Note: Don't worry if you haven't heard of this game, or even if (*shudder*) you are not a gamer; you'll probably still like this. Hopefully. This was written for the GameLemon page, and their layout puts all the text on one side, and some brief points in a sidebar on the other. I lack that sort of sophistication, so you get it vertically here. If you like the review hop on over to the website and see some fun video stills from the game.
Quest 64 was one of the only RPGs made for the Nintendo 64, and the lack of competition shows. It emerged during the long fallow period between Goldeneye and Ocarina of Time. Now-a-days we tend to look back on the whole N64 experience as a whole, even a 'golden age'. And indeed it was a time of bold experimentation. The whole '3-D' gimmick was catching on, and the long running side-scrollers were experiencing the same fate silent flicks did when those new-fangled "talkies" came out. So the field was wide open. And, given that this was the 90's and Nintendo was still a major player in the U.S. marketshare, there was none of these franchises and sequels that emerge monthly, fill up the racks at Gamestop and dilute a decent title to obliteration. Kids, there was a time when Final Fantasy wasn't a bad grammatical joke. Into this Barren Wasteland (at the time) or Golden Age (the view from now) plunked little Brian and his Epic "Quest".
At the time Quest64 was a big deal. Really. There were magazine covers, walk-throughs and hints and cheats. I still have a yellowing poster of Brian culled from Nintendo Power. The hype for Quest was big, and given the number of available RPGs for the N64 (zero), initial sales were promising. This is a good thing, because copies of the cartridge are easy to find today in the bargain bins of your local gaming store. But the reason they are there of course, is that almost all of the initial wave of Quest owners turned right around and sold the game back, played some more Goldeneye, and waited - as only Nintendo fanatics can - for the next Zelda game. So when you spend your $4.99 for Quest don't expect Final Fantasy XXXVI: The Backstory of That One Guy Who Looks Like Those Other Guys. Don't even expect Ocarina of Time. But you can have a bunch of fun with what I call a 'huddle' game.
A huddle game is a game you play at the same time you are watching sports on TV. A huddle game is something interesting, of course, but not exactly riveting. It's a game that spends most of its life on pause, while you wait for the next commercial, pitching change, or half-time show. Football is ultimate sport for this of course. Studies have shown that the average amount of actual action in a 60 minute football contest is just over 8 minutes. The other 52 minutes are spent walking back to the huddle. This also means that for an average 3 +1/2 hour telecast there is 2+1/2 hours of commercials. Plenty of downtime for gametime then. Quest is perfect for this because it is good old fashioned turn-based combat. You whack, they whack, and then they wait politely for you to whack again. So you can just leave the bad guys hanging indefinitely if a player gets on base, or a 2 minute drill marches your team down the gridiron. Got a long afternoon and a double header coming up? This is your baby.
Brian is a young innocent who is flung headlong into a perilous adventure armed with only a simple weapon who encounters strange and delightful creatures, most of whom want to chew his head off. In short, RPG story #1 of the countless varieties of RPG stories which total all combined, 1. But there are no cutscenes or narration to slow you down. Details and hints can be had by talking with the strange and delightful Village Folk, but you can just blow by them too. Money? Armor? Shopping? Costumes? Weapons? Fuggedaboudit. You get a walking stick to whack with and a gradually increasing knowledge of Spells with which to vaporize the bad guys. Your knowledge increases by finding and earning fairies, which are little streams of bubbles coming up from the ground. Step on one and a directory pops up and asks you where you wish to store your sprite. Your four choices are (you guessed it), Earth. Water, Air and Fire. As you accumulate fairy force different spells become available to you. Standard rules apply: If a monster is spewing a string of fireballs at you (Hey, it IS a Nintendo game after all), then don't throw fire-based spells back at him. And so on. You will encounter four main worlds, Forest, Lake, Windy Desert and Lava Cave (E, W, A, F - Get IT!?) and at the end of each there is a boss who is proficient at that particular element. Nothing new here unless you are a Wiccan, and then there is REALLY nothing new here. The four elemental bosses are all human-looking at about a foot taller than you are. Ooooh-Aaaaah. Its like having a world-crushing battle for all humanity with your babysitter.
So if Quest64 is such a snooze then why am I recommending it? Why am I writing a monstrously long article about a dive bomb of a game from 15 years ago? Why don't I just tell Max to stuff it and go back and play Resident Evil 4 again while I wait for the next Zelda game to come out? Because Quest is a great one-handed game for watching sports, its cheap, and its got some features that I wish todays games all came with. For example: Separate sliders for music and effects. Why doesn't every game have this? Quest also has a slider for speeding up the rate at which everybody talks to you. Or rather how fast the words fill up the talk box next to the character. If you can't have actual voiceover or dialogue (most of which is pretty annoying or lame - even today), give the player the ability to bypass this stuff as quickly as possible. And the game requires some actual thought: every monster (and there are over 100 different ones) has a base element, and a short and long range attack. Taking down 6 or 7 of these randomly grouped abominations can be a head scratcher. (Back off and go for the multi-hit wind arrows? Or, close in with a gigantic boulder and squish the toughest baddie?) And finally, the game rewards you for exploring. Treasure chests and fairy bubbles can turn up anywhere, and are expertly hid. 8 times through the game I was still finding new ones. Oh, and unlike the elemental sub-bosses the final boss, Manon, is about 2 miles tall, and has like a trillion hit points. You'll need every last leaf, trinket and perfume bottle that you gathered on the way.
All your favorite old school effects are here: fill-in buildings, mountain ranges that pop-up like toast, camera that loves to explore the interior of trees while you get shellacked outside (although its movable), barrier recognition that allows you to merge Brian with any surface you choose: De-face him with tables, bushes, make Siamese Twins out of him and any of the monsters. Bored with battle? Make cubist collages like a pixel Picasso. And the palette of monsters suggests some pretty exuberant chemical investigation back at THQ headquarters. (Hmmmmm......T....H.... "Q"? Suspicious.) Brian battles vampire bunnies, stacks of poop with eyeballs on top, dragons with Jay Leno chins, boxing kangaroos, tiny suns that wear mini-skirts and carry umbrellas, Catwoman dominatrixes with whips, fish that ride pogosticks that look like pencils, slugs that spew waterfalls out of their asses, and many, many more. Seeing a new monster for the first time is almost a guaranteed death because you'll be laughing too hard to defend yourself.
Grade: 5.0 but a helluva bargain. Quest64 can be readily had for 5 bucks in many bargain bins. Its only a third as good as Windwaker, but its 1/10th the price!
Review Summary: A great game to play during commercials, injury timeouts, or long insomniacal nights where you don't wanna think too much. Plentiful and inventive foes + learn the basics of Witchcraft.
Genre: RPG for the Nintendo 64. Yep, not a crowded shelf.
Setting: Brightly lit, primary hues, basic shapes. Mountains look like saw edges, trees look like afros. Sub in Frodo for Mario in Supermario64 and you've got the basic idea.
Mood: Surprisingly upbeat giving the unending gloominess of the various townsfolk. Brian is a can-do kinda hero, at least until he runs low on hit points. Then he gets rather droopy about the whole business.
Story: One man roadtrip to retrieve the "Eletale Book", which your dad sold for drugs or something.
Music/Sound: Not bad for the 90's. No Japanese piano prodigies have yet filmed themselves performing the score, but on the plus side, you can slide away the music and leave the sound effects. But mostly you'll have the sound on the baseball game anyway.
Voice Acting: Nada. Not a single "Mamma Mia!" to be found.
Script/Dialog: Strictly functional. Hints about whats up ahead, who to see for various items, and some vague random musings that are supposed to give the game 'depth'. Set the slider for maximum typing speed and you can just blow right through all this and get back to unleashing avalanches on giant butterflies.
Like Games: Its a RPG for chrissakes! They're all alike! Except this one isn't as good as most, but costs less than a Latte at Starbucks.
Graphics: Wow! Its in 3-D! Don't expect much. Lots of large outdoor settings and caves that are miles and miles long, but its all made out of 3 textures and 5 colors.
Gameplay Like: Standard turn-based combat. Everyone stays in their respective circles until pulverized. Otherwise run around villages, caves, plains, dunes, etc. Looking for treasure chests, thought-bubble-fairy-string-thingies, and a comb.
Replayability: I play it about once a year, find a few new things, and die in some novel and unexpected ways.
Will Keep you up until: The football game that you're also watching ends.
Strengths: Pick-up-and-play, endless varieties of weird-ass monsters, but most importantly: PRICE.
Weaknesses: Oh where to start. Think of a 15 year old third-party RPG for the N64. This looks like it.
Depth: Not so much. You get stronger - they get stronger. You learn more spells - they whallop you harder. And so on.
Length: About 20 hours, more if you seek out every last flippin fairy to max out your spells.
Pace: As fast as you want. Or catch the game while you play. Your choice.
Notable Features: Customizable Music to Effects volume, vampiric bunnywabbits, the aforementioned hairdo.
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