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This hack doesn't entirely get away from the flaws of the vanilla gameplay, but it does offer several improvements. The new spells are cool to see and work well. Your stats go up faster and have higher caps, which is also neat and helps to improve the flow of the game. Items are also more powerful and plentiful, as you can get them from enemies even when you already have an item of the type they give. Brian runs faster, which is a great change that helps move things along. There's even more cool stuff besides this, and it's fun to discover what has been changed.

There are still some problems I have. The game caps your element levels, and increases the cap each time you obtain certain key items (the element gems from the bosses, and the Eletale book.) Cool idea, but I felt like the caps were too low most of the time. I ended up reaching the caps on the two elements I was building and then had to start putting levels in the others, which felt like wasting them. Either that, or skip past collecting them and come back later. The low caps shackle your offensive power; coupled with the increased stats on the bosses, it makes them take a long time to beat. At one point or another, you will likely have to grind for DEF and HP, which means standing around letting enemies beat you up while you heal... The stats go up faster but you need more of them, so it kinda cancels out. The new spells look very cool and are fun to use, but most of them are unavoidable in the hands of the enemy. Considering Brian's improved mobility, this feels like a bit of a lost opportunity to make skillful dodging more prevalent.

One boss was moved to a different place and made into an optional superboss. Again, cool idea, but his damage is so high that you'll need to grind for hours to have a chance of winning. Not really worth it.

Overall, I think this is an improvement over the vanilla game. It makes me hopeful that someday mods of this game could be even more expansive.

I liked the original on N64 already a lot for any reason, but many of the major downsides are fixed with this version! New spells are all very useful and cool looking with crisp sound effects. There are new secrets to find including an "extra" boss.

For me personally (I'm a grinding person) the game was hard enough till the end of the first forest. After that the game was medium difficult and in the end way too easy. In the end it was worth to grind for the "extra" boss, which was big fun to me.

Only thing I don't like are the invisible spirits in the first forest, that's just a time waster imo.

Others than that I am looking forward to future versions and I saw a new version just dropped, so I'm gonna use that on my next playthrough!

There's a lot of things that make this hack much bettert han the main game. You don't play a game like Quest 64 for the story because there isn't much of one; it still exists but this game just assumes you've already played this game before.

I like that there are new spells like Searing Flames, Bubble, the outright exclusion of some of the level 3 spells and their replacements being WAY better and being MP grind spams, which you'll need to do in order to win many fights if you're not just using Power Staff. Which you should use. Also being able to hold more than one of an item actually helps a lot.

I would like to find out if the 98-spirit level cap has been extended or not since spirit levels are capped at 99 instead of 50.

I HAVE SLAIN GUILTY ONCE AND FOR ALL HALLELUJAH! Now, what does his Philo(sopher)'s Stone do...

Now the things I don't like:

The stats I need to survive are WAY higher, and while I'm not against grinding and I will do it as much, or more than, necessary, having 750HP at the final boss seems a tad like overkill

Agility is basically useless

Searing Flames kills me. A lot. And made me grind up Defense a lot.

If you're going for an all-around build like I did(having 30s in every element when the cap is now 99) you'll be actually substantially weaker with spells compared to your enemies, even though your melee will actually be decent.

Mammon having 6,666 HP is actually a bit much.

At present I would still recommend the hack as it's quite the overhaul to the game's mechanics and a lot of the spells are worth finding, but they should be aware that this isn't called "Hard Mode" for nothing.

Score: 8.5/10

As an avid player of Quest64 in my younger years, long have I waited for someone to fix everything that was wrong with the original game and enhance it tremendously!

All of the spells have been modified so you don't have to force yourself to use the Earth/Water path to complete the game as most people probably would have done. The Magic Barrier spell has been removed so you will have to think of other ways to win battles (especially near end game when enemies become vastly superior than original). That alone makes this hack more challenging. A few of my new favorite spells were Tidal Wave, Searing Missile, Shadow Prison, and Overload. Overload was, in my opinion, the best new spell since it was such a high risk, high reward spell to use.

Despite the overall difficulty of this hack, it was such a great experience. Every elemental spirit was also relocated to different spots on the map, which caused for more exploration. Many of the elemental spirits are hidden in the least likely of all places. You'll have to explore every crevice of each town/dungeon if you intend on obtaining all the spirits.

The absolute core of this hack comes near end game. While every single enemy has been made tougher to defeat, you'll struggle more as you progress. Especially with the add-on of the new Guilty boss battle if you are able to find him. This battle alone defines the reason why this hack is called Hard Mode. You'll want to strategize on how you implement your spirits leading up to that fight, otherwise you will die very quickly.

I can't say enough good things about this hack. It's what the original Quest64 should have been. New spells, tougher enemies, it's like you're playing a completely different game!

Oh, and Brian runs hella faster :)

Brian runs faster! The new moves are worth seeing because they are more effective than in the original. Avalanche seems to target enemies instead of falling. The whirlpool move works well. Ultimate wind still sucks Razor wind is a better Wind Lv. 3

Mammon's world was updated and you can do some exploring!

It is harder because I have never lost this game against a boss. Zelse kicked my butt. I've tried to save on healing items and died... Enemies now drop items even if you already have one. The Kobolds of Dondoran forest are still lethal. Lions Mane in Fargo's cave are powerful. I got two spirits from winning two different fights. That's like getting two levels for one battle.

So... Play it and expect to have fun!

Towards the end I started using GameShark codes and they REALLY added some great replacement moves.