Koren Lesthe
Turrican, Terranigma and ESO lover
- Pronouns
- He/Him
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.