Video Game Review #519: Quest 64

Quest 64

Nintendo 64

Nostalgia Factor:

I was very excited for this game when it first came out back in 1998. Final Fantasy VII had introduced me to the world of RPGs, and I instantly fell in love with the genre. But that game was for the PlayStation. I wanted to see what the Nintendo 64 could do. 

I remember renting this game for a weekend and pouring hour and hours into it. While it was clearly no Final Fantasy VII, I enjoyed it pretty well. It was a fairly simplistic RPG with a visual style reminiscent of Super Mario 64. I had fun with it, but I eventually reached a point where I got stuck and couldn't figure out what to do next. When the weekend was up, I returned the game to Blockbuster and moved on with my life.

This was 26 years ago. I haven't picked up Quest 64 since that one random weekend back in 1998. I know that in the ensuing years, the game has picked up a bum reputation online. People think it is trash and a joke of an RPG. When I first started reading the negative reviews, it surprised me, because I remember liking this game back in 1998. Was it really that bad?

Only one way to find out. After 26 years, it is time to return to Quest 64.

Story:

Do not come into this game expecting a big, elaborate story. This is about as basic as you can get. 

You control a young mage named Brian. Action takes place in "Celtland", a mystical island clearly inspired by Ireland. Brian leaves the monastery where he is learning magic to discover the whereabouts of his father, who has disappeared in search of an ancient, magical book.

Brian's travels take him to several kingdoms. Each kingdom has coincidentally lost their elemental stone, each one taken by a mysterious foe who is menacing the immediate vicinity. Brian must defeat the enemy and recover the elemental stone for that area. Once he does so, he is then allowed to move onto the next area, where he has to do the exact same thing again.

At the end of the game, Brian must defeat the big bad boss who has been manipulating the events of the game in order to get the magic book that Brian's father was looking for. And that's the end of that. 

No character development, no big plot twists. You really don't care much about what is going on. Everything is so formulaic and "by the numbers." It works much better if you are a small child, I suppose. But if you're a small child you probably wouldn't be playing Quest 64 anyway.

I've head this game's story described as something you might make when playing RPG Maker, and I really can't argue with that.

Gameplay:

Quest 64 takes place in a fully 3D environment. The left analog stick moves your character. The A button opens chests and interacts with characters. The right shoulder button brings up a menu. You can use this menu to look through the game's settings, examine the map, or peruse your item list. Interestingly, this game doesn't have equipment like traditional RPGs. You can't equip new weapons, armor, or accessories. You also don't have money, and you can't buy things in shops. All items must be collected through treasure chests or by talking to shopkeepers - who will give you items for free, presuming you are in need of them.

When you are inside a town or village, you can't be attacked by enemies. The second you step outside, you are fair game. Be prepared to fight. A lot. Quest 64 has possibly the highest encounter rate of any RPG I have ever played. You seemingly get attacked every few steps, making it very hard to make any real progress. What should be a 40 second walk to the next area turns into a 10 minute affair. Many times, I didn't even get a chance to orient myself after coming out of battle. I'd immediately get attacked. This led to a lot of frustration on my behalf.

Luckily, the battles are pretty much the highlight of the game. Each battle takes place on the game map. The battle area is indicated by a big circle on the ground. When you step outside the circle, you have the option to escape. Luckily, there is no escape failure rate. You can freely escape from any battle, as long as it is not a boss battle. When in battle, you can move around on a circle within the battle circle. You want to move close to an enemy in order to attack it physically. Or you can cast spells as well. You start with basic earth, fire, wind, and water spells. As you gain EXP, you can put these points towards one of these attributes. I recommend putting everything on water (because of the healing spells) and earth (because of the overpowered avalanche attack, which will become your best friend as you get deeper into the game).

I kind of liked this attribute system. You can also find upgrades randomly in the field which you can put towards one of these elements.

You can also move around when the enemy is attacking you in battle. You can evade projectiles and that kind of thing. I liked this aspect of the game as well.

You don't really level up your character in the traditional way. I mean, you do, in the sense that you battle characters to gain EXP and increase your health and magic meters. But there are no "levels" as we normally know them. And apparently the game has an EXP system that takes into account how often you are hit in battle. So you actually WANT to get hit more in battle, because it will help you raise your HP and MP faster. MP constantly regenerates with every step you take on the map, so it is not often you have to worry about running out of it. HP on the other hand is a bit trickier. Once you get healing spells, you can focus on healing all the time since your MP will go up regardless. But in the earlier portion of the game, things can get pretty difficult pretty fast.

Another thing to like is that when you die, it is not game over. You go back to the last Inn you saved your game. You keep all the extra HP and MP you gained. This makes grinding not as frustrating, because you don't lose everything when you die.

The structure of the game is pretty simple. Go to a town. You find out that the town is being terrorized by a bad guy who has stolen the town's elemental crystal. You then head out and fight the bad guy. When you beat him, this unlocks the next area of the game.

Dungeons in this game are not particularly fun. They mainly consist of long hallways or corridors that all look the game. And they take FOREVER to get through, especially when you are constantly under attack from enemies. There is a significant amount of grinding you can do when in a dungeon, but if you are like me, you are going to eventually get tired of all the battling and just start escaping from every battle. Even this is annoying because sometimes you'll get attacked again the second you orient yourself and start moving in the right direction. The whole game turns into a pattern of take two steps, get sucked into a random battle, escape, take two steps, get in another battle, escape, take one step, get in another battle, escape.... it goes on and on.

Even more annoying is the fact that it is easy to get turned around when everything looks the same. I lost track of all the times I would come out of battle and start going what I thought was the right direction, only to find out later on I had wasted all this time going the wrong freaking way. It's annoying. It's really annoying.

And that basically sums up my entire experience with the game: constant irritation. The game does not let up when it comes to giving you the middle finger. I almost admire its tenacity. It's wild how I didn't notice this problem when I was a teenager, renting this game from Blockbuster Video. I guess problems like this were more acceptable over 25 years ago.

I emulated this game, so I ended up playing most of it at three times the normal speed. The fast speed made grinding and travel a lot more tolerable, but even then I found myself getting irritated at all the constant encounters. I can't possibly imagine playing this on normal speed the whole way through. I would have gone mad.

Graphics:

If there is one aspect of Quest 64 I will vehemently defend, it is the game's graphics. It really does look like an RPG version of something like Mario 64. Cute, polygonal characters. Fully detailed interiors and towns. Colorful landscapes filled with trees, rocks, walking paths, etc. And the enemies look pretty good too!

The only complaint I have is the overall "samey-ness" of some of the dungeons. I previously mentioned how so many of them look the same, and I was always getting turned around inside them. That is a problem. But other than that, everything looked fine to me.

I've read some online complaints saying that the game's environments look too basic, like an unfinished tech demo. I never got that impression. Sure, there are some open and empty spaces on the overworld map, but there are open and empty spaces in real life too. I'm from Wisconsin. I'm used to that kind of thing. Does that mean I am living in an unfinished tech demo?

Sound:

The music for the game is very quaint and down to earth. It almost gives things a relaxing feel to things when you are walking around a town or exploring the countryside. At times this really sounds like a 16-bit game - and I mean that in a good way.

It's a good thing the game has good battle music, because like I said, you get sucked into battle quite often. But I kind of like the battle music. Imagine the constant anguish if it had been terrible.

Overall:

I'll concede: this is not a good game. My nostalgic memories have failed me. Often as I was playing this, I'd get frustrated with the countless battles and the lack of direction. The difficulty is pretty high too, at least until you max out your earth and water skills. Some of this stuff might have been forgivable with good characters and a strong storyline, but this game has none of that.

I quickly found myself playing through this game with the sole intent of finishing it up and getting it done as quickly as possible. I often asked myself if I was having any fun as I played, and the answer was almost always no.

That said, there are still some things to enjoy here. The music, the graphics, the setting of the game. I even liked the battle system, and how you can move around on the grid to attack enemies and evade their attacks. It's just too bad the game is bogged down by countless battles and endless grinding.

Now that I am done with Quest 64, I can't imagine a scenario where I play this game again. I saw everything there was to see, and did everything there was to do here. And I didn't have a whole lot of fun in the process. Should you check out Quest 64? I think I can safely advise passing on this one. You aren't missing a whole lot.

THE GRADE:

D

For a complete index of all my past posts and game reviews, click

>HERE<