A large RPG, a genre the N64 didn’t have much of. The world and story of Aidyn is definitely a curious one, but I really couldn’t stand playing much of this. Aidyn demonstrates the importance that sound can have to a game, as the deathly silence of Aidyn Chronicles immensely disturbed not just me, but my fiancée as well. So I’m going to recount the very start of the game, which was far longer than it had any right to be.

The game starts off with an in-engine cutscene. There are subtitles, but no audio, which is a really annoying way to watch a cutscene. The more standard RPG method of letting the player choose to progress text is thankfully used elsewhere. One other thing I noticed is that the music was just really bland background music, it doesn’t change to portray the emotion of the scene, which is really noticeable with how the cutscenes are presented in a cinematic manner.

When you do take control of Alaron, you wander around a wood until you get attacked by goblins, a fight you have to lose. The battle system is lifted from Quest 64, but I’ll go into it later on. After another oddly quiet cutscene, you have to make it through a forest to find your way home. There’s no music, and almost no sound effects. The lack of sound is immensely depressing, which isn’t the tone of the game. It’s very easy to miss one of the waymarkers, and the map is horrible.

I eventually made it home to the castle, where I had to meet the king. The camera while inside is horrible, using badly placed fixed cameras that miss important areas. I managed to walk right through the throne room, as the camera didn’t bother to reveal the side of the room with the throne, it just looked like a corridor. I spent ages wandering around until I found the king. The goblins had poisoned you, and you need to travel to another city to get cured.

You then have to pick your squad, which is another nightmare of trying to navigate the castle. The map contains no room names and doesn’t show your location, so it isn’t much help. One of the characters mentioned that Alaron childhood friend/rival – the prince – was waiting in the training room, but the room marked “training room” was their armoury, and I never found his location. From the dialogue and mismatched names, I thought it was a bad translation, but the game was developed in English. I eventually picked my three squadmates, and set up on my epic journey.

Just outside the main gates, I encounter the first proper battle: a pack of wolves. The battle system is likely Quest 64’s, where you can move within a circle during each character’s turn, and choose which attack or action to perform. Everyone is very, very good at dodging, so the battle took forever. The wolves were slightly better at dodging, so they took out two of my squadmates. After the battle, I discovered that all deaths are permanent: half of my party was gone, just outside the main gates of the first village.

Due to the elongated and extremely difficult battles (it’s hard to come up with tactics when most attacks miss), as well as the depressing atmosphere from the lack of sounds, I ended up giving up on the game there. I’m sure there’s some fascinating story and characters here, but the whole game was grating on me.

Poor

In fact, we feel a little guilty knocking Aidyn, as it does try really hard. There is a big old world out there, and parts of it are pretty. But with a hero who runs like his legs are broken lolly sticks, outlandish combat, and no idea of where you’re going half the time, Aidyn Chronicles is a decidedly mixed bag. Most of us should steer well clear, but if you simply must have an RPG no matter what we say, you could do a lot worse.

Alan Maddrell, N64 Magazine #55. Review Score: 60%

Remake or remaster?

There’s some promise in the game, a remake (even keeping a simpler N64 style presentation) could fix a ton of issues, and make the game much nicer to play. There’s some interesting stuff in here. There are also some fan patches that change up a few things and add more features.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to play Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage