7 Best N64 RPGs

Mega Man 64 is the N64 port of Mega Man Legends, the first game in the Legends sub-series. The PlayStation original came out in Japan in 1997, the N64 port followed in 2000, and it was renamed Mega Man 64 for the North American release in 2001. The world is built around Diggers, the people who explore old ruins in search of refractors, and Mega Man is one of them. Roll stays at base and crafts weapons from parts you find in dungeons or buy in shops.

Only one special weapon can be equipped at a time, and switching means going back to talk to Roll. Reviewers said the N64 port had no improvements over the PlayStation version and that its graphics were outdated by the time it came out. The move from 2D to 3D still won the game real praise.

Aidyn Chronicles came out in North America on March 20, 2001, late in the N64's life. It was made by H2O Entertainment, a Canadian company. You play Alaron, a young squire who finds out he was adopted and sets out to track down his own heritage. Early on he is poisoned by goblins while looking for a missing farmer. Later a storm wrecks his ship and leaves him stranded on Chaos Isle.

All of the battles are turn-based, and the whole world is in 3D. You can choose to play as any of 13 characters. Reviews were cool on it, and GamePro scored it 3 out of 5 in most categories and 3.5 for graphics. It is rough around the edges. For a lot of N64 owners in 2001, it was one of very few RPGs on the shelf.

Custom Robo is the first game in the Custom Robo series, and on the N64 it stayed in Japan. The developer, Noise, said the idea came from the childhood fantasy of becoming your action figure and playing out the battles yourself. You play a young boy who has just built his first robot, Ray. In story mode you walk around town talking to people until someone wants a fight. Each battle opens with you aiming a cannon that fires your robot into the arena as a cube, and you have to press buttons fast to pop it open.

Winning pays out money and new parts, and the parts are the whole point. The robots were designed like real Japanese model kits, with interchangeable parts and bodies. The game came back on the Nintendo Classics service in Japan in July 2022.

Hybrid Heaven opens with a gunshot in the tunnels of the New York subway. A secret service agent is dying, and Diaz, gun in hand, runs into an underground world where genetically engineered hybrid clones plan to take over the people living above. The box sold it as an action RPG that mixes fighting with role playing, and that is a fair description of a very strange game.

Out of battle you move like an action hero: you can go in any direction, jump, crawl, climb and shoot. Fights are where the RPG part shows. The more you use an attack or a block, the better you get at it, with separate stats for each limb, the torso and the head. Your left arm can end up stronger than your right. That is either brilliant or deeply silly, and it is a bit of both.

Quest 64 was the first role-playing game released for the N64 in North America, put out by THQ in June 1998. You play Brian, a magician's apprentice, sent across Celtland to get back Eletale's Book, which holds the secrets of the Spirit Tamers. Brian does not level up in the usual way. As in Final Fantasy II, experience goes to specific stats based on how you do in battle.

The North American and PAL versions were seen as too short and easy, so Imagineer added new events when it brought the game to Japan in July 1999. Players are honest about it: they call it simple, and most would not go back to it. For plenty of N64 kids it was still the first RPG they owned. A sequel was considered and then cancelled.

Ogre Battle 64 is the third game in the series, after The March of the Black Queen and Tactics Ogre, and the first to use 3D graphics. After Tactics Ogre came out in 1995, series creator Yasumi Matsuno planned a third game that would balance the styles of the first two. He also wanted the studio, Quest, to make a more mainstream RPG. Nintendo published it in Japan, and Atlus brought it to North America. Europe never got it on the N64 and first saw it on the Wii Virtual Console in 2010.

You play Magnus Gallant, a young officer sent to the troubled south of his country, where a tyrannical ruling elite grinds down the lower classes. Magnus has to choose between his own noble origins and the people, and the story has multiple endings. Tactics fans still talk about its character class system. It is the deepest game on this list, so clear a weekend.

Paper Mario is the first game in the Paper Mario series, released in Japan in 2000 and internationally in 2001. Nintendo had planned to have Square make it, but Square was busy with Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation, so Intelligent Systems made it instead. The characters are flat paper cut-outs walking through 3D backgrounds. Mario goes after the Star Spirits to save Princess Peach from Bowser once again, and he recruits a group of companions along the way. Battles are turn-based, with some platforming between them.

Yuka Tsujiyoko wrote the music, with Koji Kondo's old Mario themes rearranged for it. GameSpot named it the best Nintendo 64 game of 2001. Ask players about RPGs on the N64 and they say the same thing: there were not many, and this is the one to play. Players recommend it more than all the other games on this list put together. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door followed on the GameCube in 2004.