What's funny here is that Mystic Quest, in Japan, was titled "Final Fantasy USA." It was an "intro level" rpg. A game for people who'd never played role-playing games, much less,
Final Fantasy, before. I enjoyed Mystic Quest, even after the American releases of Final Fantasy and
Final Fantasy 2. It was an enjoyable game, and a friend and I played through it when it first came out, much like we marathoned
FF2 and how
Beltane and I marathoned
Final Fantasy IX. The point is that the Japanese made fun of us through this easy game and it's title, and that it was still a better game than
Lagoon, or several subsequent titles that were real role-players.
I mean, I'm not here to laud Square or anything, but even when they were poking fun, they were making good games. So remember that when you play through Final Fantasy VIII, a decent, though predominantly cinemema scene oriented RPG (at least if you ask me, not being able to level over your opponents is a curse, and the story and cinema scenes were the only things that got my through that game, the first FF I didn't play through more than once).
Admittedly, the advertising line for FF: Mystic Quest was kinda lame, and the game itself wasn't what Square usually had to offer the SNES, but it was a fun game, and I'd buy it over a lot of others hands down, every fuckin' time.