Ranking the worlds of Mystic Ark
1. World 6: I keep saying this, but World 6 is trying to do survival horror - before survival horror was even properly invented, mind you - within the format of an RPG and succeeding. It deftly uses elements that are standards of the RPG genre and Mystic Ark itself to that end to succeed in both genres. It plays with resource management (the one-person party; the lack of access to stores or other worlds) and surprise enemies (unheralded random battles at screen transitions), yet it gives you enough recharge points and rewards you well enough for winning fights where you're not overwhelmed - it's challenging enough to be tense, yet it's not frustratingly hard. Music-wise, puzzle-wise, and gameplay-wise, it's genuinely creepy - and it's paced to just the right length where it doesn't wear out its welcome. And the total surprise of the world - the sudden rule changes, the "ha ha, you can't go back" aspect, the existence of a survival horror level itself - is a smart, nasty shock.
2. The Shrine: The Myst-like heart of the game does a great job of unifying the mundane & cozily familiar (in exploring the everyday possessions around an abandoned home) and the bizarre & otherworldly (the isolated & unnaturally still location, the strange nature of some of the objects, and the...predicament, what with all the statues and no other living souls). It's the contrast that's at the heart of Alice in Wonderland and other childhood yarns where the heroes find storybook adventure (with a dash of absurdism) right next door or in their own backyards, and it's the vibe that Mystic Ark works when it's at its best. The shrine also knows the value of silence, which helps underline the island's unsettling vibe - lending the hub world a sense of genuine mystery that offers no answers.
4. World 3: I like how this world builds tension by playing on your expectations vis-a-vis the RPG genre. There's an overworld, but where are the enemies? What're all these games & schoolyard pastimes I'm playing with the kids? Hide-and-seek, rounding up stragglers for naptime; is this the main game? And this is an RPG; something has to be wrong in this land, right? But for a long time, no one seems particularly put-out. Despite the seeming lack of any immediate threat, World 3 has a soft underlying background note of creepiness all throughout (based on the abandoned but largely-intact town, there was obviously an adult civilization here relatively recently - but what happened to it?), and the world's workings & origins are never explained, even by the chapter's conclusion. World 3 is paced a little erratically (though it has a strong finish, with the game's first really climactic confrontation and the first boss that's tied to the overall plot). But it's a pleasant break, I have to say, to advance to plot so often in nonviolent, kiddish activities that still require the use of your brain - and the world provides occasional breaks for dungeon-crawling and monster-stomping, albeit liberally sprinkled with puzzles. Despite the myriad diversions from typical genre fodder, World 3 still feels like part of an RPG and is perhaps where the game is most successful in its attempt to blend the RPG & adventure genres. I originally had this in fourth place, but given its originality, I have to give it the nod over its competition:
4. World 7: It's really charming & colorful, and it's neat to see all the fairytale characters interact in this little tight-knit community, in ways that are often clever (Hansel & Gretel having taken over the witch's candy house and running it as a tourist-attraction inn, for instance). The denseness of the world (and the lack of an overworld, with everything directly connected) adds to its "child's playhouse" feel - and there's lots happening. The problem is that the world has a lot of backtracking that's very obviously included for no reason other than padding. (It's also perhaps the most conventional of Mystic Ark's worlds.)
5. World 5: It kind of ends up in a weird mess of a place, but you can see for what they were going: a conflict between the windmill folk, who wish only to live in harmony with nature (as represented by the giant), and those who represent the ancient ways, who want to make the giant/nature subservient to their bidding and forcibly revert the planet to support their technologically-advanced culture, which relies on pollution. Going from "pastoral culture that venerates the wind and is struggling to understand the changes in its natural environment" to "HEY LOOK SPACE ALIENS" is a jarring and not very satisfying shift, though, particularly as a denouement to a story that takes its time to unfold gently & gradually and establish a softer tone in its initial stages. It doesn't completely undo the good that's come before, though: the world has some memorable moments & imagery, a stark beauty in its palette and its landscapes of prairie and wind-tossed sand against canvas sails, and an excellent, appropriately austere overworld theme.
6. World 2: The towns really look neat visually, and the writers put some thought into the problems a Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater world would encounter. The problem is that the world doesn't have much of a climax; it just kind of ends. (Learning that the leader of the foxes, the leader of the beetles, and the leader of the human village are all the same person is a neat sidenote but not much of a reward for getting to the end of the story.) It also lacks any strong supporting characters.
7. World 4: World 4 starts out really promisingly by taking color away from its world, then returning color only to take away sound (though it fudges on exploring the communication problems this would entail). The problem is that the story at the end is a huge mess: so the leaders of the advanced civilization imprisoned the rebels below to work the factory, and then went topside and forgot all about the civilization they deemed so precious? And the rebels didn't question the nature of or try to escape their wretched existence for hundreds of years? Plus, a machine that controls the flow of time is stretching it, even in magic science. This is also another case where the supporting characters, like the feuding scientists and Capone, are rather uninspiring.
8. World 1: It's visually monotonous, the characters range from obvious to off-putting to aggravating, the conflict has absolutely no surprises - and it drags on for freaking ever. I can kind of see why they led the game off with this setting: while some of the worlds take a bit to unveil what's going on, feuding cat pirates in a land without oceans is a concept that's obviously fantastic right from the word go, in theory providing a strong hook for players. Ultimately, though, of all the choices they could have made for the first world, this was the worst.
.
2. The Shrine: The Myst-like heart of the game does a great job of unifying the mundane & cozily familiar (in exploring the everyday possessions around an abandoned home) and the bizarre & otherworldly (the isolated & unnaturally still location, the strange nature of some of the objects, and the...predicament, what with all the statues and no other living souls). It's the contrast that's at the heart of Alice in Wonderland and other childhood yarns where the heroes find storybook adventure (with a dash of absurdism) right next door or in their own backyards, and it's the vibe that Mystic Ark works when it's at its best. The shrine also knows the value of silence, which helps underline the island's unsettling vibe - lending the hub world a sense of genuine mystery that offers no answers.
4. World 3: I like how this world builds tension by playing on your expectations vis-a-vis the RPG genre. There's an overworld, but where are the enemies? What're all these games & schoolyard pastimes I'm playing with the kids? Hide-and-seek, rounding up stragglers for naptime; is this the main game? And this is an RPG; something has to be wrong in this land, right? But for a long time, no one seems particularly put-out. Despite the seeming lack of any immediate threat, World 3 has a soft underlying background note of creepiness all throughout (based on the abandoned but largely-intact town, there was obviously an adult civilization here relatively recently - but what happened to it?), and the world's workings & origins are never explained, even by the chapter's conclusion. World 3 is paced a little erratically (though it has a strong finish, with the game's first really climactic confrontation and the first boss that's tied to the overall plot). But it's a pleasant break, I have to say, to advance to plot so often in nonviolent, kiddish activities that still require the use of your brain - and the world provides occasional breaks for dungeon-crawling and monster-stomping, albeit liberally sprinkled with puzzles. Despite the myriad diversions from typical genre fodder, World 3 still feels like part of an RPG and is perhaps where the game is most successful in its attempt to blend the RPG & adventure genres. I originally had this in fourth place, but given its originality, I have to give it the nod over its competition:
4. World 7: It's really charming & colorful, and it's neat to see all the fairytale characters interact in this little tight-knit community, in ways that are often clever (Hansel & Gretel having taken over the witch's candy house and running it as a tourist-attraction inn, for instance). The denseness of the world (and the lack of an overworld, with everything directly connected) adds to its "child's playhouse" feel - and there's lots happening. The problem is that the world has a lot of backtracking that's very obviously included for no reason other than padding. (It's also perhaps the most conventional of Mystic Ark's worlds.)
5. World 5: It kind of ends up in a weird mess of a place, but you can see for what they were going: a conflict between the windmill folk, who wish only to live in harmony with nature (as represented by the giant), and those who represent the ancient ways, who want to make the giant/nature subservient to their bidding and forcibly revert the planet to support their technologically-advanced culture, which relies on pollution. Going from "pastoral culture that venerates the wind and is struggling to understand the changes in its natural environment" to "HEY LOOK SPACE ALIENS" is a jarring and not very satisfying shift, though, particularly as a denouement to a story that takes its time to unfold gently & gradually and establish a softer tone in its initial stages. It doesn't completely undo the good that's come before, though: the world has some memorable moments & imagery, a stark beauty in its palette and its landscapes of prairie and wind-tossed sand against canvas sails, and an excellent, appropriately austere overworld theme.
6. World 2: The towns really look neat visually, and the writers put some thought into the problems a Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater world would encounter. The problem is that the world doesn't have much of a climax; it just kind of ends. (Learning that the leader of the foxes, the leader of the beetles, and the leader of the human village are all the same person is a neat sidenote but not much of a reward for getting to the end of the story.) It also lacks any strong supporting characters.
7. World 4: World 4 starts out really promisingly by taking color away from its world, then returning color only to take away sound (though it fudges on exploring the communication problems this would entail). The problem is that the story at the end is a huge mess: so the leaders of the advanced civilization imprisoned the rebels below to work the factory, and then went topside and forgot all about the civilization they deemed so precious? And the rebels didn't question the nature of or try to escape their wretched existence for hundreds of years? Plus, a machine that controls the flow of time is stretching it, even in magic science. This is also another case where the supporting characters, like the feuding scientists and Capone, are rather uninspiring.
8. World 1: It's visually monotonous, the characters range from obvious to off-putting to aggravating, the conflict has absolutely no surprises - and it drags on for freaking ever. I can kind of see why they led the game off with this setting: while some of the worlds take a bit to unveil what's going on, feuding cat pirates in a land without oceans is a concept that's obviously fantastic right from the word go, in theory providing a strong hook for players. Ultimately, though, of all the choices they could have made for the first world, this was the worst.
.