It has Stuff
When I was a child I had a Nintendo 64 and an allowance. When that allowance reached the price of a brand new Nintendo 64 game I would become so excited that I had to buy one straight away. The problem inherent to this is that the Nintendo 64 had no games to actually buy. When I found myself at the store with money in hand and forced to choose between the likes of Iggy's Wreckin' Balls and Bio F.R.E.A.K.S., I opted instead for Quest 64. I had seen ads for it in video game magazines hyping it up and it looked sort of like Zelda. When I took it to the counter the teenager there-- and I remember this vividly-- looked the box over and said, "Whoa! Good choice!!"
I got home and played it immediately. For about an hour, and then never again. It wasn't until years later on a day I was home sick from school that I picked it back up again, arbitrarily, and blasted through the first third of the game in a zombified marathon session. While I dropped the game as soon as I stopped being sick, something about it did capture my feverous attention then and didn't let go. For decades afterward I'd find myself humming music from the game to myself, the tune seeming oddly familiar until I would eventually realize, "Oh, it's that fucking Quest 64 music again". I think what made Quest 64 such a brainworm for me is that, aside from that one sick day, I had only ever glanced off of its surface. Even then I hadn't dug too deeply. There obviously weren't untold depths (as I can now confirm) to be found but there was definitely more to it than a few overworld fields, a forest dungeon, and a cave. For example, if I would have played on past that sick day I would have discovered a cave with blue walls. And a different forest dungeon.
That's all to say that not beating Quest 64 has been eating away at me for the past quarter century or so. But now I have beaten it and, in a very sad way, I liked it.
There's a lot that Quest 64 doesn't have going for it. It's a JRPG boiled down to its bare essentials, and sometimes even beyond that. The game doesn't have money or shops-- Dragon Quest ONE had that! There's no equipment to wear or party members to collect. There are no classes save for the one you're forced to play. The story has zero depth, it's extraordinarily linear, and the NPCs are bland signposts who say little more than, "Boy it sure is bad that THE BANDIT in the ABANDONED MINE is causing trouble! You can skip your turn by pressing the A button. Bye!" Pile onto that mediocrity a random encounter rate that is far too high for battles that take too long to finish, a complete lack of balance in its existing systems, and dungeons that are largely undecorated corridors that are extremely easy to get turned around in. I can see why this game is hated.
But it does have stuff that I like, and most of that stuff is wholly unique to Quest 64.
I like its extreme focus on being a mage. Often in JRPGs spells are just things that suddenly happen to a character as they level. Here you manually fill out your grimoire by choosing which elements to buy into. This is completely unbalanced, with 2 of the 4 elements being vastly better to invest into than the others. Earth has one of the most useful offensive spells in the game and also a magic shield that completely negates all incoming damage and I think the game might be literally impossible without Water's healing spells.
I like the combat system's focus on positioning. Again, this is extremely rare in non-'tactics' JRPGs. Spells all have sweet spots of range that must be accounted for. Enemy attacks can be dodged simply by running out of the way. Bosses can be dealt with by baiting out their weaker long-range attacks in lieu of their deadlier melee range hits.
I like the lack of consequence. If you die, you're sent back to the last inn you stayed at without losing any character progress. This means that you can eventually brute force your way through anything. Your MP refills just by walking, so there's no real resource management. You can use spells to refill your health to max after every battle and you'll have most if not all of that MP back by the time you hit the next one. The only thing you can ever lose are consumable items, but those stop being a major factor after you get your first healing spell. Even so, NPCs will hand out free consumables in the case that you run out. Some might consider this all a minus, but for me it makes for a comfy low-stakes experience.
I liked the last dungeon. It looked cool.
Quest 64 isn't exactly misunderstood but I'm glad I played it and I'm glad that I can now annoy people by evangelizing it.
