Elnard. I was going to pair this and the gameplay together, but given the nature and progression of this game, I wouldn't be able to show much if I did. It's worth noting that while this is the most direct sequel to T7S, it is actually the "third" game in the series (The SNES/SFC game, "Brain Lord", is a sort of prequel or alternate reality to T7S story-wise but second to be released).

Mystic Ark is like The 7th Saga but with a fresh coat of paint and several new innovations. This game is more of an adventure game now with lots of searching to be done and puzzles to be solved. The Playstation game is almost purely an adventure game, so it's not like I couldn't see it coming, but it just made an already strange series even more strange. How strange is this game? Having almost beaten the game, I can tell you that it is... very strange.

This game is a lot more puzzle orientated than before, so if you don't understand some Japanese or have a decent FAQ, you may never beat this game, as some of the puzzles require more than mere common sense. The reason for this is besides adding several new options when investigating important objects, some objects require you to use an item while others require you to use the different elemental arks. For example, you'll need the ark of water (Mizu) to put out a fireplace or the ark of darkness to open a chamber. The arks are fairly important to the game in its entirety, as they are also required to have more than one character on your party and can imbue weapons with special properties.

Outside of that, combat is mostly the same as The 7th Saga, but you can have three characters instead of two (plus they're all with you so you can switch when you want) and characters have skills besides just magic. For instance, the ability to guard isn't available to all characters (which helps boost your attack next turn and reduce damage dealt) while others have skills unique to them. One character doesn't even have magic (Reeshine). The crystal ball radar is here too. You can also battle in an Arena and enemies on the map seem a little slower.

This game has you travel to various lands (by entering different artifacts and objects) that each act as miniature worlds, ranging from a sandy planet in need of water where cat people live to a colorful fairytale land with the "Three Little Pigs" and spins on other household names. Yeah... it's strange like THAT. Graphically, the game has much more ambiance than The 7th Saga, but the game isn't really flashier than it. They're good, but the sound is better. It's amazingly rich and almost every track is epic in some way. You also don't see some of the music in this game coming, as some of it is radical and upbeat yet the game has such a dark tone at times.

This video has snippets of exploring and battling. The illustrations for this game are done by the very talented Akihiro Yamada (山田 章博, Yamada Akihiro). Enjoy.