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Retro Aidyn Chronicles, the most overly ambitious BAD N64 RPG you never played

Koren Lesthe

Koren Lesthe

Turrican, Terranigma and ESO lover
Pronouns
He/Him
8207918-aidyn-chronicles-the-first-mage-nintendo-64-front-cover.jpg

Game : Aidyn Chronicles : The First Mage
Support : N64
Release date : March 2001
Developped by : H20 (Tetrisphere !)
Special : Expansion Pack for High Res mode (does not improve the framerate).

Did you know (gaming) ?

Aidyn Chronicles is one of the few RPG released ont the N64, alongside Paper Mario 64 and Quest 64 (Holy Magic Century in Europe).
It's a turn based RPG with a lot of gameplay elements from various games, especially The Elder Scrolls (and a few from Quest 64).

I won't try to pretend this is an hidden gem because it's flawed on so many levels, but still... You're not prepared for what the game features :

A gigantic open world, like Massive.
You can explore every house, nay, every interior from A to Z, sometimes it can lead to a chest / hidden passage (Quest 64).
Weather conditions in real time with rain drops landing correctly on the ground.
Day & night cycle
Ennemies visible during exploration and depending on your Stealth skill, you can avoid them.
Turn base battles with a "Circle action / movement" (Quest 64)
Dozens of Skills to learn and seek Trainers to learn new ones and improve them as much as the trainers can (The Elder Scrolls)
Your party members have their own personnality, some won't join you depending who is already in your team.
There's an Alchemy skill to craft your own potions (The Elder Scrolls)
You can read books and sometimes learn something from it (The Elder Scrolls)
The draw distance goes very, very far (sadly there is some asset popin, like in Ocarina of Time & Banjo-Kazooie)
If a party member dies, it is permanent (Fire Emblem)

But all this have a cost. There's a catch, and a big one. Well, maybe two big ones. Ok, THREE. Urgh, fine, FOUR !
  • The framerate is ass, with or without playing High res mode (Expansion Pack).
  • The music is mostly generic, and sometimes pretty bad, especially the first town song.
  • The animation of the characters are very, very bad and stutter quite a lot.
  • Most of the 3D models are hilariously bad.

Regarding the first point, there is a way to play the game at a blazing 60 FPS on emulation, with Project64. You can check an enhancement feature (right click on the game in the list) and the game runs fine, aside for a few animations (only water and a fog effect in a cutscene) run faster than normal. The rest can't be fixed, tho.

I never finished the game ; I used to own a copy a friend gave me for a month and I remember playing hours and hours (a PAL 50 Hz copy, it was so slooooow) until I reached a massive canyon area and I had to give back the game to my friend. Years later, I tried replaying the game and I'm still amazed how many things they stuffed in it ; the skills, the spells, the size of the open world...

Have you ever played the game ? Have you finished it ?
I'm replaying it right now and reached the castle ; I'm about to meet the king and after that, I'll have to decide who will join me in my quest.
 
I remember this got a fair amount of coverage in Nintendo Power but since it came so late in the N64’s life cycle it never occurred to me to try it. I do find those quaint third party N64 games charming in their own way though.
 
I have thought a few times about buying this to fill out my N64 collection, but its reputation has always stopped me from pulling the trigger. I still want to try this game out so I hope it eventually comes to NSO.

It’s N64 games like this and Quest 64 that to me had potential to be a good to great game, I know some will disagree with me but I find them so charming that I can’t find myself dissing them like they should.
 
I watched thab play this on twitch as part of his goal to beat every N64 game.

Looks utterly miserable. Extreme G and Iggy were good additions to NSO; I dunno about this game.
 
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PixelKnight said:
This was an absolutely terrible rpg. At the point it released, even in PAL countries we had loads of great PS1 rpgs available by then. The N64 was just dire for rpg fans
Click to expand...
It sure was. I'm just wondering how the developpment went because... the scope of the game is insane, especially for a game coming so late.
 
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I remember the spanish Nintendo magazine hyping it up, it was sad. Even as a little kid I felt it was a bit desperate, because the Nintendo 64 didn't have games like this.
 
PixelKnight said:
This was an absolutely terrible rpg. At the point it released, even in PAL countries we had loads of great PS1 rpgs available by then. The N64 was just dire for rpg fans
Click to expand...
Not a lot of open, polygonal, western RPGs, though.

This as a 2001 N64 exclusive seems like being sent to die. Might've made slightly more of a splash if they'd aimed a little higher and it was a 2002 multiplatform low-rent alternative to Morrowind.
 
You'd think with how RPG-deprived the N64 was more than a few companies would have tried to fill the void instead of the two high(?) profile failures it got.
 
All I really remember about this is that at the time the “sharper graphics” or something like that were being hyped up by N64 outlets.

Are there any good RPGs on N64 other than Paper Mario? Only other one I can think of (but haven’t played either) is Ogre Battle 64
 
SammyJ9 said:
All I really remember about this is that at the time the “sharper graphics” or something like that were being hyped up by N64 outlets.

Are there any good RPGs on N64 other than Paper Mario? Only other one I can think of (but haven’t played either) is Ogre Battle 64
Click to expand...
Other than Paper Mario and Ogre Battle?

Uh, no. All of the RPG devs moved to the PlayStation.
 
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I've never heard anyone mention this game when the subject of N64 RPGs comes up. It's always Quest 64, Paper Mario, and Ogre Battle.

Given how much more interesting this sounds than Quest 64 and how it seems like N64 fans have played every single game ever released for the thing, I feel like the only possible explanation for that is it being impressively bad.
 
Weiss said:
You'd think with how RPG-deprived the N64 was more than a few companies would have tried to fill the void instead of the two high(?) profile failures it got.
Click to expand...
I think with Japanese RPGs, the system was such a flop in Japan that it just wasn’t seen as worth it when the primary audience at the time was playing on PlayStation (even the Saturn outsold the N64 in Japan). And most western RPGs were still mostly on PC. Plus cartridge limitations were just not appealing when the focus on RPGs of the time were cinematics, big expansive maps, and so on.

Kind of funny to think about now with the Switch having damn near every RPG under the sun these days.
 
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SammyJ9 said:
All I really remember about this is that at the time the “sharper graphics” or something like that were being hyped up by N64 outlets.

Are there any good RPGs on N64 other than Paper Mario? Only other one I can think of (but haven’t played either) is Ogre Battle 64
Click to expand...
Let me present you the best combat RPG in the system (after quest 64)


Xoz62Zr.jpeg


Also as someone who only had a N64, Aydin Chronicles was extremely hard to find. I knew it existed only because of magazines but never saw it in any store. Finally was able to play it though emulation years ago (and it is bad,)
 
I have never heard of this game, but I wasn't following console games very closely back then. Still, it's not a game I see ever brought up in conversations about N64 online. So, to answer your question, I didn't know, but now I do!

The character designs on that box art are very late 90s/early 00s. The man? Ready for war. The woman? Ready for the beach.
 
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bixente said:
The N64 had too much genre imbalance.

An utter dearth of rpgs while having an endless array of racing and sports titles.
Click to expand...
the second most famous game on the system which many consider to be the best game of all time is an rpg, and it has a sequel. what more do you need?
 
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Stilt Village said:
Given how much more interesting this sounds than Quest 64 and how it seems like N64 fans have played every single game ever released for the thing, I feel like the only possible explanation for that is it being impressively bad.
Click to expand...
That release date. Quest 64 came out about the same time as Banjo-Kazooie, less than two years from launch and when at least from a sales standpoint the system was near its peak. By early 2001 N64 was basically over. This thing was arriving when people who might have been interested in earlier years (me, at least) probably had their eyes on recently announced Final Fantasy IX and X and XI, what Sega was going to be releasing on other platforms, what was going to be coming to Xbox and GameCube a few months down the line.
 
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