Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage

"If you like adventure role playing games this is it!"

It took me awhile to get accustomed to playing this game, but since it's release several years ago, it has not reached a level of popularity one might expect because it is very complicated and has several game flaws- but in spite of those misgivings, it is well worth playing if you are an avid role player! I would have to rate this game much higher than any Zelda I played through ( all of them). ( of course it depends on your taste in games too!)

First of all, remember the word ''patience!!!'' This is really important and if you don't have the time to play through the game don't bother starting it because it will be very boring and very slow paced at first. The key is building up your characters game strength and continuing on in each new game area, which has to almost be considered like a ''mini-game'' within the game itself! There are only 3 game codes for this game that don't give too much anyway... I never used them and finished with my characters at level 27 or so...

This game is also scarce to find because it was the last N64 game to be made... so if you see it grab it! I paid 25 for one and 30 for a second one- I thought that maybe the game was flawed but it's got something to do with the way the information is stored on the controller pack that makes this game crash- I even heard a rumor the the programmers put this in as a joke to frustrate the players out there... no proof of this however....

The graphics are excellent, and the game is designed to have many different characters and different '' side quests'',
as one might say. Depending on what you do during the game, it will either allow you to proceed with a side quest or not.

The part of this game that really shocked me was when I had been playing it for almost 90 real time hours, and it crashed during a save- I can tell you it almost went directly into my circular file- (ie. garbage can!) but I wanted to keep on playing it because it was really great up to that point; so I made a couple of phone calls to Nintendo, and they had no advice except just to start it over again- (DUH!) and I actually called the THQ people directly to get some answers and they told me that the guys who wrote this game were no longer in their employee!
Too bad! these guys were very smart!! In a game this complex it would be difficult to get out every bug... the guy from THQ that I talked to said that when the game saves it goes to specific coordinates and saves from there- if you are unfortunate enough to save at a ''bad'' spot you will be out of luck!!! Just start it over... sorry! I had to do it so don't feel too bad about if you do too! What I did was to save the game frequently, after every major battle, and to save it in slightly different spots using a back up controller pack so in case it doesn't boot properly from the one in your controller pack just put in the back up one and off you go! So make sure if you play this that you back up your game often! The story line is great, and if you build up you troubadour skills you get a lot of cut scenes with the different characters you can acquire during the game play- so be sure to build that one up if you play...

He also told me that the reason they stopped making N64 games was because they were very cost prohibitive in manufacturing due to the chip sets and 256 of stored information in them- Zelda and this game to name a few- when the newer technology of CD storage up to 1.2 gigabytes- surpassed the mem storage capability of N64 by far- but remember that N64 made about 640 different games during it's time- that's a lot of games! So before you put your N64 in the ''circular file'' consider these facts- you can by used N64 games for just a fraction of the cost now than when they came out new, and if you happen to stop at a local game store where they sell used N64 stuff, just ask them how many used N64 games were sold at Christmas time this year! I was amazed and I think that Nintendo dropped the ball here as they could have increased the mem capability of this unit quite easily but instead chose to move on to CD technology in Gamecube- Oh well.. the bottom line is always money isn't it?

As I played through I noticed that during battles you can speed up the defeat by clicking the Z button after you kill off the first 4 enemies you do battle with- it will speed up the game for you if you see a message like '' ------- flees'' just keep hitting the Z button until they have all fled from the battle scene. It keeps the game moving faster too!
To merge with the shadow you have to allow him to actually touch your character during the battle scene so just keep skipping your turn until he slowly gets near enough to you to do it-

Many thanks to glacial bear for his excellent walk through of this game- I downloaded 117 pages of information and would never have been able to play it at all if not for this great reference guide- or it would have taken me forever to play through it!!!

One last thing- if you save just before the final battle with the prince, and then leave the castle in Guernia, you can just play anywhere on the game map at your leisure- this was really amazing graphics and just to go back and play it for pure enjoyment of it's graphics and character options is also very much fun! I went back to my last save and just for fun picked up as many different characters as I could just to see what they could do with their different skills-

The last word here is if you like adventure role playing games, you should really consider this one!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/03, Updated 02/22/03