Short answers, pulled from the story.
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, first released in North America in 1992. It is a spin-off of the Final Fantasy series, marketed as a "simplified role-playing game... designed for the entry-level player." It was also the first Final Fantasy game released in Europe, where it appeared as Mystic Quest Legend.
According to Square's publicity department, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest sold a total of 800,000 units, with roughly half sold in Japan. The game did not achieve the mainstream breakthrough in North America that Square had intended.
The soundtrack was composed by Ryuji Sasai and Yasuhiro Kawakami, making it one of the earliest Final Fantasy-branded games not scored by series regular Nobuo Uematsu. The album was released on one compact disc by NTT Publishing on the 10th of September 1993.
Square believed the perceived difficulty of role-playing games kept North American players away from the genre, which was not a major category in the United States at the time. The company worked with its American offices to simplify gameplay for younger players, removing random battles, save points, and complex menus, and adding action-adventure elements such as jumping and using weapons outside of battle.
The game eliminated random enemy encounters, save points, manual equipment selection, and the party system. Players instead fought visible enemy sprites, could save at any time, and received automatic equipment upgrades. The world map used fixed paths between icons rather than free roaming.
The game received middling to negative reviews. Electronic Games called it "Final Fantasy with an identity crisis," and later reviews after the Wii Virtual Console release in October 2010 called it "The Worst Final Fantasy" and a "franchise embarrassment." The game's music was consistently praised, including its "sweet sampled metal guitar licks" and its boss battle themes.