27th September 2007, 5:32 PM
While it is criticized by many, often rightfully, Aidyn Chronicles should be, for any Western/PC-style RPG fans, thought of as a pretty good game with some unfortunate flaws. I bought the game four months ago, but stopped an hour in for no good reason. I picked it up again yesterday and I noticed how good it is... yes, it's flawed. It's badly buggy with crash bugs (it's crashed on me several times in just a few hours), 'fall through the polygons' errors (though they reset you to where you started), probably the possibility of irreparably corrupted save files (hasn't happened to me, but supposedly it can), that whole thing about removing the resurrection system at the last minute because there were bugs in it they couldn't fix in time for shipping (understandable, because given its March 2001 release date I'm sure THQ wanted to release the game before the N64 was COMPLETELY dead...), movement is stiff and the camera is pretty awful and not controllable enough, the music is mediocre at best and there often is none (add a great soundtrack to this game and it would make a HUGE difference... the world is interesting to explore, but the sound while you're doing it is kind of bland...), etc...
Behind all of those flaws, however, the actual game is quite good, provided that you like PC-style WRPGs. The battle system is great... why do so many reviews complain? Sure it's a little slow, and you should be able to set formations instead of just having your characters randomly dropped around the battlefield when you go into a fight, but other than that it's great. Being able to actually move makes a huge difference... and here it really does matter, with things like how attacking from the rear gives you bonuses. It's obviously a huge game too, with a big overworld and lots to do and many places to explore both on and off of the main quest path. The script is decently written too... not exactly original, so far, but decently written. The characters are done well and the reason for the hero going on his quest is at least slightly different from usual -- to cure a poisoning instead of the usual "your village was attacked".
It does seem to have a few simplified elements, such as one combined inventory for your party (and no limit on how much you can carry?), and with the permadeath and crashes you MUST save often (but they make up for it by having save anywhere... it does require a controller pak, and 28 blocks per save (and of course it only supports card one, like way too many games on the system :(), but having several save files is essential), but those things don't hurt too much. Characters are reasonably customizable too, with a reasonably complex skill and magic system where which skills you choose to upgrade (or use) will affect character development.
Oh, the magic system is interesting too, requiring spell components you must buy or find that are consumed when you cast spells... casting spells drains some stamina too. Of course the game doesn't tell you your remaining stamina or amount of spell components onscreen all the time; you have to look it up on the pause menu. The pause menu is quite well-designed and comprehensive, though, with a very useful map, journal, inventory screen, and help/saving menus...
Really, the main problem with the game is that its target audience, PC RPG fans, for the most part wasn't on the N64. Maybe on Xbox or X360 it would have done much better... though virtually all Xbox/X360 Western RPGs are released on both the console and PC; this one is console-exclusive, making part of an extremely small subcategory of Western RPGs... and also, on PC they could potentially have patched it to fix all those bugs. Oh well... while it was possibly too ambitious for the system it was running on, it does show design choices that would have been very hard to do on any other console -- the large overworld would have been impossible to do without load times on any other system, for instance. Same goes for the castle... the game as it is has a huge world with absolutely zero loading (well, going through doors or into a battle takes a second. Other than that nothing.), which definitely is showing the advantage of cartridge memory.
Anyway, several hours in, while I can certainly understand why so many people dislike the game, I don't. It's good so far and I'd imagine that if PC RPG fans would actually play it they'd like it, provided that they can deal with the flaws.
Behind all of those flaws, however, the actual game is quite good, provided that you like PC-style WRPGs. The battle system is great... why do so many reviews complain? Sure it's a little slow, and you should be able to set formations instead of just having your characters randomly dropped around the battlefield when you go into a fight, but other than that it's great. Being able to actually move makes a huge difference... and here it really does matter, with things like how attacking from the rear gives you bonuses. It's obviously a huge game too, with a big overworld and lots to do and many places to explore both on and off of the main quest path. The script is decently written too... not exactly original, so far, but decently written. The characters are done well and the reason for the hero going on his quest is at least slightly different from usual -- to cure a poisoning instead of the usual "your village was attacked".
It does seem to have a few simplified elements, such as one combined inventory for your party (and no limit on how much you can carry?), and with the permadeath and crashes you MUST save often (but they make up for it by having save anywhere... it does require a controller pak, and 28 blocks per save (and of course it only supports card one, like way too many games on the system :(), but having several save files is essential), but those things don't hurt too much. Characters are reasonably customizable too, with a reasonably complex skill and magic system where which skills you choose to upgrade (or use) will affect character development.
Oh, the magic system is interesting too, requiring spell components you must buy or find that are consumed when you cast spells... casting spells drains some stamina too. Of course the game doesn't tell you your remaining stamina or amount of spell components onscreen all the time; you have to look it up on the pause menu. The pause menu is quite well-designed and comprehensive, though, with a very useful map, journal, inventory screen, and help/saving menus...
Really, the main problem with the game is that its target audience, PC RPG fans, for the most part wasn't on the N64. Maybe on Xbox or X360 it would have done much better... though virtually all Xbox/X360 Western RPGs are released on both the console and PC; this one is console-exclusive, making part of an extremely small subcategory of Western RPGs... and also, on PC they could potentially have patched it to fix all those bugs. Oh well... while it was possibly too ambitious for the system it was running on, it does show design choices that would have been very hard to do on any other console -- the large overworld would have been impossible to do without load times on any other system, for instance. Same goes for the castle... the game as it is has a huge world with absolutely zero loading (well, going through doors or into a battle takes a second. Other than that nothing.), which definitely is showing the advantage of cartridge memory.
Anyway, several hours in, while I can certainly understand why so many people dislike the game, I don't. It's good so far and I'd imagine that if PC RPG fans would actually play it they'd like it, provided that they can deal with the flaws.