Quest 64
Released in North America on June 1, 1998 by THQ, and developed by Imagineer, Quest 64 features the RPG adventures of a young mage searching for his missing father.
By the Summer of 1998, nearly two years into its run, the Nintendo 64's catalogue still featured zero role-playing games. The N64's predecessor, the Super Nintendo, absolutely dominated the 16-bit RPG market, with classic after stone-cold classic released among a host of other very good games. However, to many a Nintendo fan's disappointment, most of the developers who created those RPG's, particularly the powerhouse, Squaresoft,went with the Nintendo 64's competitor, the Sony Playstation. As the two years wore on, frustration began to build. When an RPG, Quest 64, finally was announced for that summer, many fans put all of their long suffering expectations toward it.
Quest 64, I am expecting you to bring my dead pets back to life
However, after Quest 64's release, those looking forward to a continuation of the classic, top-down view JRPG's of the Super Nintendo era could only look longingly toward the Playstation, and angrily at Quest 64. Quest 64 makes absolutely no attempt to follow the legacy of the standard RPG's up to 1998, when it was released. Quest 64 is instead an attempt to fully bring an RPG game into the 3D realm, and these are the merits it should be judged by--not whether it stands up to the complex refinements the Playstation made to the 16-bit formulas. By these parameters--creating a satisfying RPG experience in the third dimension, does Quest 64 work? Did players and reviewers who wanted a completely different game back in 1998 judge Quest 64 unfairly?
Yeah, Alfalfa, we're talking about you
RPG protagonists often have epic sounding names: Chrono. Cloud. Brian. Brian? Quest 64's protagonist, and the only character the player will have at their disposal throughout Q64's duration, is named Brian. In Brian's defense, the game is meant to be set in a medieval, Celtic world, and by those terms, Brian is a fine name, of rich heritage, likely derived from an Old Celtic word meaning "high" or "noble." Does "Brian," as a modern RPG protagonist name maybe sound a little goofy to our modern player ears? That's subjective.
Looks like the jury's still out, Brian
Graphically, Brian and the world of Celtland actually look...pretty okay. Brian is pretty charmingly designed and animated (his victory animation is particularly cute). The game's character and enemy models are pretty simple, but for the most part, they look respectable and at the worst moments, not hideous. The game's environments are surprisingly huge, with some of the later, more spectacular towns filling out more space than almost any locations found on the N64. I do wish the trees were 3D and not 2D sprites, though they are on of the games only non-3D models. Unfortunately, especially if the town's got a lot of moving parts (like giant windmills), there's some noticeable slowdown as you move through it, but nothing that makes the game unplayable. Textures are also pretty smooth--nothing is overly blurry. The environmental design is also pretty good, with the game committing to the Irish theme, Quest 64's numerous towns having a lovely Celtic flair. The game's colors are vibrant, with a special attention fittingly paid to green. Spell effects aren't anything to write home about visually, but as Brian tosses ice and fire at his foes, they don't look awful, either. As much as the game's overall graphics standout, though, they unfortunately feature an issue worse than just a little slowdown.
On the right side of this frame: "an issue worse than just a little slowdown"
Like many games in these early days of console 3D, Quest 64 features a significant amount of graphical clipping. For example, if you run around the corner of a building, and the camera might spin around to accidentally reveal the emptiness behind that building's walls. Quest 64's at times finicky camera is often naughty, as it might spin behind a rock during a fight, showcasing unfinished elements of the area that were never meant to be seen. Unfortunately, the only way to direct the camera is by pushing the B-button, which tries, and at times fails to orient the camera back behind Brian. Overall, though, I think the Quest 64's bright, crisp graphics have that classic Nintendo 64 charm, at least when they're not malfunctioning. The cloud-pocked sky may even be the most beautiful on the Nintendo 64.
Happy little clouds
Quest 64's music thankfully imbues the game with a bit of a Celtic flair, as well. It's not totally overt, but the game's solid soundtrack does have notes of Irish music, some good atmosphere, and the general medieval, early autumnal vibe I want from a Nintendo 64 RPG soundtrack. Sound effects are pretty basic bloopy, bleepy stuff, though a few of the magical attacks have a surprisingly bassy oomph. There's no voice acting, with dialogue all being conveyed in text boxes, but conversations are generally to the point, and the lack of voice-acting doesn't really hurt.
The quality of Quest 64's graphics and sound, though, at least as far as 64-bit games are concerned, haven't really been called into question. The object of ire in 1998 was Quest 64's simplistic gameplay. The fact is, if you dislike Brian and are hoping you'll like his other party members more, you're out of luck. Brian is a party of one. That's right--a party of multiple characters, a seemingly standard RPG tenet, is missing here. Also missing: any kind of complex storytelling. Brian's an adolescent magician searching for father. He finds out his father was looking for a mystical, all-powerful book that may have also piqued the interest of evil powers. He also discovers that he'll have to collect four elemental jewels across the land to progress in his journey. That's pretty much all there is to it.
Beryllium?
Thankfully, as is standard in most RPG's, Brian does level up and grow stronger...but he doesn't do it in the standard RPG ways. In most RPG's, characters gain experience points for defeating enemies. Once they gain enough experience points, they "level up," gaining stronger attack power and defense, often among many other improved statistics. Once these characters level up, the experience is repeated again and again, til by the end, the player has reach a high level, and can take on the toughest foes. In Quest 64, Brian's defense only gets stronger the more hits he takes. Brian grows more agile as he runs around (agility refers to the way Brian randomly dodges enemy attacks). He gains more hit points (i.e. gets a bigger health bar) and his physical attack grows stronger the more enemies he kills. And finally, as Brian defeats enemies, he gets more points permanently added to hia magic meter.
I guess I need to let the bad guys hit me more
As a magician, Brian has elemental powers of fire, water, earth, and wind. In addition to filling his magic meter, Brian can find hidden magic spirits scattered around Celtland (he can also earn these from battles). Brian can choose to apply the spirits he gains to one of his for elemental magics. There are 200 attainable magic spirits in Quest 64, and Brian can add up to 50 spirits to each. The higher Brian levels an element, the more powerful spells Brian learns pertaining to that element. These spells can be used in fights, but several, like a healing spell pertaining to water, can be used anytime. As far as battles, like in many RPG's from the 90's not starting with the prefix "Chrono-", they occur randomly, happening every seven or eight seconds Brian traverses the game's large overworld or its dungeons. Frankly, the fights occur too often. However, I like that they occur exactly where Brian is standing, with a ring and enemies suddenly appearing on that spot, instead of Brian suddenly getting warped to a fight area. Brian is even free to run around the ring when it's his turn in battle...he can even run right out of the ring, if he's close enough to the edge, and escape the fight.
I think I can handle a few cute little piggies in detective coats and shades, though. right?
While the mechanics are simple, Quest 64's fights are actually...pretty fun. Brian has a default close-range physical attack with his mage-staff, or the player can use the four C-buttons to pick a magical element, and cycle through that element's moveset. Brian magic meter resembles the one for his hit points. If that meter runs out during a fight, Brian can no longer use magic. However, Brian's magic meter fills back up not only as he hits enemies with his staff, but as he simply runs around Celtland between fights. Brian will often find himself taking on multiple enemies at once, but thankfully he gets a turn in between each single enemy's turn to make things fair. While the strategy involved in ring movement and choosing which enemies to focus on first (some magical attacks can damage multiple enemies) isn't exactly rocket science, it's still a pretty fun experience. Sometimes, though, as previously mentioned, the camera wanders off..that's not a pretty fun experience, but I can only think of three or four times throughout the game where this caused actual difficulties.
I guess I could always just stick to fighting these amorphous blobs in wide open fields
As far as difficulty, I did die several times in Quest 64, particularly early on, when I was still relatively weak, and hadn't yet learned the healing spell. Once I did learn the healing spell, and could get back to full health between every fight...I didn't die much, at all. If you do die, though, you start off in the last inn you visited, with all the experience and items you earned before you died. This suits quick plays, as at least your failed attempt at dungeon-diving still made you stronger, and wasn't completely wasted time. Overall, there are certainly more challenging RPG's out there, but at least Quest 64 offers a little bit of it. If you're expecting the game to make a departure from the "traverse overworld, find town at which to rest and heal, town has problem, problem involves jewel you need at a nearby dungeon, go to dungeon" formula, you'll be disappointed, but dammit, that formula is used again and again for a reason. It works!
That's cool, Russel. Think you can move out of my way now?
Quest 64 is missing just a few other elements from the basic RPG playbook, though. For instance, there's no currency in the game. You can pick up bread from each town to eat to gain back hit points, and there's a free inn at each town to heal and save at, as well (you can save multiple files to a controller pak). You can get more health and magic power-ups, among others, from treasure chests strewn throughout the game too. You also pick up wings from each town that allow you to fast-travel to that particular town. But you will never, ever, ever buy anything.
Hey, though, in what was then an envelope pushing element, the time of day changes throughout the game, leading to some pretty sunsets, and some night and day visual changes, though they almost never affect gameplay. Since this review is nearly over, I also better mention, the ending to this game is woefully underwhelming...then again, your interactions with NPC's throughout the game are so minimal and surface-level, often never leading to anything other than a one paragraph exchange, that perhaps there's nothing else to tell at that point.
I gotta get out of this cave, or I'm gonna miss Seinfeld! Wait, it ended two weeks ago...and now they're all in prison?!
Here's the verdict:
Want a complex, genre-pushing RPG, like the large handful that had already graced the Playstation by this point? Want a game you could have shoved in Playstation owners faces and said, "I know I had to wait two years for this, but it beats all of your RPG's combined!" Don't look at Quest 64.
Want a simplistic, straightforward, but fairly fun and easy to pick-up-and-play RPG, featuring pleasant, if rudimentary 3D, and a solid soundtrack? Quest 64 is here. It's a solid, enjoyable little game that takes a little over 20 hours to complete. It's oozing with Nintendo 64 charm, and while it may be nowhere near a classic, neither should it be remembered as an abject failure. I don't regret the time spent on the experience of playing through it in the least.
And hey, thankfully there actually are a few great RPG's on the N64, like the 2001 classic, Paper Mario, the complex, strategy-focused, Ogre Battle 64, and a personal favorite of mine, the bizarro, aptly-named RPG/fighting hybrid, Hybrid Heaven. Sure it's not what the Playstation had, but at least the Nintendo 64 offerings are special in their own 64-bit way--and they shouldn't be forgotten.
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