Quest 64/Analysis

My, my, japanese version, eh? Well, obviously, the language is different, but is that all? Hardly. Unlike the UK game called Holy Magic Century, this game has a fair ammount of differences.

The storyline is mostly unchanged(so far to what I know of), but unlike the US/UK versions, it has some "cutscenes" at the end! Well, it's just text like before a boss battle, but it's better than an lackluster ending of practically nothing.

The graphics are also pretty much the same, as is the music. Although, when one's saving at an inn, a different theme plays, which is rather catchy, and neat.

What does that leave us with? The gameplay, of course! And that's where the changes appear. First and foremost, when you talk to some NPCs, in the original, the first one to give items gives you a Fresh Bread, but not this time! Instead, they give you a Mint Leaves. Normally, you'd get a Fresh Bread in Dondoran, but they decide to hand you a Honey Bread early. I had to hunt Were Hares for my first Fresh Bread, don'tcha know.

Now, some of the next stuff is more fluff, or aestetics, if you will. It doesn't actually affect the gameplay in any way, but it does make it look cooler. Whenever you level up a Statistic, a colored Aura corresponding to your respective Element(Fire - HP - Red, for instance) appears. This makes it much easier to figure out what leveled up. Rather handy, to quote a friend.

Also, when one hits an enemy with a staff attack, animated sparks appear. Nothing is rather special about them, but who says the graphical effects were that neat in this game(though they make sense). But this is where it gets interesting. You can critical in this game, and when you do, the color of the numbered damage turns Red, and the size of the number is bigger. Of course, in some cases, more damage is dealt as well.

There's not much more than that, but remember the items mentioned earlier? You can get enemies to drop more than one of an item(up to 3), a major improvement over the original. Another neat thing is that when you finish a Boss Battle, your MP is ALSO restored, something rather lacking in Quest 64/Holy Magic Century.

And that's only the Japanese version.