I spent a two nights this week playing through the frequently maligned N64 RPG Quest 64, using my Polymega. I put around eleven hours into the experience, rolled credits, and came to think that…yeah, critics are right about this one.
There is a good game in Quest 64. The writing doesn’t help, delivering a basic “collect the treasures of the elements” plot. The idea of an island inspired by Ireland is pretty interesting, but the art direction doesn’t deliver on this promise. The visuals are the most Nintendo 64 visuals you could imagine: flat polygonal buildings and sectored off areas with massive skyboxes, pointy characters, checkerboard textures – you get the idea. The ideas behind the magic system are pretty interesting, though the frequency of combat and lack of meaningful exploration across the journey means that the experience wears out its welcome around the same time you unlock the magic barrier spell. Giving the player a cheap invincibility spell was a poor decision.
So, I played a bad game from almost thirty years ago. That’s nothing new. I frequently play old games, good and bad. We don’t talk about how many copies of Sewer Shark I’ve had in my possession over the years through the general course of buying Sega CD games, and my love for the Rebel Assault games should be considered a black mark against me as a critic.
As a collector and a player of games both new and old, I try to engage with everything I play from the view that a game can be good if I try to meet it where it is. I don’t want to believe that anyone sets out to make an explicitly bad game – that goes contrary to the believe that games are an artform. At some point, there had to have been a kernel of intent and interest that led to the creation of any art. Such is the case with Quest 64. It’s one of the two reasons why I played the game.
The other is that my best friend gave it to me and said I had to play it because it was in my collection. Cruel bastard.
But Quest 64 isn’t terrible. It’s just boring. It functions well enough, the camera doesn’t cause too much irritation – something to be proud of for an N64 game. I could consider many ways that it might have been an amazing game. I could learn something that I could put into a game of my own someday if I ever managed to learn how to do that.
You can take something from all art, good or ill. Countless artists who are more talented and prolific than myself teach that anyone who wants to create should engage with more than just the best of their medium of choice, outside of their medium of choice. A game like Arzette doesn’t happen as a result of only good games. It is inspired by two games that have been the punching bag of Zelda fans for decades.
So I played Quest 64 and tried to have a good time. I did for a while. And then I wanted it to end for the last two hours. And that’s okay.
I have a few hours in Forspoken. I would like to pick up Wanted: Dead. I want to play Racing Lagoon for PS1 now that there is an English translation. For anyone legitimately interested in this medium, its history, its future, it’s important to find the good in the bad. It’s important to play games that have awkward controls from the early days of 3D. It’s vital to the future of the medium to have an appreciation for the missteps as well as the masterpieces.
Go play a bad game, and have a great time doing it.
WordsThing 