Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage

If you like the idea of turn-based combat, Orcs, dragons and giant vermin, then pay attention! Most people who play 'real-life' RPGs are a bit on the odd side, aren't they? Why the hell would you want to get thoroughly lost in a rain-drenched wood in Wiltshire carrying a five foot plastic broadsword, shouting things like 'Knight attacks Orc with Embarrassing Flatulence Spell! Lose 18 health points!' unless you were slightly mad? It seems a bit of a mystery to us — although if you remember, Ray had a fine old time during our 'Real Life RPG' feature a few issues back, which proves that you can dress in a polyester cloak and call yourself Vogan Dwarfslayer at weekends, and still lead a reasonably sane life. Thankfully for those of us who like to keep our monster-battering and potion-collecting distinctly virtual, Aidyn Chronicles should be landing on a shop shelf near you soon!

As with practically all RPGs ever invented, Aidyn uses the time-honoured RPG 'trudge about looking for trouble' gameplay style, but this time there's an unexpected twist: it's actually quite good fun. Even though the code we received from those jolly funsters at THQ was apparently not the finished article, it still looked pretty decent to us! Despite the fact that this game's had more delays that the 18:55 stopping service to Waterloo (hello SouthWest Trains) it looks like it might just be worth the wait.

The main feature that we like about this game is the fact that, despite the onus being on wandering through a nicely-rendered landscape, you're besieged at practically every turn by wild animals, ambushing Orcs or other mythical geezers intent on your imminent and painful death. This means that there are no twenty-minute gaps between fights as you trudge from one corner of the map to another, and it keeps the gamer interested, which is what a decent game should do, isn't it?

You play the part of the adopted orphan Alaron (it's alright, you can change his name if you want), a teenage knight of the realm who instead of being preoccupied with guzzling illicit cider in the park with his mates, and pestering the kingdom's womenfolk like any normal 17-year-old, has decided to take himself off on a bit of a quest. He'd also like to get to the bottom of these weird dreams, headaches and visions he's been having recently (there must be a shortage of Zantac 75 at his castle or something). Before you know it, our fresh-faced hero is ambushed, drugged and left for dead by a no-good bunch of Orcs, and the missing friend he set out to rescue winds up dead as well. Bummer!

When Alaron awakes, it soon dawns on him that he's been asleep for days, having been rescued by a mysterious 'healer' who nursed him back to health. Returning briefly to his family's castle, Alaron decides to set out on a quest to discover what happened to him, and harness his new-found magical powers. He comes into contact with the Miridori, an ancient and powerful race of mages, whose homeland is being taken over by marauding bands of Orcs. Alaron sees that his only chance of discovering the truth about himself is to help the Miridori stave off the Orc threat, and it's here that the action begins in earnest!

Alaron must therefore find the Orc Queen and dispose of her before her dastardly minions wipe out the only race that can help our hero.

Wait Your Turn, Young Man!

Ordinarily, RPGs have a combat system which seems, at least on the surface, to be specifically designed to irritate the gamer. Most of the time, the combat system even in such a long-running series as, for example, Final Fantasy or Ultima, is rigid, turn-based and actually pretty dull. Things in Aidyn Chronicles are a bit different though. Instead of aiming a crosshair, or simply deciding whether to 'Attack' or 'Flee', you have a set amount of time to get your shot, club-swing or sword-swipe in. Also, your opponent can still move (albeit within a restricted space), so you have to aim your attack properly. The 'rounds' of combat are really quick, so you soon forget the fact that Aidyn's combat system is turn-based at all. Overall, this seems to make the game more action-packed than some of its rivals, and makes a pleasant change from the old pedestrian system!

But enough wibbling on about the plot — what you readers want to know is "Should I start saving my pennies for this game, or what?" The conclusive answer to that question would be a definite 'Maybe', because being the seasoned Nintendo-watchers we are, we have a sneaking suspicion that this game could be worthy of further investigation. Aidyn Chronicles certainly is a brave release at this point during the N64's lifespan, as it has got to take on some the best games ever released for the system, like Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, but there's something about it which makes it strangely addictive.

For a kick-off, the graphics, while dated in places (some characters are constructed entirely from Dairylea-sized triangles) are pretty atmospheric. Also, the environments don't appear to suffer from the kind of fogging and update problems that often plague this type of game. The castle scenes in particular are impressive, with lighting effects changing with the time of day. Also, the programmers have given a great deal of thought to how Alaron interacts with his environment, so if it's late in the day, he's tired, and thus moves slower than he does first thing in the morning. Other effects, such as the near-constant rain, slow down your progress, but not to an annoying degree. While we're on the subject, it seems to rain pretty much at random in Aidyn Chronicles, and the first time we played it, the heavens opened so frequently the game was more like a Welsh hiking holiday than a mystical RPG!

This looks like it could shape up to be something a bit special, but you'll have to wait for next month's review to find out if the final version of Aidyn Chronicles is the genuine article or not.

Prepare to battle all manner of goblins and mages and knacker your sturdy walking shoes in this latest 64-bit trudge-fest! RPGs are not, at first glance, all that thrilling. Picture if you will the average Games Workshop fanatic, or, if you like, a Dungeons & Dragons devotee. What do you see? Hmm... not a pretty sight is it? Role-playing games have, since well before the dawn of time, lacked a certain basic level of cool. Perhaps it's the amount of time you have to spend on them before you get anywhere meaningful, or the fact that every character has to have a plainly ridiculous name. Whatever it is, there's just something that's not quite right about a person who enjoys spending half their life worrying about HP, spell levels, and the turn-based antics of someone called, for example, Tharg Deathdealer. That's not to say that RPGs can't be great fun – they can – but not the kind of quick-fix adrenaline rush that the games console was designed for all those moons ago. RPGs have traditionally been the preserve of serious PC types called Colin – until now, that is. Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage is here to try and prove, once and for all, that playing an RPG on a games console is, in fact, cooler than a penguin's cold bits.

After You, I Insist...

The first step Aidyn Chronicles takes towards combining the depth and atmosphere of a top-hole RPG with the hack 'n' slash action of an arcade game is in its basic design. You control Alaron, a young orphan knight who's been knobbled by some particularly nasty goblin poison, and who must reach a reclusive race of mages on the other side of the kingdom so they can cure him before he croaks. Predictably, our hero is accompanied on his quest by a bunch of 'RPG-by-numbers' companions: the rock-hard, short-tempered soldier, the elfin thief, and the girlie one who would be all-but-useless if she wasn't a bit of a whiz with the old magical abilities – you get the idea.

As your posse hoofs it towards their final destination, they are attacked by all sorts of monsters, wild animals, and, oddly, giant vermin. It's in these situations that Aidyn Chronicles scores its first success. Instead of all the usual "Orc attacks Goat with Big Stick, Goat avoids attack"-type cobblers that normally reduces even the most exciting of fights to simple one-button tap-o-ramas, you can actually aim your sword slash, club swing or magic spell cast. This, coupled with the fact that all the characters and enemies can still move during combat (albeit within a restricted area), makes the combat sections a slight improvement on the norm. Also, the enemies are no pushover, and the game's AI soon takes care of gung-ho adventurers, who, for example, set off on their quest at night. The first time we played the game, we thought nothing of setting out on the quest at midnight, only to be set upon by five hungry wolves and brutally slaughtered about five yards from the castle! Whoops!

Wincy Willis Would Be So Proud

Another great feature of Aidyn Chronicles is the role played (pardon the pun) by the landscape and the weather. We've already mentioned that it gets a lot harder to travel through the dense forests of Iden during the night, because wild animals roam the highways and byways without a care in the world, and are more than willing to separate any foolhardy adventurers from their limbs if you stumble across them. However, if your party travels the same road during daylight hours, the animals are frightened off by the number of villagers and knights around, and thus won't bother you too much.

This impressive AI is complimented by wildly varying (and convincing) weather conditions – which have a serious effect on your party's stamina and speed of travel. Another factor that builds on the atmosphere and realism of the game is the inclusion of a level of fatigue for each of your team members. By this we mean that if they've been trudging through a downpour that would put the Brazilian rainforest to shame for a whole day, then your comrades will be rather tired and thus if they get ambushed during the night, will hard pushed to defend themselves from attack. This means you have to rest the group tactically – recharging their HP by letting them have a sleep at night in as safe an area as you can find. As the adventure progresses however, finding that elusive safe haven becomes increasingly difficult, and if your team does not contain someone with decent Ranger (lookout) skills, then you'll be in more danger than a slow-witted turkey taking a free tour of the Bernard Matthews factory!

Mage Rage

Unfortunately, Aidyn Chronicles isn't without its faults – and we're not talking minor teething problems here. These are the kind of errors in design that would have Anne Robinson and the rest of the Watchdog team on the case right away. For a start, the graphics are a little, well... old. Despite boasting an Expansion Pak-assisted graphical treat on the box, Aidyn Chronicles is graphically of a similar standard to Quest 64, or any of the more middle-aged RPG games previously released on the N64.

The majority of the characters and enemies are fairly well drawn, but their animation leaves quite a lot to be desired. The environments themselves, while detailed and massive, suffer from the kind of pop-up not usually seen outside the books section of an Early Learning Centre. The sound is also fairly unremarkable: the music is atmospheric and almost constant, but the spot effects are more than a little lame – a giant rat making a noise like a chicken when it dies doesn't help on the realism front!

Another major issue we had with this game was its control system. During the fights, you can't aim your attacks very precisely because of a combination of the constantly shifting camera angles and the slow response of the controls. This leads to all manner of problems – ranging from being unable to manhandle the camera round quickly enough to see where you're going, to being unnecessarily killed by really weak enemies, because you can't aim your shots properly.

Wherever I Kill My Rat, That's My Home

All of these problems aren't particularly the fault of the programmers though – Aidyn Chronicles is, just like that other monument to averageness, Mega Man 64 – dated because it was started absolutely donkey's years ago, and we've been awaiting the release for what seems like several Ice Ages.

Overall, Aidyn Chronicles is still well worth your time and money if you are a confirmed fan of the genre. Despite its flaws, the game is still very playable and enjoyable, but it will definitely test the patience of anyone who likes more instantly playable games. It's a shame, because underneath it all, there is a decent little game in there... somewhere.

It's no secret the N64 has been lacking in the RPG department. Up until The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came along, the only RPG N64 owners were able to experience was Quest 64--and we all know what that game was like. Now THQ and H2O Entertainment are bringing us this hybrid 3D RPG adventure, the design of which is being lead by Dragon Quest veteran Chris Klug. You control Alaron (the main guy who's trying to become the greatest mage ever known) and three other adventure-seekers (you pick three from a cast of 10) through a variety of locales, using the stuff RPGs are best known for (weapons, magic, healing herbs, etc.). In addition, Aidyn features different types of weather and daytime/nighttime cycles very similar to Zelda. However, Aidyn is unlike most RPGs in that it features several non-linear aspects--although the degree of non-linearity is not yet known. The game also uses the 4MB Expansion Pak for enhanced visuals. Look for the game sometime in July.