I remember the very first day I played this game. I was only seven years old, and I had always spent most of my time as a child playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Bomberman Hero, 007 Goldeneye, Kirby 64, and so many more.
   My mother bought this game for me one day randomly, because she felt that it was my kind of game. And I didn't agree with her. I played the game and kept dying and dying, because I didn't understand how it worked or what I was honestly supposed to do. I felt it was too difficult for me to beat, so I kind of ignored it for a long time.
   After about a year though, when I turned eight, I had this weird desire to play the game. Something about it is actually very fun.. it draws you in and basically says, "Hey! Come and beat me, I'm a long and challenging game and I'm really going to make you work to beat me." So I honestly really wanted to beat it out. I made it a lot farther once I learned how to use the Healing ability by collecting seven water spirits. I was very imbalanced in my tactics to play the game, however, because I only focused on the water element and no other element.
   If you honestly and truly want this game to be easier on you, you need to balance the four elements. And returning to this game ten years later, where I am now eighteen, I wanted nothing more than to just sit down and play it all the way through. I remembered how difficult it was when I was a child, so I figured it would be the same now. Yet oddly enough, I had an easy time playing this game.. I still died a few times, but mostly at the beginning, and it was just easier for me to get through it because I knew I needed to balance the four elements in order to make the strength of my staff much higher.
   The nostalgia is what really makes this game so fantastic, and I guess if a person were to start playing this game now they probably wouldn't really enjoy it very much. Or maybe they would, but I think you really need to have played this game when you were younger in order to honestly and truly enjoy it. I'm going to try to review this game from both a nostalgic perspective and an objective perspective. It won't be simple to do.


Graphics 9


   For a Nintendo 64 game, this game had fairly decent graphics in my opinion. There were very few to no glitches at all in the way the graphics displayed themselves across the screen, and the colors were well designed and appealing to the eye. The animation of the monsters were also very well done, as well as the animation of the spells. It was somewhat cartoony, but there was also a level of realism, and given the fact that this is the Nintendo 64 we're talking about, I think the game did very well for itself in terms of graphics.


Sound 8


   Like I said about the graphics, Quest 64 did very well with sound effects and having the music add atmosphere to the area. The only complaint I have against the sound, the music in particular, is how repetitive the music was in a lot of places. The battle music is the music you hear the most in the game, other than the Overworld music which plays whenever you're outside a town. Dindom Dries, a desert after you beat one of Mammon's servants, was the only place where the Overworld music was actually different other than Isle of Skye. I really love the music that plays when you make it to Brannoch however. It feels so desperate and on the verge of ultimate destruction. I really love it. Favorite music in the game, hands-down. The game did very good at making you really feel how difficult the level would be with its creepy, haunting music. You step into a new area and you just know that it's going to be a rough go just by the music that's playing. Blue Cavern.. ugh.. that place was the worst in the whole game. Pretty tough level.


Addictiveness 9


   Believe me when I tell you, that this game is extremely addictive. I find it very difficult to stop playing it because once I get to a new area I just feel so good about myself that I want to get to the next area. You especially feel amazing after you beat a tough boss but then you're just pumped and excited to go and beat the next boss. We tend to feel invincible after we beat the boss of the area because then we think nothing can take us down. But I always end up being wrong, hahaha. The only time I can honestly say I stop playing this game is when I'm up at 3 a.m in the morning but I have class tomorrow so I need to force myself to turn the game off. It can get slightly repetitive however, but not to the point of boredom. At least for me.


Story 7


   As much as I would love to give Quest 64 a bigger score for story, the truth is that the story is not as developed as I feel it could be. I feel that the story is really well-done, don't get me wrong, but there are so many things they honestly could have done with it. There weren't a lot of dramatic scenes in the game where someone would get kidnapped or you would find out something shocking about a character. The only really intense part of the whole game was trying to find your Father and learning about these evil people that wanted to take control over all the elements and rule Celtland. Eventually you discover about the God of Greed, Mammon, who wants to destroy the miracle that is life due to his jealousy of human beings and how they are able to live and prevail, even through the toughest of circumstances, and it's very interesting to see all these spiritual beliefs incorporated into a video-game. I guess there is also a plot twist near the end of the game about a certain character, but I won't spoil it. Still, there is a lot more they could have done with the story in the game in my opinion, but even with the way it is it's still interesting enough to keep me engaged and wanting to beat it out.



Depth 6


   The game is actually very large and offers quite a few things that you can actually do. For instance, you can choose many different strategies in how you combat the forces of evil in Celtland. You can choose only earth, fire, air, or water and only stick with that one element. Or you can focus on two elements, or you can do proportional elements, keeping them all tidy and multiples of each other like: 4, 8, 12, 16. Or you can choose my favorite strategy, to balance all four of the elements which will basically give you 36, 36, 35, 35. Maybe one or two extra or less depending on how well you can find the 99 spirits in the land that display themselves as ? marks.
   When it comes to side-quests, however, the game doesn't really have any. You just keep going forward with the main quest and fighting the enemies in the area and fighting the bosses. There is a lot to explore, but there isn't much going away from the central path of the level. It would have been nice if they made areas that weren't at all part of the main quest, but they only really made two in the game and that was Glencoe Forest and Shamwood Castle. You didn't need to visit those places at all to progress in the game. Still, there is a lot to make up for the lack of personal choice in the game, such as finding treasure chests and finding spirits. That was about it, however.



Difficulty 7


   As a kid, I thought this game was literally the hardest game I'd ever played. And the game is difficult, but it really wasn't as hard as I thought. If you die in the game, you keep all of your items and experience and each time you get hit you raise your defense anyway, so dying isn't really much of a repercussion other than having to walk all that distance again.
   If you really want Quest 64 to be difficult then you should intentionally try and not balance the spirits.. because if you balance them then your staff becomes very strong, but imbalanced requires you to rely more on spells and being far away from the enemy. I don't even try to avoid the enemy's attacks, I just run up and beat them over the head with the staff because I do so much damage with it. I love the sound the staff makes when you hit someone, you'd think they'd fall over from being hit by such a "THWACK" and have a concussion or something but their skulls must be 20 inches thick or something.


Overall 9.2


   Overall, Quest 64 is a fantastic game. It's not only fun, but it's addicting, it's challenging, the story's pretty good, and the fighting system is fine. It's a unique, one-of-a-kind game that is unlike any other. It's been given negative feedback by a lot of critics but I feel Quest 64 needs to be treated not just as an RPG, but as its own, individual and unique style of gaming. I think what would have really impressed people is if the game had a currency so that you could buy spells or upgrade your staff or upgrade your armor or range or something like that, but even without that the game compels you to try and beat it, and once you do beat it, you feel pretty good about yourself. The ending sequence has very beautiful music, too.. and the final boss battle is just epic.