RPG

Quest 64 (aka Holy Magic Century in PAL regions and Eltale Monsters in Japan) is an RPG developed by the Japanese company Imagineer. It was originally published in 1998, while the Japanese version was released in 1999 and features an extended ending cutscene.

Quest 64 was announced under the title “Crystal Stories” in June 1997. Screenshots of this early beta build feature a capeless, knight-like version of the final protagonist Brian. In August 1997, the game reached the second stage of development and was renamed “Holy Magic Century Eltale” (or simply “Eltale” in Japan). This version was meant to be released on a 96Mbit cartridge (the final game had 128Mbit of data) in December 1997.

The graphics of this second build resembled the released game, but its story was different: As in the final game, it revolved around Spirit Handlers, which are magicians with the ability to control the elements. Unlike Quest 64, however, there were five elements and not four. Half a century before the events of the game, there was an evil Spirits Handler named Larva. He was a priest who served the pope of the Highland, but his spirit-handling skills became too strong and he was excommunicated. Larva then traveled through the world as the Black Spirits Handler and found accounts of the Evils, three kinds of sinister powers which were accidentally created during the first spirit handling experiments. They fed off the Seven Deadly Sins committed by humans, made them do more evil deeds and could even create monsters. Larva eventually freed the Evils and a fierce war ensued. It lasted until the Zeek crystal appeared and equipped three heroes with holy swords, giving the forces of good a deciding advantage. Although peace was restored, Larva managed to escape.

The second build featured three playable protagonists, each with their individual strengths and weaknesses:

Magician (named by the player)
Description: A descendant of an ancient dynasty of sorcerers
Age: 12
Height: 1,50m
Weight: 42kg
Skills/weapons: Magic, staff

Nina
Description: A princess, also a descendant of the Spirit Handlers
Age: 13
Height: 1,55m
Weight: 38kg
Skills/weapons: Defensive and healing magic, bow and arrows

Cozi
Description: A strong and ruthless pirate
Age: 15
Height: 1,70m
Weight: 70kg
Skills/weapons: Fists, sword

The unnamed magician was a descendant of one of the heroes who originally fought against Larva. Together with Nina and Cozi, he was to search for the three holy swords and stop the reemergence of evil. The final build omits most of these plot points and the magician Brian is the only protagonist. Nina probably turned into Princess Flora of Dondoran and Cozi might have become the pirate Kiliac on the Isle of Skye.

As the screenshots show, the early builds had a traditional level-up system as seen in other RPGs. The menu screen had additional options for the cursor, spells, sound effects and a help option. None of the images from the early builds indicate the “elementals” collected, which is otherwise shown in the bottom left corner in the final version. In one of the screens in the gallery below we can even see a removed bubble attack: its graphics were used for King Beigis’ “Large Cutter” look-alike, though no official attack name is known.

This information was taken from previews found in english N64 Magazine (issue 4, 1997), german Nintendo Fun Vision (issue August/September 1997) and german N64 Magazin (issue September 1997). Thanks to Hydrozor and Mario for the contributions!

First beta  build:

Early second beta build:

Late second build:

Other images (first and second builds):