The arcade classic 4-player romp comes to N64.

Original N64europe Review

Fun Factor 9.5/10: This is the first game in a long time, in which I actually stayed up all-night and through the morning playing. It’s insanely fun and totally addicting! The object of the game is to bring your character through dozens of levels, finding all the stones to complete the game. Sounds pretty basic, even a bit boring, but the gaming world has not seen a game of this caliber, for a long time. You battle your way through the levels, with the character of your choice. You can choose from Warrior, Wizard, Archer, and Valkyrie. Each character has his/her own unique attributes, that will help you complete your quest. As you continue through the levels, you will gain experience points and after you reach a certain number of points, your character will gain a level. Gaining a level increases your character’s attributes in the area of stregnth, armor, speed, and magic. Each of these attributes will prove vital to the success of your character. Building up your character’s skills, will prove to be just as much fun as trying to beat the game. Not only that, but you will able to increase your character’s skills by buying more at the shop. You earn your money by collecting spells and potions, which can then be sold at the store, or if you wish you can use the spells or potions yourslef. What you choose to spend your money on is up to you, but building up your skills is very important. However, there are even additional characters, that you can unlock along your quest by finding secret levels. You’ll first unlock the jackyl, then the minitour, the falconess, and finally the tigress. Each of these characters have enhanced skills, which will prove useful in battle. In additon to money, you will also find power-ups, as well as keys. The keys are used to unlock treasure chests, which contain gold, potions, spells, and even health. The keys will also be used to unlock doors along the way. You’’ll find oyu can’t put this game down, you’ll constantly be trying to increase your character’s skill level, all the while collecting stones to complete the game. The whole game is full of fast-paced action where you’ll encounter literally thousands of foes, most of which are extremely easy to beat, but they come in large masses which can be quite difficult to fend off. It always helps to have someone cover your back, or better yet have 3 other people cover your back. Obviously, multi-player is where this game really shines. It’s face paced and you can even play up to four play simultaneous action. This is the ultimate party game! Everyone get’s involved and unlike the old Mario games, you don’t have to wait for someone else to complete their turn. You’’ll all be battling it out together and even if someone has to leave for some reason, you can still continue with only three players. One word describes this game, incredible.

Visuals 8.5/10: The visuals, though no masterpiece, are certainly worthy of recognition. The levels were extremely impressive and the quality of the graphics didn’t falter at all throughout the game.

Controls 8/10: The controls on this game were great. The movements of the characters don’t suffer from choppy frame-rates and your character’s quickness only improves as you go on in the game. This is one of those games you can just pick up and play. You have to know a few basic buttons, but after that you can just let it rip.

Sound 5/10: There really is nothing wrong with the music or sound effects, but there also isn’t anything that makes the sounds worthy of praise.

Replay 9.5/10: The fact that you can have 4 player simultaneous play alone, makes this game tough to put down. The game is action packed and playing with a few friends enhances the experience. Even playing by myself, I found I couldn’t put the game down. This game seriously is addicting and I’ll tell you the reason why. With this game, you’ll constantly be trying to improve your character. It’s not like a normal game, where you go through all the levels and the character doesn’t change much, you’ll actually see improvements as the game progresses. This may be one of the few games, that are truely worth the $50 you’ll spend for it.

Overall 9/10: Good graphics, easy to pick up on, great game-play, this game is the complete package. Not many games are worth more then rental, this is a game that everyone has to add to their collection. I love everything about this game

- by unknown