The Nintendo 64 had quite a handful of genres for its huge library of titles, but when someone asks about RPGs for it in the 1990s it's like a tumbleweed area. To try and break that mold, Quest 64 released in 1998 and developed by a company I hadn't heard of before, Imagineer.

What's it about?

You take the role of a mage in training, Brian as he goes on a journey to recover a stolen book and collecting elemental gems.

What's the gameplay like?

Taking place in a 3D environment, you'll be running around an overworld full of monsters when you're not in a town. For its time its quite expansive and having a huge area to explore in. As for the battles, it's the traditional "take turn" approach which we've all gotten so accustomed to in other RPGs. Your magic is represented with four gems and you can cast magic and level them up for new attacks, and your stats increase depending on your actions in and out of battle.

Whenever you arrive into a new town, you're tasked with retrieving an elemental orb from a boss, it's here that you'll also notice that the game has no monetary system to speak of. Rather than getting new equipment or items from shops, you'll find them in treasure chests.

So.... what's wrong with the game then?

So you know how I said that the game doesn't have a traditional level up system and your stats increase only by certain actions? Well, that's where this game becomes a tedious slog. Upon my first boss fight I actually got torn to shreds for lack of health points and damage dealt. I was thinking to myself "how the heck do I even get more HP?" only to find out the hard way that I need to attack enemies with my staff, rather than using magic does that, but if I attack physically, that means it's going to take longer to increase my magic spells.

And I'll bet at this point you're guessing "do I increase my defense by letting enemies wail on me?" and you'd be right. At this point of not keeping track of a good balance in stats, my character felt so uneven and because you don't have the balance you're expected to have, it just means that you'll be grinding even more than necessary. If you've never played it, then you'd expect the stats to increase at a good pace, right? sadly.... no.

You would think that stats would go up at least every few points at a time, but no, it's one singular point for a basic action. Your agility increases by running around in the overworld, but even that takes forever to go up. I once left my Nintendo 64 on overnight while having the analog stick taped in one direction to have my character going around in a circle, only to find out the next morning that the agility points only increased by a measly 30.

Now there is a way to cheese battles once you have your spells leveled up (that is, if you didn't lose your patience with the tedious stat progression to quit the game), set up Magic Barrier which makes you invincible for three turns, then use Rolling Rock, then rinse and repeat until the battle is over, and really, that's all you need. Just make sure your water magic is leveled up too for healing. Fire and Wind don't really matter when you only need this strategy.

Overall, is it worth a borrow, or ignoring altogether?

Quest 64 just doesn't hold a candle to the more successful RPGs out there. If anything it's more like the weird relative that the family tries not to talk about. It just doesn't do enough to hold its own. The story is lacking, gameplay feels cheap and uninspired, and it's sad how this is an example of one of the only games of the genre to be on the system. After seeing magazine advertisements of it countless times without looking at critic reviews, I wanted to give it a chance. In my opinion if you want to check out the game yourself, I would recommend these days only to watch someone else play to see the flaws it has, since my descriptions may not be enough.

Have you played Quest 64? Leave a comment and as always, see you next article!