Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage

"Argh! Get it away from me!"

I was very excited when I saw an available copy of this game at my nearby Blockbuster. You do not know how anxiously I had been waiting for it - a new RPG challenge just for me! I rented it, got home, and popped it into my N64. I was greeted by obnoxious drum banging and then a menu. I picked new game and I was catapulted straight into my adventure.

Crap. Pure crap. Wanna know why? Read on.

Graphics:

Yuck! These are awful! The characters show almost no signs of realism - they are way too polygonal, their facial expressions never change, and they move strangely during conversation. The settings, I suppose, are pretty good - but still not much. Battle is almost as bad. Your opponents are just as poorly animated, polygonal, and simple as you. The framerate is also agonizingly slow. The change of time does not affect the graphics in any way except for that the color of the sky changes. One thing I like is that items you give to your character actually show during battle. But overall, the graphics show a considerable lack of effort and polishing by THQ (yuck, no wonder it's so bad).

Graphics get a 2/10.

Sound:

Are you joking? Whoosh. Whoosh. Urgh. AUUUUGH! That's pretty much the sound effects during battle. If there is rain, then it sort of changes like this.

Psshhhhhh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Urgh. AUUUUGH! Psshhhhhh.

The music during battle, also, is no treat for the ears. It is screechy, incessant junk that tries to give off sort of a tribal impression. Out of battle, there is very little music. I have never heard any out-of-battle music except in Castle Gwernia. (Then again, I never got very far - see Game Design/Play.) I actually liked that track, but the rest was just unbearable.

Sound gets a 2/10.

Game Design/Play:

The game is just so poorly created that it sickens me. The play is extremely glitchy. For example, I was beginning to forgive the game for its obvious shortcomings. I make it all the way at the goblin camp. I'm home alone and I become hungry, so I save, turn off the game, and make a sandwich.
I return to the game and try to load my file. There is a weird flash, and a screen that says something about a weird error - a thread malfunctioning or something.

Needless to say, I am furious.

I try to load the damn thing over and over again, but it just displays the same weird message. It is my last day with the game, so when my parents get home we take it back to Blockbuster. I think ''My luck, I got a bad copy'' and check out a copy at Hollywood. Within 45 minutes, the game has crashed again.

Enough ranting about glitches. The characters are unbalanced and not designed well. Abrecan is the god of the party, and he is clearly much stronger than Becan. Keelin is a much better thief than Brenna, Rheda makes Godric worthless and Alaron is just plain useless. It also takes forever to accumulate any money unless you use one of the many loopholes created by the Alchemy skill. You can create a potion and sell it for far more money than it took to create it. This takes a lot of the challenge out. Also, your characters die too quickly and the enemies AND bosses are way too hard. You can't even revive people. Do you know how many times I've heard Brenna shriek at the top of her lungs and drop dead, therefore forcing me to reset it? Ha, ha, ha.

Overall, the game plays like a beta test version and the difficulty makes it no fun.

Game Design/Play gets a 2/10, like everything else in this awful game.

Replayability: Yeah, right. Those who can stagger through the first play will stay far away from the game or a second play.

Buy/Rent? Well, I can't imagine anyone deciding to go near the game after reading this review. You won't get much out of a rent and why would you want to buy it? Generally you should just leave it alone.

Overall: Poor, poor THQ. Unable to make a half decent game.
Keep trying, guys. Meanwhile, Aidyn Chronicles will be touted by me as one of the worst RPGs I have had the disgrace of playing. Goodnight, folks.

Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage gets a 3/10.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/01, Updated 02/09/03