Nintendo 64
Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage
| Graphics: Sound: Gameplay: Overall: |
4.63 5.50 7.38 6.63 |
| Votes: | 24 |
| Reviews: | 2 |
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| Reviewer: Leland Dyke | Date: Apr 13, 2024 |
| This game is deeply flawed. But there is a great concept of a game hidden in there. This game deserves a remake more than any already good game ever could.
Graphics: 2 There's really nothing redeeming about the graphics. The character portraits are very low resolution. A 21 bead abacus could hold the polygon count. The textures are muddy and indistinct. But somehow, the intended art style shines through, and it's a good one. I'd love to see concept art, or a re-implementation, because someone here obviously cared. Sound: 5 Kinda bog-standard medieval music and chanting. Heavy on the drums. I still have some tracks in my head, but more because they're formative for me. Menu and UI sound effects are good. Gameplay: 7 It is so close to great. The concept is simple, turn based combat with limited movement on 3D terrain, kinda like how Quest 64 did it. There are so many skills, weapons, spells, potions, items. It feels like it was very well thought out - on paper. The advancement system is one that I haven't seen closely replicated today, but is deeply flawed in that it takes far too much EXP to train an ability. The idea is that you can add skills to anyone as long as they have the EXP for it, so you could end up having multiple different specialists on your team. But in reality, you end up spreading out a bunch of low-level skills and everyone becomes a generalist, because advancing down one path gets exponentially more expensive, in a way that doesn't feel commensurate. Overall: 6 I love that picking your party at the beginning feels like a very hard choice. Abrecan is a physical powerhouse, Rheda's magic isn't very useful for a while but is very well flavored and she becomes strong late. Godrick's potion crafting is indispensable. Brenna... is forced into your party. She can unlock chests, I guess. I haven't beaten this game. I probably never will. There is simply too much grinding. But, I can imagine a world where this got the playtesting it deserved, on a console that could run a game of the scope they were trying to make. The heart of the game would hold up well, even today. But it's flesh is old, weak, and built on brittle bones. |
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| Reviewer: bassman87 | Date: Jan 15, 2009 |
| This game is, simply put, extremely sub-par. BUT as its one of the few RPGs on the N64, it was almost worth having... Almost
Graphics: 1 God oh god... half the time you couldn't tell WHAT you were looking at. The blurred environment left it difficult to tell where you were headed and IF there was a path in any given direction. You would have to look around for half an hour just to find a road. The figures were almost as bad, but at least you could see they were there... Sound: 2 I never paid much attention to the sound. In fact, I think it was so bad I've blocked it out of my mind completely. Gameplay: 3 This is where the game shined. Well, hum... twinkled a little like an old penny. On the up side, the characters were almost completely customizable while each being unique. I really would like to see more games with a leveling system more like this one. What it could have been... On the other hand everything was SLOW... the unique leveling system took way too long before you got enough points to improve your characters. The battle sequences took forever for even the easy fights that lasted only a round or two. And to top it all off... the single worst part of this game... THE RATE IN WHICH YOU MOVE THROUGH THE OVERWORLD IS INSUFFERABLY SLOW. Seriously, moving from place to place took absolutely forever, and there aren't always even battles to break it up. Overall: 3 This game is actually more than the sum of its parts, but only if you have a LOT of patience. And only if you really really like RPGs. Still, its unlikely you will enjoy this game, but you MIGHT be able to pretend to like it just to humor yourself... Just don't play this game...just don't |
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