Quest 64

“Evil is Growing and Beasts Will Attack You.”

“Your courage must be rewarded.”
Mystical art by @Drakkel.

The time is 1998. It has been two years since the release of the Nintendo 64, and the library of games for it has continued to grow slowly but surely. Nearly every genre is represented, save for one: Role-playing games. What the console needs now is a hero — a cartridge RPG to stand tall against the PlayStation, and show the likes of Final Fantasy VII what’s for!

… But such a game never really came, did it? In fact, there were barely any who even dared make the attempt. 2000’s Paper Mario is probably the standout example of an RPG on the N64, and while it’s most definitely an excellent game, it doesn’t quite fill the same hole as a Grandia or Xenogears now, does it? The SNES before it had been home to a bunch of depthful [2D] RPGs, featuring the likes of Chrono Trigger and Secret of Evermore (not to mention, a grip of Final Fantasy entries). But the N64 seemed to lend itself more towards “pick-up-and-play”-style action, arcade, and sports titles. By that point in time in 1998, any RPG released for the console would have the opportunity to make a name for itself.

And so begins the story of Quest 64: An inspired attempt by developer Imagineer to bring 64 megabytes of role-playing to the masses. But like so many a great tale, ours shall start before the adventure itself begins, telling of the time prior to the game’s release. Once the journey is officially underway, we will make closer inspection of the title, revealing it’s true worthiness. Finally, we shall explore the aftermath of the adventure, and detail the impact it had on the industry. Get ready to lo and behold, dear reader: Our Quest (64) awaits us!

No, you don’t need to remind me of adventure titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or collectathons along the lines of Banjo-Kazooie. Obviously, there were some very notable exceptions on the N64, as developed by studios willing to go the extra mile in pushing the 64MB cartridges of the N64 to its limits. But by and large, more substantial games of the era were made with 660MB PlayStation CD-ROMs in mind.

“Mere Hares Have Been Transformed into Werehares.”

Square’s success and survival going into the 1990’s can be largely credited towards Nintendo, who provided them the platforms and promotion on which they laid the foundation for their empire. It was a mutually beneficial relationship, of course: Square’s games pushed Nintendo hardware to its limits, packing huge worlds into their tiny cartridges and giving Nintendo some primo showcase titles. But by the mid-to-late part of the 90’s, Square’s ambitions had outgrown the capacity of SNES cartridges. They needed far more megabytes to contain the creature that would become Final Fantasy VII.

But the Nintendo 64 would not be the console to break Nintendo’s streak of primarily cartridge-driven consoles. Much like the Famicom before it, they would eventually release a disk drive add-on for it later down the line (in the form of the short-lived “64DD”), but even these would rely on proprietary magnetic disks not suited for large capacity storage. Square was faced with a tough choice: Either compromise on their creative vision, giving time for their competition to pass them by, or move development to one of Nintendo’s competitors and allow themselves the opportunity to stay on top.

Reports differ on how Nintendo took the bad news. Some say they took it in stride, writing it off as one of those things that “couldn’t be helped” and wishing Square all the best. A more recent interview with character programmer Hiroshi Kawai has him claiming that Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi put it so bluntly as to say “If you’re leaving us, never come back.” Regardless of the true feelings between the two companies, the split was made official, and would remain in place for several years. In the meantime, Nintendo would have to get their RPGs from someone else.

Unfortunately for Nintendo, when Square left, they convinced a number of other publishers and developers to jump ship with them — which, if the blood between the two companies wasn’t bad before, this certainly would’ve tainted it. Perhaps the most notable of these successive defections was Enix Corporation, who were responsible for the Dragon Quest series of RPGs [among plenty others], and who would later famously absorb Square to form the behemoth that is Square Enix. At the time though, the loss of what were still two distinct publishers with reputations for grand RPGs was still seen as a major, major blow.

In truth, the lack of RPGs on the N64 was something of an inevitability, simply given the constraints of the cartridge format. At some point, you can only push hardware so far before you have to start reining in your creative vision, and any other publisher / developer in Square’s position would have probably reached the same conclusions as they did: It wasn’t that a 3D RPG on the N64 wasn’t doable, so much as it was that it didn’t seem like it could be done well. It wasn’t that the hardware itself was significantly weaker than the PlayStation — as a matter of fact, it was actually more powerful in some respects. It all came down to the matter of storage space, and how the disparity between cartridge and disc severely limited the scope of games on Nintendo’s hardware. Even the number of developers who continued to publish games for the N64 typically prioritized the PlayStation versions of their titles first and thought about Nintendo second, compromising on features and visuals when re-purposing their releases for cartridge.

Which begs the question: Why did Nintendo continue to insist on cartridges despite the fact they were clearly headed for obsolescence? Well, I’ll tell you what: I’ve talked about Nintendo being the “dirtiest players in the game-making game” enough times before in my articles – whether it involved them abruptly violating contracts with business partners or [allegedly] scheming to manipulate the US Senate to discredit their competition – I reckon I’m gonna have to go and make this a recurring segment of sorts. So folks, allow me to formally introduce you to our new feature:

Never let it be said that I don’t go all-out with designing my graphics.

The reason for the lack of change was so that Nintendo could continue to completely control the means of producing and distributing their games, taking as much control away from their “partners” and publishers as possible. I mean, that’s all the Nintendo Seal of Quality ever actually meant: Not that Nintendo had thoroughly play-tested their games for quality assurance, but moreso that the terms of their licensing agreements were being met, and that they were so gracious as to press copies of the game in their factories. The prospect of CD-ROMs terrified Nintendo, fearing that incorporating a non-proprietary form factor for games would mean that piracy would run rampant. But perhaps more importantly to them than that, they knew they couldn’t maintain quite as tight a grip as they did on when [and how many] games would be released for their hardware. Even when Nintendo finally acquiesced and incorporated disc media into the Gamecube, they insisted on that weird miniDVD-esque proprietary form factor and sacrificed DVD playback on their console.

Nintendo’s past underhandedness had already inadvertently created their competitor in the PlayStation, and continued bullheadedness had now sent some of their most prized publishers packing for the monster they created. Of course, Nintendo wasn’t left completely high and dry in terms of companies willing to work with them, seeing as there were still a number of third-party games released for the hardware. One such company that remained mostly loyal to Nintendo were Imagineer Co., Ltd., who previously had a hand in publishing a number of conversions of American and European-developed titles for foreign markets (including a version of Elite for the NES and several entries of the Maxis Sim series on SNES). Their actual hands-on development experience was limited at that point, but when they saw an opportunity to fill the RPG hole on N64, they sprang into action.

With the benefit of being on their good side, the Big N would begin a hype cycle for their upcoming release, tentatively titled “Eltale” (which would be incorporated into the finalized title for the Japanese release, Eltale Monsters). The game would first be previewed at Nintendo’s own Space World trade show event in 1997, with promotion translating into something like “N64’s first authentic Full Polygon RPG where all actions lead to growth.” An English print ad would source a quote from Nintendo Power claiming that the game would “set the standard for 3D epics,” plus a line from what was apparently a one-off magazine called Q64 boasting that the game would “provide diehard RPG players and newcomers to the genre with many hours of solid gameplay.” The marketing was intended to convey that not only would this be the first RPG available on the N64, but that it would blow the competition out of the water as well. On June 1st, 1998, the North American market would be the first to see for themselves if the claims were true.

They did release three PlayStation and four Sega Saturn games during those console’s lifespans, but that was compared to fourteen exclusives on the N64. Also, these outside games had been released under the pseudonym brand “Imadio,” as if to obscure themselves from working with Nintendo’s competition.

“Declare War on the Evil That Grips Your Land.”

“Yes, we have returned… to our Celtland!”
North American box art.

On the island of Celtland, in a world far away from our own, magic flows through every facet of life. It is the job of the Spirit Tamers to guard and protect this magic, ensuring that control over it not fall into the hands of those who would misuse it. To this end, they are sworn to protect the secret document of “Eletale’s Book,” which contains all knowledge on the secrets of controlling magic, and which only Spirit Tamers are allowed to read from. Unfortunately, like all magical MacGuffins in these kinds of stories, evil forces conspire to steal it and use it for evil purposes. The hero Lord Bartholomy – a renowned Spirit Tamer – ventures forth in search of the sacred book, looking to return it to where it rightfully belongs. Unfortunately again, he goes missing, leaving the remaining Spirit Tamers to collectively mutter “well, shit.” Only one hope remains: The apprentice Spirit Tamer Brian — the pre-teen son of Lord Bartholomy and a total amateur at this whole magic combat thing.

But though our hero is a mere apprentice, he is determined to grow in magic power as his journey unfolds. Calling upon the four elements (Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water), Brian can learn to manipulate them to his whim, casting increasingly more powerful attacks and defensive spells as his learning progresses. With each measured rank in a given element, new spells become accessible, and older spells are eventually made obsolete by more MP-consuming replacements. With nearly forty spells to discover (roughly ten in each element), Brian has a long way to go before becoming a true Master of the Magic Arts. Despite the odds seemingly being against him, our young protagonist embarks all on his own into the depths of Celtland, to rescue his father and return Eletale’s Book to worthy hands.

… And alone you shall remain for the entirety of your quest, as there are no party members or support characters to assist you in combat. This is honestly a pretty disappointing lack of feature, as even having as little as an AI-driven buddy for combat encounters could have introduced some much-needed flavor and variety to the game. As a matter of fact, there are a handful of characters you’ll meet who seem as though they were initially designed for such a purpose, including a “tomboyish princess” in one of the first towns who wants nothing more than to take part in adventure! I have to imagine Imagineer’s ambitions were grander at some earlier point in development, and that you were intended to have companions who could come along with you — even if only temporarily, à la Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest.

That last reference is really rather apt, if I do say so myself: Quest 64 is very much structured as an “entry-level RPG,” similar to the approach taken with Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. For one, you can’t actually die during the game, as losing all your HP will simply return you to the last inn you visited while retaining all your experience and progression gained since last visit. Your adventure itself takes place along a rather straightforward linear path, with a clear A-to-B line from any given story-important location to another. (That being said, it is still very possible to get lost, for reasons I will explain later) And once you get your hands on a key spell – namely, “Magic Barrier” under the Earth element, which can be cast for several turns worth of total invulnerability – even the final boss battle can be made something of a non-factor in terms of challenge.

Which brings us to the matter of combat, which is rather unconventional for this style of RPG. Similar to a tactics-style strategy game, every combat turn gives you an opportunity to move within the combat field closer to or further away from enemies, before deciding on which attack, spell, or item you’d like to use. Following your turn, one enemy is given a turn to move and perform an action, trading turns back and forth between both sides of the battle. There’s a decent variety of enemy types in the game, though there’s very little in the way of having to adapt your strategy or change up your elements for different encounters. Alternatively, if you can’t be bothered with a given fight, you can make your way outside the sphere of the combat field and promptly escape from random battles. Keep that fact in mind: It’s gonna come in handy later.

Further eschewing RPG conventions of the era, levelling up stats and skills isn’t based on a traditional “distributed experience” system (where your stats grows more or less evenly across the board). Rather, certain actions will net you experience for associated stats; getting hit in combat helps build your “Defense,” using spells builds your “MP,” and hitting enemies with your melee attack builds your “HP” oddly enough. Perhaps most interestingly, your time spent running outside of combat is what builds your “Agility” stat, which allows you more space to move in combat and higher chance to dodge attacks. However, despite being what I’d argue to be an essential stat in terms of making the game more playable, it levels incredibly slowly. Like, we’re talking “you’ll never fully level it up over the course of a playthrough” slow here. Which leaves players with effectively two options as to how to approach levelling their agility:

Suffer through the game with an underwhelming level of Agility, with a heavily restricted movement range in combat that will lead to you absorbing a large number of blows that really should be more easily avoidable.
Tie a rubber band to your control stick to get Brian running in a circle, let the game run on its own for a few days time, and play the game the way it should’ve been made to be played in the first place.

The choice seemed rather obvious to me, at least! With Agility maxed out, combat is far more convenient and easier to escape when unwanted, exponentially decreasing playtime spent having to actively grind other stats. One other bit of foresight on the developer’s end meant to alleviate the necessity of grinding come in the form of “spirits,” which are hidden across the game world. Activating a spirit allows you to immediately level one of your four elements, saving you time otherwise spent waiting to be rewarded with elemental increases from combat victories. You’ll still need to actively use magic in order to level your MP stat, but at least there was some consideration being made for players by the developers.

So, with the mechanical eccentricities more or less laid out, we’re free to talk about how the game itself is presented. On paper, some of these ideas sound interesting and seem to be a solid way of differentiating Quest 64 from other RPGs of the era. In execution, geez louise this game is mind-numbingly boring. I’m sorry, but I just can’t hold back on this any longer: I’m no stranger to RPGs, and I’ve played through my fair share of some of the grindier ones. But this… This is a whole other level of tedium. Man, it’s not even the grinding that gets me so much as the general repetition of it all. Every character, every conversation, every battle, every song on the soundtrack — it’s all so bland, it just starts to blend together almost immediately.

Let’s talk about the towns first. Sure, there are plenty of buildings to explore and some number of folk to talk to, but more than half the rooms you’ll walk into are empty copy-pastes of the rooms next-door to them, and most NPCs have nothing particularly insightful or flavorful to say anyway. Occasionally you’ll find characters who just give items away to you since there’s apparently no economy to speak of in Celtland. Oh, I didn’t mention that yet, did I? There’s no currency or shops to buy items from in the game, as well as totally lacking in equipables like better weapons and armor. There are only consumables for your use, and you’ll find townsfolk who will give you them for free if you don’t happen to have them on you already. It’s all so shallow.

When it comes to navigating the world, it can become something of a challenge thanks to flat environments mostly lacking in landmarks / distinct features, combined with an absolutely awful camera. The camera will use any excuse to rotate around and try to disorient you, most frequently at the beginning of fights, leaving you left wondering which direction you were initially headed before being interrupted. In environments like the dark forest, this can lead to running around in circles while losing all sense of geography, unhelped by the lack of detailed area maps. Your only assistance in this matter is a directional compass in the top-right corner of the screen to tell you which direction you’re headed — which you’d better keep a constant eye on, as it disappears the moment combat begins.

Hey, speaking of random encounters, there sure are a lot of them! I’m talking “random encounter two steps after finishing a previous random encounter” here. At some point, the only winning move is not to play, try and escape fights in the direction you were initially headed, and do your best to weave through the enemies in your way. This is where having a high Agility comes incredibly in handy, as you can eventually level it to a point where you can run from one end of the combat field to the other in your first turn, avoiding combat turns entirely. Trust me on this: Even if you have a love and passion for grinding in your RPGs, you’re eventually going to get to a point where the constant interruptions will become more of a bother to you than they’re worth.

It’d be one thing if the combat itself was any fun or required any real strategy, but there’s so little to it that it just immediately feels like a chore past your first fight in the game. There’s no indication as to what the range / direction of your spell attacks are, so you’re forced to memorize each of their unique angles and distances, and to do your best to position yourself accordingly. That being said, the most reliable move by far in the game is your staff’s melee attack, which often does more damage than any spell at your disposal, with spells mostly being relegated to “crowd control.” As such, when it comes to one-on-one combat, your best strategy is to run towards your opponent, bonk them on the noggin, and run away from their counter-attack. Again, this is another situation where having a high Agility score is key.

There isn’t enough known about the development cycle of the game to substantiate any claims I’m about to make here, but I will wager that the game was the result of a really rough rush job. In the race to get an RPG on the console, so many corners and features ended up cut that the bare bones game we have on hand still seems to be all nicked with chips and fractures. There are rooms you’ll step out of where the cameras aren’t properly placed, leading to beautiful views of the insides of walls obscuring Brian completely from view. There are times where enemy pathfinding will completely fail, or where idle animations and camera movements will cause attacks of yours that are clearly lined up not to register at all — even in the case of melee where you are standing directly next to an enemy and see the staff icon above their heads, wasting precious combat turns in the process. It’s not broken to the point of being unplayable or anything, but it sure comes across as half-baked. Layer on top of that a story that feels “slapped on” at best, and you’re left with no real motivation to want to see things through in scenic Celtland.

On that note: If there’s one compliment that one could pay to Quest 64, it would be for it’s graphics. Locations and tilesets are varied enough, accompanied by a rather high draw distance for an N64 game. Some of the towns are downright idyllic, like the waterfall-adjacent Larapool or the secret desert temple of Shamwood. There’s no denying that some considerable effort went into sculpting the world of Quest 64. The problem is, as mentioned earlier, there’s not much to actually do in said world, nor interesting lore with which to give it a sense of life or purpose. For every uniquely designed NPC, there’s a boring conversation with them that completely ruins them as being a potentially interesting character. For every mysterious hut or house in the middle of nowhere, there’s a copy-paste interior with nothing of note inside. It’s all pretty window-dressing for a game devoid of actual personality.

I really wanted to give Quest 64 the benefit of the doubt, since I figured it’s less-than-stellar reputation may have simply stemmed from unfair comparisons to the PS1’s library of RPGs available at that time. Even if it couldn’t compare to the likes of a Final Fantasy VII or what have you, I still wouldn’t have minded a simple little timesink RPG to give my hands something to do while listening to podcasts or something. But the frustrations and overwhelming sense of shallowness drag the game across the line from “mindlessness” into “tedium,” to a point where I absolutely cannot endorse it in any capacity. If it had been given more time in the development oven, the combat system could have had the potential to shine. With better implementation, the stat-building mechanics could have lent a sense of “build development” where players could deliberately prioritize certain stats over others, rather than just making all levelling feel painfully slow. As it stands, Quest 64 is the worst kind of bad: It’s “boring bad.” It’s not even entertaining enough in it’s flaws to serve as some kind of novelty attraction. It’s just… It’s really dull, y’all.

“Tilesets” being a term used to describe the set of objects and textures that compose an area’s unique theme. For example: A tileset for a forest area would likely consist of art assets depicting trees, grass, and other nature with which developers can effectively illustrate a forest.

“Just Like the Dinosaurs — Gone Forever.”

Quest 64 did not set the world on fire. Final Fantasy VII was not dethroned, Square were not left shaking in their boots, and the bold marketing claims all rang mostly untrue. Not even Nintendo Power could muster up much enthusiasm for the game, with one reviewer putting it so succinctly as to say “It’s more like a trip to the dentist than a quest.” This quote, by the way, features in an issue with a whole eight pages set aside for a strategy guide for the game. When your affiliated brand’s magazine doesn’t even care enough to try and sell consumers on your game, that’s rarely a good sign.

Quest 64 was given a few months more time and was slightly reworked for the Japanese market before being released as Eltale Monsters. A number of tweaks and changes made are intended to make the game less frustrating to play and easier to parse. For one, the signposts scattered across the game world meant to point you in the directions of nearby towns / dungeons are actually legible now, unlike the random gibberish that was written on them in the English releases. Another nice feature was the fact that you could save to and load saves from the cartridge itself, rather than the English release which necessitated owning a controller pak. Aside from that, there are a number of other balance changes (including new combat mechanics for critical hits and staff attack combos), quality of life improvements (more visible level-up indications, disabling auto-hide on the HUD), and a handful of other additions that seem like they were simply too rushed to incorporate into the original release (a more complete ending, unique music for the Save / Load menu). All in all, these changes make it feel more like a complete game, but only patching up a handful of minor annoyances does not mend the core issues.

Despite a mixed critical reception at best and underwhelming post-launch promotion, Quest 64 still managed to move units. Like, enough units that a sequel was announced early next year, and that two spin-off titles would be released for the Game Boy Color. A smart publisher doesn’t back those kinds of business decisions if a game doesn’t meet or exceed initial sales expectations, and I’m willing to bet Quest 64 managed to do so. So starved for RPGs were N64 owners, there were willing to take anything they could get at that point, even if the reviews for a game were mostly mediocre and the name of it utterly generic.

Quest 2 didn’t seem to make it much past the stage of being formally announced and given a tentative story: A press release picked up by IGN in January of 1999 described the sequel as taking place in the same universe as the first game, set a hundred years after the original’s story, and starring a 10-year-old boy named Leohn who inherits the powers of his predecessor protagonist. Alternatively, you would’ve also been able to play as a “cheerful female sword fighter” by the name of Sophia, whose storyline would be split from Leohn’s probably in the same way that Leon and Claire in Resident Evil 2 had distinct character scenarios. Wait, is that maybe why they went with the name “Leohn” for their male protagonist? Just like, blatantly referencing what they were ripping off their idea from?

Quest: Brian’s Journey for Game Boy Color (Sunsoft, 2000)

The first of the two Game Boy Color games released was Quest: Fantasy Challenge in 1999, as developed by SunSoft. It is an unabashed rip-off of Mr. Do! (which itself was a blatant take on Dig-Dug), with barely-recognizable Quest 64 baddies in place of the original enemies and Brian in place of the titular Mr. Do. By virtue of Mr. Do! being an alright game, Quest: Fantasy Challenge is also an okay game, though the Game Boy Color screen does leave it feeling a tad bit cramped. I don’t honestly know why Imagineer thought an arcade puzzle game would be the ideal way to follow up a title marketed as a major console’s first RPG, but that’s the game we somehow got.

The other Game Boy Color game, Quest: Brian’s Journey, was released in 2000 and developed by Atelier Double. If you’ve never heard of Atelier Double, it’s because you weren’t supposed to: They were intended to exist as a “ghost developer” along the lines of Tose Software, until trying to disappear themselves in 2004. Their development history is fascinating to take a look at, if you’re so interested. As for the game itself, it’s also pretty fascinating, in that it’s a full-on demake of Quest 64 complete with a more fleshed-out story. Brian even has dialogue this time around, instead of being a silent protagonist! There are even attempts to recreate the original battle system as closely as they can in top-down 2D perspective, and locations are actually totally recognizable as renditions of those in the N64 title. You know, as a matter of fact… I’d go as far as to say that it’s actually truer to the feel of a traditional RPG than the game it is based off of. Don’t get me wrong: It didn’t seem like a forgotten classic of the genre or anything, but it certainly feels like a more fully realized role-playing experience.

The rest of the years 1999 and 2000 passed by without much more mention of Quest 2. Imagineer reportedly fell into financial issues that resulted in the company ultimately having to cancel the game. They released a couple of non-Quest PlayStation 2 games in 2000, before seeming to bow out of the console market entirely. They actually still exist as a company [as of the time of this writing], seemingly focused on the Japanese cellphone market. As Stuart Ashens would say, “A fitting punishment.” All that being said, and for as harsh as I may be on Quest 64, I don’t think I would’ve minded giving a Quest 2 a shot. Imagineer probably learned enough from the development and reception of the first game that they could’ve implemented a number of improvements, and having a choice of two distinct characters / classes is a novel enough idea for an RPG. It had the potential makings of a solid 3D RPG, and it honestly is a bit of a shame that we never got to see Imagineer attempt to redeem themselves.

By 2001, the Gamecube came to succeed the Nintendo 64, leaving behind a console with a severely small RPG library. If we’re talking “pure” RPGs here, it basically boils down to Quest 64 in 1998, Paper Mario in 2000, and Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage in 2001. Say what you will about Quest 64, but you’ve at least gotta give it credit for being one of the few games to even try for it. Maybe if things had gone differently, its success might have inspired more developers to give N64 RPGs a shot. But as it stands, I can’t say it doesn’t deserve the reputation it’s earned over the years — put up against Final Fantasy VII or not.