Imagine being a kid in the 1990's and being blown away by games like Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Terranigma, Secret of Mana and Secret of Evermore, Breath of Fire, and Lufia on the SNES, and believing there'd obviously be even bigger and better RPG epics on Nintendo's next console, oblivious to things like Square siding with the PlayStation and thinking Earthbound 64 and the N64DD would actually come out... then actually getting an N64 and ending up with this while your friends are playing games like Final Fantasy VII, Xenogears, Legend of Dragoon, Koudelka, Persona, Grandia, Suikoden, and Wild Arms on their PlayStations.
Quest 64 is the poster child for the N64's infamously weak RPG lineup, and this game did it no favors with its bland, simplistic story, repetitive and dull battle system, and lack of variety or depth. The visuals aren't the worst on N64 and it has some nice, cute lowpoly environments but unfortunately that's just about the only compliment I can give to this otherwise underwhelming exclusive that exposed one of the N64's biggest faults- it was not a very good platform for making RPG's, mainly due to the restrictive and expensive cartridge format. Even the GameBoy Color had better RPG's.
Outside of this, there was only a small handful of other N64 RPG's. There was Paper Mario which was fun despite being a bit of a downgrade from Super Mario RPG, then there was Aidyn Chronicles which was an improvement from Quest 64 but still paled in comparison to what was on the PlayStation, and depending on who you talked to Ogre Battle 64, Harvest Moon 64, and Zelda also count as RPG's. Personally I believe Zelda is more action-adventure than RPG, Harvest Moon is more of a light-simulation game than RPG, and tactical RPG's like Ogre Battle are a whole different animal from traditional turn-based RPG's, at-least in my opinion, but I'll admit they're great games in their own right that would appeal to RPG fans.
Quest 64 is the poster child for the N64's infamously weak RPG lineup, and this game did it no favors with its bland, simplistic story, repetitive and dull battle system, and lack of variety or depth. The visuals aren't the worst on N64 and it has some nice, cute lowpoly environments but unfortunately that's just about the only compliment I can give to this otherwise underwhelming exclusive that exposed one of the N64's biggest faults- it was not a very good platform for making RPG's, mainly due to the restrictive and expensive cartridge format. Even the GameBoy Color had better RPG's.
Outside of this, there was only a small handful of other N64 RPG's. There was Paper Mario which was fun despite being a bit of a downgrade from Super Mario RPG, then there was Aidyn Chronicles which was an improvement from Quest 64 but still paled in comparison to what was on the PlayStation, and depending on who you talked to Ogre Battle 64, Harvest Moon 64, and Zelda also count as RPG's. Personally I believe Zelda is more action-adventure than RPG, Harvest Moon is more of a light-simulation game than RPG, and tactical RPG's like Ogre Battle are a whole different animal from traditional turn-based RPG's, at-least in my opinion, but I'll admit they're great games in their own right that would appeal to RPG fans.