Quest 64

by THQ

Product Details

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• ASIN: B00002STGM
• Media: Game Cartridge
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,672 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

GameSpot Review

Big and beautiful like Super Mario 64? With a great story like Final Fantasy VII? Quest 64 promised to be the first genuine RPG for the N64. And in a sense it succeeds at least in placing itself squarely in the genre. Beyond that, well... it's not a bad game, it just comes up a little short of our expectations. Its primary flaw is oversimplicity on all fronts. In an era when the best RPGs offer complex plotlines with flashbacks and time skips, betrayals and new alliances, Quest 64's plot seems skeletal and obvious. Though rendered in 3D, gameplay adheres to a very linear model that takes little advantage of 3D's inherent "explorability." Quest 64 falls short of both Mario 64's expansive 3D play and Final Fantasy VII's compelling twists and turns.

Like any good fantasy story, Quest 64's once-great-and-peaceful land is now in peril. The Spirit Tamers, keepers of magical lore and world peace, and friends to the elemental spirits, are worried. Their Great Book has disappeared. And the powers of chaos are rallying. And it's not safe to play in the woods anymore. You play Brian, an apprentice Spirit Tamer whose father, Lord Bartholomy, has disappeared himself to go look for the lost tome. It's your quest to find it and him. Along the way, you'll fight monsters and gain prowess at wielding the powers of earth, air, fire, and water - nothing terrifically new here, but a fair enough premise.

The game runs into trouble with the rigid way it adheres to its goal. We watch Brian go from town to town, without straying too far from the (single) road. He doesn't because he can't, since the surrounding terrain usually only goes back about 20 feet. Mario 64's environments were much more adept in their utilization of 3D, not just as an immediate spatial reality - gee whiz I can walk around stuff instead of through it - but as a model for gameplay. Mario's levels were large open spaces that encouraged and rewarded exploration rather than connect-the-dots pathways with sporadic secret areas. Exploration is much more enticing in a game that really makes use of the potential of 3D. Unfortunately, we're still waiting for a true RPG application of this concept for the N64.

Quest 64's individual puzzles and challenges are similarly straightforward. Go to Town #1. Converse with townspeople. Discover that there's a villain (read: boss) scaring everyone and making it impossible to get through Forest #1 to Town #2. To boot, he's stolen Unique Elemental Magic Item #1 from Lord #1. "Brian, please go to the place, kill the guy, and bring back my thing." Once you've done it, what do you do? Return to Lord #1. Your reward? Unique Elemental Magic Item #1, which happens to be an Earth Talisman, with the implication of three more like it. While it's not entirely that simple, that's not too far off from the truth either, so be prepared for a lot of towns with ten rooms, five of which will be empty, and mazes about as labyrinthine as a bridge.

Quest 64 does look and sound pretty good. Not quite up to Mario standards, but the graphics are clean and fast and there's a fair share of nice texture mapping. The light sourcing in the forests and caves makes for some visually spooky moments. Unfortunately, the town scenes are plagued by wall clipping. And in combat, the trees are always getting in the way. Sure there's a Rotate View button, but in combat mode it returns to the default view when you let go, and you can't simultaneously rotate your view and perform another action. The only thing to be done is to peek, memorize, and take blind stabs at your foes. The game's music is varied throughout the game. It's of the cutesy music box variety for the most part, again raising demographic questions about the N64.

These days, we've come to demand fast-paced action from an RPG's combat system. Aside from some problems with view, Quest 64's turn-based combat control is terrific. It's smooth, simple, and easy to learn. The game makes great use of the C-buttons as the four elements, which correspond to four separate schools of magic, with ten-plus spells in each once you gain some experience, all available with a minimum of button pushing. Oddly, regardless of the size of the enemy party, it's only allowed one attack for each of your attacks. Thus five monsters only pose the tactical threat of one big one. For that matter, they're actually easier to kill, since the monsters attack in turns - regardless of proximity, range of attack, or power level, they just rotate through their roster. By keeping the weak ones alive until the end of a fight, you effectively cripple their offense.

A lot of people were hoping that Quest 64 was going to be the N64's answer to Final Fantasy VII, but it falls short of that lofty achievement. On close inspection, FFVII possesses similar linear game dynamics and rail-like motion control - there are large open spaces, sure, but many individual areas are just fancy-looking straightaways. So why is Square's giant seller so much better? For one, the cutscenes. Three disks' worth. Admit it, they're gorgeous, and they suck you right into the amazing plotline. Mystery, evil, betrayal, hope, and a certain morbid fascination - think of the two-plus million jaws that must've dropped worldwide when the falling platform destroyed the Midgar slum. Quest 64 is just way too familiar and straight-ahead. Plus, FFVII is replete with side plots and red herrings to distract you from your primary goal. In Quest 64 you just keep on truckin', for better or for worse. While part of this could be blamed on the restrictions of the cart format, Quest 64 manages to fall short in almost every possible way. --Josh Smith
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The only RPG, November 24, 1999

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Quest 64 (Game Cartridge)

I like this game because its one of the only RPG's on the N64. Innovative magic system, OK graphics, and its just fun. Bad things about it are it's easy, and it seemed short. You also can't buy items, which is a definite bad. But give this game a try.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I really didn't like this game........, July 16, 2001

By 

A major RPG fan (Someplace........) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quest 64 (Game Cartridge)

As said above I really didn't like this game. For one the story just wasn't anything special. I mean your dad disappears and you have to find him and some other magical jewels. *Yawn* Secondly the battle system was HORRIBLE! I mean you're stuck in this big hexagon which if you position yourself wrong or if you want to hit the stupid monster with your staff and you aren't close enough you miss and get attacked three or more times and die and then you start all over again. That happens so often it's not even funny. The graphics are okay, nothing special though. The magic graphics were especially lame though. I mean they lasted for five seconds max.Thirdly the characters were boring, period!I mean the characters had no growth and were about as interesting as a piece of sand paper. Overall this game gave me several headaches and was just plain boring. I guess it's because I expected something more like Zelda and was disappointed. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, period.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Hype and eye candy does not make a good game, April 23, 2003

By 

Matthew Faulkerson "Guitarist and PC Geek" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quest 64 (Game Cartridge)

Quest 64 is a Role Playing game that stresses 3d eye-candy, with little depth of story, plot, and no long lasting appeal (all three are essential, along with others, for a good rpg).
The main character only has one weapon and a few items which most of which repeat themselves in a pattern throughout the entire game.
There are no side quests or red herrings to keep you intrigued, no easter eggs.
The battle system first of all is the most boring turn based combat system ive ever seen. Oh and youll spend 80 percent of the game running around the countryside fighting monsters to build your levels (thats all the game's empahsis is on, building levels) and thatll bore you after about a couple of hours, off and on. The game's story seems to get loss in the building of levels after the first few hours or so.
The amazing 3d graphics are the only thing really good about this game, as its the only thing that really keeps it from getting one star. But still graphics dont make up for a game with such a linear monotonous flow.
I recently re-read some of the previous Nintendo Powers reviews of this game hyping it up as being as good as Final Fantasy series....that was a selling/promotional point more than anything else, since as the first editorial writer above said, "Quest 64 sinks in too many areas: (to paraphrase him).
If you can find this game used at a exchange store for 5 dollars nowdays then I would buy it, thankfully I only rented it and the guide, rather than pay 50 bucks for this game when it first came out, you should do the same.