There’s a proverb in my mother tongue. It goes like this- “Pashu chathu, morile puliyum poyi.” It translates to “to lose both the cow and the sourness of the buttermilk.” It is about being too late to act when both the original opportunity and its remaining benefit are already lost. What does this have to do with this review? Well, plenty. The seminal Nintendo 64 FPS GoldenEye 007 was a lot of different things to different groups of people. But if you ask me, it’s one of those “you just had to be there” kind of game. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still perfectly playable in 2026. But we’ve come so far in terms of FPS design philosophy and mechanics that GoldenEye loses most of its charm when removed from the limitations and vibe of the N64. Much like the original Halo, GolenEye thrives in its original ecosystem. There’s a reason why we do not see a lot of GoldenEye-inspired FPS games during the ongoing Boomer Shooter renaissance. Solo developer Replicant D6’s Agent 64: Spies Never Die seeks to be the outlier. Heavily inspired by both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, the spy thriller is a hilarious blast to the past, offering a full-fledged single-player campaign with splitscreen and online co-op as well as a PVP Deathmatchtch mode, among other things.
I was very skeptical going into Agent 64. The Malayalam proverb loomed heavy over its head. Agent 64 is not just inspired by the aforementioned classics but is more of a what-if scenario if these types of games were still being made. Aside from the obvious plot homages, Agent 64 looks and plays like a chunky N64 game. Player movement is heavy and is designed to be played with a controller in mind; auto aim is pretty strong, but there is no crosshair by default. In order to aim with a crosshair, you’d have to stay still and flail the hero’s arms around.
There are no mid-mission saves or checkpoints. You die, and the only way to move forward is with a restart. However, the levels are really short, and each of its 14 missions can be completed in 5-10 minutes. But instead of moving from one level to the next, you need to gain Cyphers to unlock more levels. You get one for finishing each level and on each difficulty. You are basically forced to replay levels on harder difficulties to progress the story and unlock more levels. Increasing the difficulty adds more secondary objectives for the player to accomplish, similar to the classic Thief games. Agent 64 throws all this archaic mechanics at the player, and thus, I had already made up my mind about the game proving the proverb wrong. Yet I was the one proven wrong. The cow may be dead and the buttermilk may have lost its sourness, but you can still have a nice meal with it.
Even as a man faithful to his Dooms and Dusk and Blood, I had a great time with Agent 64. A big part of why is thanks to the online co-op mode. Playing the game with someone from my similar age group and another younger Gen Z friend was really eye-opening. Hearing him analyze the nearly 30-year-old gameplay design, watching his twitchy shooter brain adapt to memorizing level layouts and enemy placements as we took on the highest difficulty, and getting friendly fire to the head while shit hits the fan was priceless. It really reminded me how old I’ve gotten and how far FPS gameplay has evolved. Thanks to the bite-sized nature of the levels, we could stop and pick up the game easily. However, it sucks that players cannot join a mission midway. They’ll have to wait in the lobby till the mission is finished. We’ve had a few disconnection issues in the co-op, and I’ve run into many crashes while playing PVP. The developer has assured that a patch is being cooked up. When the PVP works, it’s a barrel of fun. It’s extremely simple but highly satisfying and can even be creative in a sublime way.
As for the story itself, it’s nothing to write home about. There is no voice acting, and there are only a few cutscenes to let you know the gist of things. You play as the legendary spy John Walter, who is dragged back into the world of espionage. The narrative is purposefully kept minimal, and most missions work as self-contained scenarios as the story takes you to a variety of biomes and locations all over the globe. There’s a rudimentary stealth system present, and some missions even force you to be silent, but the game is at its best when it’s gunfight galore. The levels are designed with speedrunning in mind, and there is even the option to unlock modifiers to slap on them once you’re done with the campaign. You can even unlock a permanent crosshair.
As for the gunplay, it’s a very basic but fun loop with punchy weapons and aggressive enemies. I do wish there were more enemy animations, though. There’s a modest but fun arsenal of low-poly weapons, including a silenced pistol, a submachine gun, a shotgun, an assault rifle, a tommy gun, a revolver, a sniper, and even a rocket launcher. There are even remote and proximity mines to play around with. The latter two shine especially in PVP matches.
The big catch here is that you really have to be a fan of the era of games. Agent 64 is replicating to fall in love with it. The game feeds off of your nostalgia, and if you have none for late 90s shooters, then it’s really hard to recommend Agent 64. Moreover, the regional pricing of the game is pretty terrible in many third-world countries. Here, it costs twice as much as the average indie BoomShoot. Furthermore, not shipping with a level editor and workshop support also limits the longevity of the game. Judging by the current player count, PVP and online matchmaking alone won’t sustain the game’s life.
Real Talk
Agent 64: Spies Never Die is a faithful (a bit too much) homage to GoldenEye 007. It expects you to have nostalgic sentiments for that era as well as its sensibilities. Thus, it’s hard to recommend Agent 64 to just anyone. But if you were lucky enough to own a Nintendo 64 and blessed with GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, then you are Agent 64’s target audience.
FINAL SCORE: 77/100