why did the n64 not have any rpgs?

we all know the snes was up to its ass in great rpg's, but am i expected to believe that games like chrono trigger couldnt run on the n64. i get how a 20hour rpg with 3d graphics wouldnt fit in a n64 cart but a sprite based rpg could. 3d craze was in full swing i know, but not one rpg, not one! that i can think of at least (besides quest 64, which sucked. shoulda sticked to sprite centric rpgs) .

and now that i think of it, i cant recall a single n64 that wasnt 3d. was it mandatory for all n64 games to have 3d graphics?

I don't think so. The Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventures was 2D because of its connection with the Game Boy Advance. Playstation just lured a lot of developers away because of the CD format. Nintendo was being stubborn at the time. Heck, they still are. Nothing has really changed unfortunately, but I've come to the conclusion that Nintendo doesn't really need to change, because there really is room for all three consoles on the market. Nintendo systems have always made great second systems IMHO compared to owning both xbox and playstation. Nintendo systems tend not to have the same kind of games on them. So I think the console wars is just silly. If there really is a war, it's between consoles and PC, but that's a topic for system wars:)

Quest 64 did not suck and it was actually quite well made, I have no clue why you would think that however an opinion is indeed just that. That was the rpg I was coming in here to say but saw you mentioned it.

@i-rock-socks: Great RPGs and tons of fantastic Fighting games were missing. It was rough.

I remember buying Quest 64 for $60 and being FURIOUS how awful it was. Especially after playing Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy 2 and 3, ActRaiser 1/2, Legend of Mana (Secret of Mana), and many more wonderful RPG games on SNES just a few years prior.

53.79 Quest 64 = http://www.gamerankings.com/n64/198386-quest-64/index.html

I remember getting my EGM in the mail and and looking at the horribly low scores (3/10) of my new N64 Quest 64 game. There was NO street Fighter on N64, when the SNES had quite a few Street Fighters. It was a tough time for fans of Fighting games and amazing RPGs to be an N64 only gamer. Mortal Kombat Trilogy for instance they cut out frames of animation, only 30 characters included, instead of the 37, it was more expensive, and it was one of the worst ports of MKT. In Mortal Kombat Trilogy you paid more on N64, it released later on N64, and you got less content.

Castlevania started on NES (Castlevania 1 & 3 FTW!) and we got the amazing Super Castlevania on SNES. Along comes the 2D masterpiece Castlevania SOTN in 1997 for PS and what did N64 Castlevania fans get? An average clunky 3D Castlevania with Castlevania 64. It was okay...but certainly nowhere near as great as the first four Castlevania's on NES and SNES, and certainly no masterpiece that SOTN was. I remember this like yesterday and buying games on my N64...It was rough.

Megaman fans also same problems. The N64 didn't get Megaman X series or even Megaman proper. The best N64 got was a late port of Megaman Legends and the sequel Megaman Legends 2 wasnever was ported to N64! Neither was the Megaman Legends spinoff (Misadventures of Tron Bonne).

Unfortunately, the way the N64 machine was designed didn't really help 2D design or the new space needed that cartridge couldn't provide. Capcom's, Konami's, Square, Enix, Namco, and other pubs with 2D games that had a lot of animation and sprites, and from what I understand, the N64 couldn't do those kind of 2D games very well (Nintendo did try later in the gen to do some though like Paper Mario and Yoshi, but at that point it was too little, too late).

Dragon Warior (Quest in Japan) I bought on NES and here was the N64 with no Dragon Warrior game in sight. They existed and released though, just not on the N64.

The N64 was designed primarily to handle 3D games. The Saturn was designed to be the ultimate 2D machine while the Playstation was the perfect middle ground in a generation that proved to be the transition between mainly 2D sprite and 3D polygonal games.

Add to the fact Nintendo had charged a lot for carts in the SNES and N64 era and the limiting capacity of Cartridge vs. CD which took off (offering devs far more space for voice acting, cinemas, etc), and that left the N64 in a tough, tough bind. Hopefully this TINY response (I could write a novella on this era) gives you a bit of an insight to why there were not many quality RPGs on the N64. Those games existed and continued to release, but just not on the N64 platform. The N64 was Nintendo's third main console FOR ME and it was the machine that taught me Nintendo wasn't invincible and could even be short sighted. I learned to buy multiplats on machines other than Nintendo because often times I had no other choice, they were always more expensive on N64 when they did arrive late, or the multiplats were late ports from another machine and the other machine had more features, music, non-super compressed cinemas, full CGI, etc.

Something else to consider:

Publishing a game for the Playstation was about a dollar for the disk + packaging. Maybe a couple of bucks for PS and SEGA. If you search online, you can actually find some old contracts between Nintendo and third party developers for N64. According to this old contract between Nintendo and THQ, the third party fees charged to THQ were:

http://google.brand.edgar-online.com...rmtypeId%253d9

• N64 LICENSE GAME PAKS
• 32 Megabit: $24.00
• 32 Megabit + E(2) ROM: $26.00
• 64 Megabit: $30.00
• 64 Megabit + E(2) ROM: $32.00
• 96 Megabit: $36.00
• 96 Megabit + E(2) ROM: $38.00

Game Pak Box: $.20

• Instruction Manual (under 40 pages): $.35
• Instruction Manual (over 40 pages): $.75
• Game Pak Label: $.10
• Game Pak Poster: $.15
• Warranty Card: $.07

N64 licensing fees for third parties were over $24 per game. That's the biggest reason why third parties ditched N64 for PS. I also remember PS1 games were $40 at the time and late ports of PS games like Tony Hawk would release on N64 for $60...and it was A LATE PORT! This kind of thing really hurt the machine, but kids at the time wouldn't have noticed if they only had one machine or preferred simpler games.

@SolidTy: i almost didnt make it past you paying 560$ for quest 64, how is that possible :O

Typo. It was only $60, but $20 than the PS games at the time which $40.

shoulda figured lol.

yeah, lol.

The only ones I can remember are Quest 64, Ayden Chronicles and Paper Mario.

And the only fighting games I can remember are Mortal Kombat, Ready 2 Rumble, and a couple others. Mortal Kombat was really good if memory serves.

One of the best RPGs ever.

@Bigboi500:

i forgot all about paper mario

One word: CartridgesSuckBallzaks..

Why no RPGs? Cartridge space was a big factor. RPGs are super story-driven and CDs allowed for VO, video, pre-rendered environments, and possibly tons more sprite art.

@elheber: @Guy_Brohski:

snes used carts and it had more rpgs than i can count

Lazy developers! Is what I get out of this

GC hardly had any either and its got 4 gig. Disc I believe

@i-rock-socks: CDs weren't an alternative during the SNES era.

still doesnt mean it cant be done

By that logic, watches would still be as popular as they used to be despite smartphones in our pockets.

Ogre Battle 64 is still my favorite game of all time.

people werent clamoring for more archaic wrist watches. and by ur logic, no games would have been made for the n64 at all

thats right an opinion is just that. and my and most people that played its opinion is that quest 64 is a pile of shit. i have no idea why u would think otherwise however an opinion is just that.

I also concur on the Quest 64 crap. It was not an opinion it was just crap. I don't recall there being that many good 3D games during those days...enough yes but they lacked a lot of detail compared to the 2D counterparts and introduced hazy controls, bad camera angles, large spaces filled of emptiness as blurry textures filled the otherwise un-empty spaces. Most devs were in their 3D learning stages back then.

But no one was worried about trying to make every genre into 3D with poor camera angles back then either.

Not at all. The point I stated was that CDs made for better RPGs, not necessarily better games overall. Before CDs, developers had no choice but to fit their RPGs into about 6MB of space on SNES/Genesis cartridges. When it was finally N64 vs PSX, developers now had the chance to either go for 700MB CDs or up to 64MB cartridges (the more storage, the more expensive the cartridge).

CDs revolutionized JRPGs. They're what they are now thanks in large part to the extra storage space during that time. FMV, full voice acting, orchestrated music, 20-second summon spell video clips, cinematic styling, 80% cutscenes / 20% actual game, etc.

Developers couldn't do that on the N64 so few even tried. Other genres, like platformers or shooters benefited a lot from the jump to 3D so smart use of textures in 3D environments could stretch their storage space a long way. But RPGs by nature don't benefit that much from 3D environments, so it's mostly sprites, pixel art, and hand-drawn or pre-rendered backgrounds which are all more of a storage space hogs than vector graphics.

The point is, traditional RPGs were generally better with CDs, and the N64 didn't have CDs, hence less RPGs on the N64.

Ogre Battle 64 man. That was a good rpg.

@SolidTy covered it.

On Quest 64, I'm right there with ya. It was horrible, and to add insult to injury, the game required a memory card. A friggin' memory card for a cartridge game. The game by itself was expensive as all hell at the time and then there was the memory card on top of it.

It did for me. One of the few games I couldn't bring myself to finish.

Because the game was not a bad game. It was open world, lots of towns, exploration, the fighting engine was unique and worked well, a good level up system where you choose what element you wanted to level up and more. Honestly the only reason I can think that people would say it was a bad game is because it came out as competition against Zelda for which it really wasn't similar to outside of the open world and exploration. Quest 64 was a good take on the classic RPG formula.

glad someone enjoyed it i suppose

Thank you lol now could you explain why it was a bad game? I'm curious

everything you said, except put a more horrible spin on it. hated the leveling system, the graphics, the story, the combat, the combat rate. the magic system i disliked, although i believe it had potential.

Why does a horrible spin need to be put on it?

What was wrong with the leveling system? You fight and gain stats like any other traditional RPG and you gain a varying amount of points to use towards whichever element(s) you wanted.

The graphics? This wasn't an expansion pack game and it was on N64, what were you expecting it to look like? Honest question.

The story wasn't the best, I agree on that part.

The combat was good if you were a fan of turn based RPG's. It actually allowed for free movement while still retaining the classic RPG turn based engine. You could actually dodge an attack yourself instead of hoping that whatever the enemy threw at you missed.

The combat rate was annoying at times, especially when your health was low. It's like they threw a million fights at you trying to get you killed however they did have items to slow down and even stop the combat rate for temporary periods of time.

The magic system??? You mean the way you used magic on the game? If so, I really didn't find much wrong with it but I do think it could have been tweaked for instance if you used a wind element attack and mixed it with a earth attack, it should throw sharpened rocks at the opponent or throw a whirlwind of rocks at the opponent. I believe it did have that sharp rock attack (haven't played it in forever so kinda hard to remember all the attacks).

@nini200: look im dont wanna get into it with u, not about quest 64. i didnt feel the game was worth my time then. i surely dont feel its worth my time now, even if its just to shit on it. i dont hate the game enough to list all the things in detail that i hate about it, ask one of the many other people in this thread that said they hated it too. im sure one of em will feel passionately enough to inform u why they hate it. or this may help, i agree with it fully.

Can't believe how far this thread got before someone mentioned this game.

After FF7 came out, everyone decided that rpgs needed huge cutscenes interspersed throughout the game. elheber said it best, rpgs became 80% cutscene / 20% gameplay. FMV takes a lot of disc space.

Shame, shame.

@Bigboi500:

YESSSSSSS!!!!! Playing this now on my Wii. I downloaded it to my Wii for $10. You use the classic controller and can do all of the moves.

This is all you need to know, really. People DROOLED over Final Fantasy VII when it first came out. Nobody had seen anything so big and epic and pretty on a home console before. That kind of look in that scale of game was only possible on Playstation (and PC) at the time.

I'm sure RPG developers saw it as finally being able to realize their visions for their games, rather than having to fake so much of it like they had to in 2D. The added cutscenes in the PSX version of FFVI are evidence of that.

@SolidTy: Legend of Mana was on the PS1, not SNES. The one your thinking of is "Secret of Mana".

That's exactly right, thank you. :)

I would say the same reason the ps1 had all the RPGs.... Nintendo dissalllowed third party support

I wish that Square could have made a sprite based RPG like FF6 for the N64. I know people would have looked at it weird because of the 3D era, but I think Square could have done something incredible with 96 megs of space. Hell they did more with less later on with other systems.

thats what i was thinkin

I know this post is old but if you are looking for a good RPG game for the N64 console either be on the console or through an emulator, try playing Ogre Battle 64. I haven't really played it so I don't know how good or bad it is but I have played the PS1 version of Ogre Battle and it is a good game.

Since its been resurrected, I actually remember an RPG on the N64 that has not been mentioned in this thread.

Hybrid Heaven. Despite its flaws, it was actually quite unique, and fun. I played quite a bit of it myself.

Look it up.

You know what, thats a really good question. I dunno why they couldn't have put a 2D RPG on the system. Hmmm.......... guess everybody was crazy over 3D.

If you take a huge for it's day game like mario64, banjo kazooi, Zelda OoT or mask, or a bunch of others for N64 and change the combat to leveling up turn based fighting and toss in a money system that Zelda already had (it also had cutscenes) boom ya got a RPG. And on a system devoid of traditional RPG's almost entirely why wouldn't a 3rd (or 1st or 2d) party want to as it would sell just from huge demand and no supply?

I think it was the 2D -> 3D trend that was occurring that put developers at a loss. Things like Tactics Ogre 64 could make the transition sort of painlessly, but you wouldn't really call that game a 3D RPG anyway...

@reven: there is no need to bump a month old thread.

@Bigboi500: Paper Mario was lit.