Of all remasters from Nightdive Studios, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion was the one I was looking forward to the most, even before its more-than-obvious reveal earlier this year. After knocking out of the park with their remasters of both Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, the two remasters that put Nightdive on the map in the first place, a remaster of the third title in the Nintendo 64 canonical trilogy (we’re not counting the multiplayer-exclusive Rage Wars) was imminent, and without a doubt, the most important one to be released.

You may be asking yourself why would a remaster of Turok 3 be more important than the actually famous predecessors? The reason is exactly that: it’s the one very few people ended up playing, due to it being released in a small run at the end of the Nintendo 64’s life cycle and relevance, a mere month before the launch of the PlayStation 2. That’s a shame, because Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion was possibly the most graphically advanced game to be released for the system, a game that punched above its weight in some regards. It wasn’t as good as Turok 1 or 2, but it was ahead of its time. Sadly, it was forgotten. This brand new remaster is the perfect opportunity to give players a chance to experience it, with Nightdive’s trademark degree of excellence.

The first thing you’ll notice upon starting a new game is the fact that Joshua Fireseed, the protagonist of Turok 2, dies a mere minutes after the game starts. The protagonists in Turok 3 are sibling duo Danielle and Joseph, each with a different campaign, stats, and sets of weapons to collect, ensuring that you’ll want to beat the game at least twice. The other thing you’ll notice is that Turok 3 is extremely story-heavy, complete with a lot of fully voiced cutscenes.

Those cutscenes feel dated for today’s standards, but try to look at them with the eyes and ears of a Nintendo 64 player in the year 2000. They all feature fully voiced performances, which aren’t particularly excellent, but aren’t completely terrible for 2000 standards. Sure, this ain’t Metal Gear Solid, but very few games featured voice acting as good as that game back in the day.

The other important aspect you need to take into account is the quality of the character models, and the fact they are all facially animated. When they talk, they open their mouths. When they’re sad, their facial expressions change. Those things were unheard of back in the day, with even a handful of early PS2 games, such as Max Payne, not featuring facial expressions. This is one of the first things that showcase how advanced Turok 3 was for the time.

This emphasis on storytelling also alters Turok 3‘s overall level structure. The first Turok game was almost like a proto-Metroidvania (no wonder its development team would eventually develop Metroid Prime), whilst Turok 2 was more objective-based within immense and labyrinthine levels. Turok 3‘s level design is nowhere near as branching or maze-like; it’s actually the opposite. The levels themselves are expansive in terms of size and scope (with the exception of the first level, which forces you to explore buildings and sewers in a very boring manner), but they are fairly linear. If you need to go out of your way to complete an objective, you won’t have an issue going back to the specific path you need to go next, for example.

These two elements (emphasis on storytelling and linearity) showcase an important aspect about Turok 3 and the game it’s trying to emulate: it was heavily inspired by Half-Life. This might be a bit disappointing if you were used to the sheer boomer-ness of the previous games, with levels featuring a reduced amount of enemies to kill, and more atmosphere, at least at first. Further levels are a lot more action-packed, just like its predecessors, with the player even revisiting the first level from the first Turok game, in a very neat throwback. In a way, this makes Turok 3 feel less dated than your average 90s shooter. It also helps that, as previously mentioned, Nightdive is the one behind its remastering, so the game just looks stunning, even for today’s standards.

You don’t even need to take the fact it’s actually a Nintendo 64 game into account when looking at Turok 3‘s remastered visuals. Just like with Nightdive’s previous Turok remasters, it looks astonishing. The fog effects have been removed, letting the game’s immense levels dominate the screen. Textures have been completely reworked, and post-processing effects have been added to make it stand out just a little bit more.

I also want to discuss the game’s shadow effects, which are both a blessing and a curse in this particular case. A blessing because, whenever there is a mixture between rays of light and objects obstructing said rays, Turok 3 features some stunning shadow effects, more akin to a modern shooter than a title from 2000. They are also a curse because this made the game a lot darker than how it looked back in 2000. There are times in which Turok 3 is really hard to look at if your screen’s brightness settings aren’t cranked to the maximum.

When it comes to the gameplay, well, we are talking about a first-person shooter being played with a mouse and keyboard, so you can already expect it being really good. There’s not a lot that needs to be said about the controls in Turok 3‘s remaster, with the exception of a handful of new weapon shortcuts via the numerical keys. The only issue I faced when playing the game came during Danielle’s campaign, where she is told to use a grappling hook every now and then. Sadly, there is no shortcut dedicated solely to the hook, with it being relegated to an additional slot in the weapon wheel, making this process occasionally confusing and annoying. Besides this, however, no complaints whatsoever.

Finally, a little nod to the sound design. As previously mentioned, there are some issues with the voice acting. It’s a bit amateurish, and sadly, extremely compressed, a consequence of Turok 3 having been originally released on the Nintendo 64. The same cannot be said about the soundtrack. Somehow, Nightdive was able to remaster it to a higher bitrate, letting some of its more impressive pieces, including some with traditional Native American chants, shine for the first time in more than two decades. It’s easily the best-sounding soundtrack in any of the Turok games, even if not particularly the most memorable.

There is a reason why Turok 3 isn’t as well-known as the first two games in the Nintendo 64 trilogy: gameplay-wise, it might be the weakest of the bunch. Still, it’s a shockingly revolutionary and monstrously underrated title that deserves a lot more love. It was way ahead of its time in terms of presentation, storytelling and level design. Too bad the N64 just couldn’t handle it properly. Nightdive, on the other hand, could. Thanks to them, Turok 3 can finally shine, with vastly improved visuals and gameplay. The excessive linearity and focus on storytelling might annoy fans of the previous Turok games, but it’s still a fantastic conversion of an underrated gem.

 

Graphics: 8.0 Nightdive’s unbelievable remastering efforts have bumped the game’s textural quality, post-processing effects, and shadows, but I need to say the overall character model quality and asset variety is really impressive on their own as well, especially when you take the original N64 game into account.	Gameplay: 9.0 I wish there was a dedicated button to the grappling hook, which is the sole issue I’ve had with what’s otherwise a flawless conversion from the Nintendo 64’s controller to a mouse and keyboard.
Sound: 7.5 The soundtrack is surprisingly crisp and epic, considering the limitations of the Nintendo 64. The voice acting isn’t very good, due to compression setbacks and amateurish deliveries, but this was the year 2000. Voice acting wasn’t as established in gaming as it is today.	Fun Factor: 7.5 The excessive linearity and focus on storytelling might annoy fans of the previous Turok games, but it’s still a fantastic conversion of an underrated gem.
Final Verdict: 8.0

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC, and Nintendo Switch in remastered form, as well as the original Nintendo 64 version.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion was provided by the publisher.