Permanent Shadow on My Soul

 Mystic Ark does not respect your time. 

So here's what I did tonight: I beat the game. I did not enjoy tonight. It broke me. But I was so close to finishing this nonsense that I might as well end it. The final world was a perfect representation of the other chapters. The backtracking and tedious run around broke me. Here's a quick overview of the world before I get to the final dungeon.

The fireplace that has been guiding us all game is tired and asks us to douse the fire. Filling up the mysterious bottle in the kitchen with the Ark of Water allows us do just that. I somehow felt bad... But behind the flame is a secret path that leads us to another auxiliary building on the church grounds. Inside is a book we can't read, but the Ark of Wisdom can. Using it lets us see the book is titled "Fairy Tales." Open it and read the pages to be teleported to a land called Tinkle. Great start! Reading the sign is the trigger for Darkness to teleport it and promise that this is the last world we'll ever explore before he leaves. 

With that out of the way, welcome to the land of fairy tales. We'll be meeting all the best Disney characters and bedtime story tent posts. The Three Little Pigs, the Ant and Cricket, and the Little Match Girl all have bit parts. The last two I'm not familiar with. Our story kicks off with us talking to the king, who is naked, and probably why the English localization of Mystic Ark got cancelled. Don't mention his nudity, or he'll throw us in jail. As we converse, a man runs in to tell us his daughter, Little Red Hat, and her grandmother have been abducted by the Wolf. They went west...

And through the trees we go, helping a man we'll learn is named Geppetto by making a sandwich tree grow in front of Hanzel and Gretel's inn. Aeon Genesis slightly tweaked these character names, so I don't know what their names actually are. I'm just going by remembrance. Walk on trees to reach a cave, the cave winds until we beat up Wolf, who agrees to turn himself in because Darkness made him do it. We save the day. 

The king gives Felys the best armor in the game, but another person rushes in. There's a monster in the eastern woods. We check it out to find it's the lion from The Wizard of Oz. And now the king wants us to talk to Woz in his tower to the northwest. This pissed me off because the northwest exit wasn't here earlier. I looked around for ten minutes in vain. Break number one. 

The northwest forest has boat mazes, somehow, and the Tower of Woz is a spiral staircase with mobs. The lion is here, but Woz lost his powers. Darkness stole them. 

Return to Tinkle to hunt for the tailor. The king tells us he's at the inn, but the guy eating the building says the tailor went elsewhere. So we run around town, talking to everyone to discover the tailer was the guy licking the walls at the inn after all. Break number two! He goes to the king to make another Cloak of Concealment, while we help with the monthly ball the nudist throws. The tailor has a dress for Cindernna (Cinderella) with the warning that the dress will disappear at midnight. But she needs shoes too!

Geppetto tells us there's a shoe tree in the east forest that eats glass and that Hansel is psychic. Hansel says a glass ball is located back in the Giant world, so we go there, and I break again. 

An invisible wall map with invisible stairs and an abundance of mobs. I hate this game. Tinkle, forest, shoe... choose the middle one. The first and third will send us back here because this game sucks. Break four!

The ball happens, and Cinderella shows up at 11:57. The (clothed) prince falls in love, and they get one dance before the bell rings. Ella runs off, but before she reaches the stairs, she vanishes. Darkness pops in and turns the king, Little Red Hat, and a golden goose into statues. The people are back in the church, but you have Ark of Wood Jack's stump outside his house to reach the goose. 

We save the day, but the king is ill. He's worried about Woz, so we have to see him. And there's no warp point for him. Break five... He's gone, and then everyone in Tinkle is too. Only Pinochio remains, despite the fact that we know Darkness that can turn anything into a statue... 

The tailor left the Cloak of Concealment in a chest, which we need to use to sneak past something obscured by leaves in the south exit. This dungeon is a lengthy waterfall path with too many dead ends. At least it has the best weapons for Felys and Rooshine. We didn't kill that fox from the fruit world, I guess, and we learn that he was the elder. We kill him now. There's another boss refight later on. Eventually, we reach Darkness. He said things, but I don't remember. I damn sure don't care anymore, either. He dies and reveals he's not the true villain. Six?

[insert Geralt swearing gif]

Everyone is back in Tinkle. We can help the prince get laid, but I don't want to...

Both Darkness and Goddess tell us to use the Ark of Shadows on the crystal pillar in the party figureine room to take us to the final dungeon. It's thankfully, kinda short. There are more winding dead ends, boss refights, and a puzzle that reminds me, and the writer on StrategyWiki, of the spider boss fight from Megaman X. 

We reach a pillar of light and an entity inside it. It's a biblically accurate suck boy. This is Malice, the dark side of Felys. Malice is sad and pathetic. Barely does half damage, only casts magic, and lacks kill moves. I had Reeshine max out War Cry buffs and kicked him for 500=950 damage a turn. 

He dies, and the Goddess can finally show up to explain everything. Malice was the evil inside Felys' heart, but was born to be a test for Felys. He went rogue and split her into seven artifacts, the Arks. In fact, this entire game was a test for Felys. And she passed! Her reward is that she gets to be born on the side of a highway... Yeah, we hear cars rushing by, horns honking, and a baby cries as the words "The End" appear on screen. There’s probably some religious connotation to it all, but I can’t be assed to research it. I am confused; break seven, unrewarded; break eight, and hate this game. The Eight Saga gets eight breaks. 

This game is trash. 

Mystic Ark didn't respect me, so I won't respect it. The game gets 22 out of 50 points. 

The characters are blank bodies, all seven of them. The villains might as well not exist, and the story is utter nonsense. 

The gameplay is serviceable, but it starts slow and then drags on, getting boring quickly. 

The music is the only good part of the game, but the way the game takes you through chapters means nothing sticks too long. 

Sprites get reused all the time, and I'm so sick of the one cave tileset. 

The world is interesting, but that's all I care to talk about in terms of charm.

It's a tedious slog that was made to hate you. -5. 

And this got a sequel?1