The drought of RPG's on the N64 makes this game worth it to any enthusiast of the genre, but most will find it lethargic
Controlling Brian in the games environments is quite simple and there aren't many controls to memorize or combine, although you'll find navigating through most of the games areas to be incredibly frustrating. There are a lot of areas where everything looks the same, and the game forces you to branch off your path multiple times, getting you lost and heading in the wrong direction quite often. That and the games' semi frequent camera problems may just be enough for most people to put it down after a few hours... quite understandably. The entire game is free roam with the exception of battles. While inside the different towns spread throughout the game you'll be safe from monsters and free to roam the streets (if you could call them streets). The size and detail of each town and open area of the game is actually somewhat impressive for this early in the N64's lifespan. You can pretty much go into any building and talk to anyone which is always a good idea because people will give you items and hints about the game. Saving is as simple as entering a tavern and talking to the "bartender." The necessity of a controller pak to save isn't exactly attractive considering it's very seldom among N64 titles, but it doesn't take away from the game too much.
The battle system and interface of the games' menus are incredibly simple and straightforward. You have no limit as to how many items you can carry, and they come up in a left to right side menu highlighting the item you are going to choose. From there it's a matter of tapping the A button. Most players will find fighting monsters to be quite tiresome after a while due to the frequency of battles and the constrictive nature of the system. When a battle is initiated, a large polygonal ring will surround the character, limiting him to move only within the lines during his turn. Secondly every spell that you cast has to be "aimed" at the monster you're going for, not to mention they have to be in range. Not that it's a major complaint, but it does kind of dictact the pace of the game. Sometimes the turn frequency between Brian and any enemies is so fast it hurts your eyes, that's if you're up close using melee. Get up close to a monster and wait for the staff icon to appear over their head, and hit either the z or a button. I found myself constantly giving up my turn against my will because the icon would sometimes disappear in the act of attacking, a flaw that most certainly can't go unnoticed. Questionably, the only melee attack for your character is a straight diagonal swipe from his magic staff. There is a spell that ranges in different levels of power that increases the attack of the staff, but it doesn't exactly pamper the lack of diversity there.
The system for leveling up your character will leave you saying "well it makes sense... but could it get any duller?" Basically there are 4 categories for you to worry about. HP, MP, Defense, and Agility... yeah i know. Leveling each of these up is as simple as using them. Taking damage from monsters and giving damage with your staff gives you HP exp. Using magic attacks gives you MP exp. and defense and agility also come from simply taking damage. I have found myself literally letting a monster hit me until i was almost dead to get HP and DEF exp, killing it, and then healing with a spell to get mp exp. Seems ridiculous, but if you wanna level up a lot before you take on a boss or whatever, it works.
To make up for it's lack of diversity on most fronts, Imagineer loaded up the magic spells. It spans in four different categories that are designated to each of the four C buttons. A simple and easily accessible form of choosing your attack is something that i appreciated. Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth are the four base categories for each of the games dozens of spells. Like in most RPG's, each of the four has a strength and a weakness. Water beats fire, fire beats wind (doesn't make sense but ok), wind beats earth, and earth beats water. A simple and reused concept of a magic heirarchy. Leveling each category up is as simple as finding little rising bubbles hidden throughout the game called spirit gems. Finding them can sometimes be a pain, especially in daylight. I'm not sure if it was done intentionally for the sake of challenge, but if it was it worked. Often times after a battle you'll get a spirit gem from a monster, either that or some other type of item. When you find one all you have to do is press the corresponding C button to level up the type of magic that you want. Newer and more powerful spells await you once you have enough spirit gems into one of the categories i.e. when you get 7 into water, you get healing lvl 1. When you get 24 into earth, you are rewarded with the games most useful and fun to watch attack avalanche and so on and so forth.
One of the most common things I hear about this game is that it's good, but the fact that you only play as one character really takes away from the RPG experience. I would have to agree although it didn't personally bother me. Then again I first played this game when i was 12 years old and i'm an extremely nastolgic person. It had a huge impact on me probably because I was just getting into RPG's at the time.
All in all Quest 64 is an oversimplistic RPG that will entertain few, and dazzle even fewer. This is probably the best game in the world for someone to break themselves into the RPG genre, but other than that you probably won't talk about this game any more than you play it. However, if you can mentally get past the games' several technical and discretional issues, you're looking at an underachieved, and underappreciated classic.