Please login to submit a screenshot

Great inspite of vast flaws"

If you have alot of patience, a severe case of enjoying delayed gratification, like RPG's that have wide open terrian (and by that I mean *nothing* in some areas) to explore, revel in cussing and smashing controllers over the most mundane aspects of game play, don't mind graphics that were 2 years behind the curve when a game comes out (03/2001), and if you find immense interest in games that are seriously flawed but addicting, then you might want to check out the Aidyn Chronicles on N64. Objectively, I should tell you this game isn't good by regular standards, but I like it alot. It has a unique battle system that I find alot of fun (after the first 6 hrs....by the time that you have built your characters some), and a great range of options on building your characters exactly as you wish, with many different strageties you can employ to play the game by. It is a older-style RPG, and doesn't has the ''random battle'' annoyance that many popular RPGs have (like the FF series).

Review:

Plot:

This is mundane for an RPG, but less kiddy (overall) than the later FF series, for instance. You are Alaron, an orphaned lad of 17 who must travel lands far and vast in an attempt to cure an ailment you believe you were given by a Goblin Poisoner. Not surprisingly, as you journey more and more is revealed about the true nature of what ails you, and you must continue to journey on to meet new tasks and assignments (of sorts). You fight hordes of enemies along the way, and meet many new characters to have join your party as time goes on. I won't spoil the game, but I will mention that the *good* part of this game is that you can ignore plot lines and story if you wish, though this can be occasionally dangerous if you miss an important piece of information (doesn't happen often).

Graphics:

Not good overall. Certain environments look nice though and there was a good job done at making the transition between night and day in the game.

Sound:

Surprisingly, these are even worse with an expansion pak. The sounds are few and fairly low-key throughout, though a few enemies (like Giant Rats) make incredibly annoying death cries. The expansion pak has many of the same sounds as the non-expansion pak play, except that there is different battle music and added background music in some towns (like Talewok) that isn't there without an expansion pak. This extra music is often lame, and too upbeat in context to the rest of the low-key, somewhat dark game. There is no general background music, which some hate. But I like this personally, as it allows you to pay attention to the sounds of your environment, such as approaching enemies.

Battle Mode:

I'm not going to try to describe this, except to say that it is a mix between turn based and action. It is turn based, but you are allowed to position characters and there is much more stragety here than in many turn-based RPGs. A little tedious for the first part of the game, as your characters aren't developed and you have to rely on your warrior characters more (Abrecan, Becan early on), but only gets better as you go on and develop your characters for a specific battle stragety.

Characters:

There are many different types of characters, all that start out with their own strengthns and weaknesses. You have four people in your party after you first get to Gwernia, and you are able to mix and match party members. You will be able to recruit new members as the game progresses, though you must keep Brenna (unless you kill her) forever and Rheda until after the Tower (unless you kill her, or you kill Neilson before the Tower). Characters at the later part of the game are stronger than your earlier characters, allowing you to mix them in nicely at the point you get to them in the game (i.e. you don't have to go fight for 5 hours just to build up a character). There are some characters which you can easily lose forever (Becan, once you get him you must keep him or, through a glitch, you never get him back) and some which are very easy to accidently never get at all (Sholeh, who will never join your party if you approach her with 4 people the first time you talk to her, and will leave forever if you ever make her go). Also, there is a way that you can, through a glitch, get the Jester after the Tower and play with him throughout the rest of the game. Some characters have some aspects which are unique to only then and Alaron (who can do or be anything). For instance, only Sholeh and Alaron can do star magic. The good thing is that, given proper experience building, the game can be relatively easy to beat with any number of different combinations of characters. Also, with so many different characters, you can play the game through a few times and have a completely different cast each time.

Character Development/Skills:

One really great feature of this game is that it allows you to ''spend'' your gained experience to build up your characters in almost anyway you wish. So if you want to build a cast of highly developed fighters, you can concentrate on focusing on fighting skills, even down to which specific type of weapon each character will you (hafted, sword, pole, etc). Or if you want a party of thrown/missile wizards that attack from far away and use alot of magic, you can do that too. There are even other skills that are not typical for games that can be ulitilized well if you so wish, such as troubador (sing in battle to help your party) and healer (heals party members) for battle and alchemist (makes potions for healing/killing), and mechanic (make armor and disarm traps) for out of battle. Many traits effect both out of battle and in-battle aspects of the game, such as thief, which allows you to pick locks on the out of battle scenes, and greatly increases the strength your rear attacks in-battle. Also you can be a wizard with a potentially great deal of spells at your disposal.

Weapons, Armor, Items:

Tons of them, with alot of great stuff, especially as the game progresses. The best part is that you are allowed to *keep everything* as the game progresses, instead of having limited storage space in games such as Diablo. The strongest (and therefore best) weapons are generally axes and swords. The game could have used a few more good pole, missile, and thrown weapons. Even if they would have made them weaker to keep it realistic, they could have at least made good magic weapons in these catagories. As it is, most of the good magic weapons (spellbreaker axe, Warfang, etc.) are still swords and axes, which is annoying if you want to play with missile/pole characters.

Shopping:

You can buy/sell items, train, and learn spells from merchants. It cost less experience to train and learn spells in shops, but it does cost some gold where training ''in the field'' doesn't. Most shops are open always, but some you can only access once (Becan, the Dryad Forest), and some only at night (later on in the game). Early in the game, you can access two great shops in the caves of Erromon, with two merchants that will sell you a good number of wands, armor and items that are extremely powerful for early in the game. You can level build in the mountains or, as I prefer, by camping in a few select spots outside of Erromon where you will be ambushed by gold giving bandits (I'll get to this if I ever make a stragety page).

Enemies:

There are tons of different types of enemies, many of which can be great fun to fight. My person favorites are Goblins and Bandits. The latter tend to give great amounts of stuff once you kill them, but you must be cautious as highest ranking Bandit Bosses can cast Wall of Bones from a distance, so if a few of them get on the screen, they can take out even a high ranking party on your part (you don't reach that latter until around/after Terminor, so if you are just starting out, don't worry about it). Some Chaos minions are rather powerful as well.

Glitches:

For whatever reason, the game seems to have many glitches. Some of these can be humorous, some can alter game play (the Jester, Mandrake ring, Sholeh glitches), and others can be as annoying as hell. The worst glitch is when the game literally crashes (and you thought that only happened on PC :P). This is usually caused by something you did (like take a strength potion to up your PS temporarily to equip a higher weapon without actually having that high of a permanent PS), though, it has happened to me at random as well (especially with the Jester and Sholeh). Crashing isn't a problem early in the game, but can be later, such as when my game crashed after a 20 minute bout with some high ranking Chaos minions right before finding the last 2 bosses at the end....so be careful and save often.

Problems:

Other than glitches this game has some problems. Some of the maps...especially cave maps, can be of little use. It can be easy to get lost on even the most mundane of things, especially the first time you play the game. Sometimes you can walk for long stretches (say 5-10 minutes) and encounter *nothing*, especially after you have killed certain enemies that don't regenerate. The game really needed some boots you could buy to make you walk twice as fast on the map. There are a ton of empty, pointless buildings, and the important buildings are generally not easy to identify in comparison to all the rest. A friend of mine says this is a really cool thing, but everyone else I know that has played it (oh wait, all 2 of us) hates that aspect. You can play the game for 50 hours, and miss something very important (a character, a special item) by not doing one very small thing at one very small time, and there is nothing in that warns you of how to properly do things (unless they are locked away somewhere in a book that you can only access with level 10 loremaster, but I doubt it...more likely glitch errors or randomness than design in some cases). For instance, as mentioned, you can lose Sholeh, one of the better characters, forever if you talk to her with 4 people in your party the first time. In order to get her you basically have to kill one of your own party members first (I suggest going back and getting someone you don't care about...perhaps Godric if you don't plan to use him and kill him instead of a good character you've built). Also, in the Dragon's lair area in the caves of Erromon (late in the game) there is a particular little mushroom looking thing that is planted right in the path you *must* walkthrough. While it doesn't block you off, with the shoddy controls it can literally take *a couple of minutes* the first time you get there to figure out how to walk past it, because if you try to go straightfoward, you will just run in place, being ''blocked''. I think this was just bad design, but...Christ people.

Overall, this game is great fun. I would recommend it to any RPG fan that has patience and can appreciate a low-key style of game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/12/03, Updated 01/12/03