11 - Adventures of Alundra; The [DE] (PlayStation)https://vgcollect.com/item/264378Hardware: PlayStation one
Play time: 37 hours
Finishing games out of my backlog/pile of shame is my main gaming goal this year. One of the titles I once dived into but got out of it due to shere frustration is
The Adventures of Alundra for Sony PlayStation. I started this game trying it all on my own, just to learn that such action-rpg's ain't my kind of games anymore. Maybe it's getting used to modern game mechanics but some of the puzzles in this game were simply too complicated and I was not resilient enough to bare them properly. For the now accomplished serious playthrough, I decided to rely on a well written and worked out walkthrough .. yea, shame on me - I focused on enjoying this game with it's visuals and dungeon-/map-designs.
That said, let's get into it:
The Adventures of Alundra is a very Zelda-like top-view action-rpg with emphasis on exploring, puzzles, fighting and even a bit platforming. The game was developed by Matrix Software (other works: Dragon Warrior- and Final Fantasy-portations, Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel, etc.) and published for PlayStation in europe by Psygnosis on June 5th 1998. At first glance it may look like a straight ripoff of the old Zelda-games, but after playing it I can say, that this game handles many aspects completely different than Zelda. All in all storyline and npc-interactions are way deeper and by time even depressing, so that the games atmosphere changes from the well-known happy gingle sunny fantasy rpg into a really dark and sad story quickly, touching issues such as faith, painful loss, alcoholism and even multiple personality disorder. The player takes control over Alundra, a descendant of people with the ability to enter into the dreams of others. He's plaqued by nightmares ordering him to travel to a remote village called Inoa to try to erradicate an evil threatening the whole land of Torla (I suggest this is what the game's world is called, I'm bad at remembering such names when the game doesn't mention it very often).
The game presents itself in a mostly 32bit-like top-view optic with pixeled sprites and square-/tile-based mapping. Different layers of height are used to further possibilites in puzzling and platforming. Gameplay mostly consists of interacting with the different inhabitants of Inoa and travelling a big wilderness around the village with many dungeons spread throughout the land. Alundra can wield up to 5 different weapon types with different abilities to either slice through enemies, smash rocks blocking the way or reach farther away targets. There aren't many different monsters though, but every enemy-type at least offers it's own pattern of movement and attacks, with some of them really being a pain in the behind. Dungeons there are many, and most of them include brain-frying puzzles, a lot of backtracking and trial/error, and - at least at some points - overly frustrating unforgiving platforming, which turned out to be the hardest parts of this game to me. In between all of this, there's a lot of exploring and looting going on. With every tool you aquire, new paths open for you, just as it should in a game like this. The dungeon- and puzzle-designs are well worked out and quite impressive. If Zelda OoT's Water Palace was your kind of dungeon,
The Adventures of Alundra might be worth a try. Beating bosses isn't a big deal here ... once you've learned their patterns and weaknesses. In total, this game offers quite the same elements every proper Zelda-game offers, with a little less puzzling and therefore more annoying platforming (and the way darker plot as mentioned before).
As the fan of oldschool (16/32bit) rpg's that I am, the game's visuals really appealed to me. Mapping is magnificent, visually as well as gameplay-wise. A lot of detail is put into water's effects or even birds flying around. Even though the basics of graphics are those in the like of SNES-games, the shere size of the world and dungeons is impressive due to the console's capabilities and animations/effects are very beautiful to watch I must say. It's clearly visible that this isn't a SNES-game though it doesn't feature the more sophisticated 3D-graphics of exteriors shown in titles like Grandia. Graphics simply work very well in giving this game a classic yet developed appeal.
The intro-video is an anime like piece of art within itself and made me wonder if there's an actual Alundra-Anime out there somewhere (let me know if ya'll guys know something about it). And without spoilering too much I can assure you that the player is rewarded with an even longer and more detailed anime-clip when beating the game.
Character designs are of really high qualitiy and compliment the scenes shown in the anime-sequences. All this give The Adventures of Alundra a very well worked out and high-quality appeal in total.
The game's musical score is credited to Kōhei Tanaka, who actually has a cameo in the game, where you can listen to the different pieces whilst progressing in the game. Tanaka shows responsible for the music of countless video-games and anime series with One Piece being one of the most popular. The game's music always seems to set the right mood for the situation or dungeon you're in, though I personally only found a few pieces memorable enough to post about them in this forum (Classic Video Games > The Best Retro Game Music).
I incidentally played this game using a walkthrough, but even with that some single parts of this game turned out to be frustratingly hard, especially platform sequences that required timing and high-end jumping simultaneosly. Though bueatiful to watch, the oldschool-appeal of rpg-maping in addition with multiple height layers but primitive shadow-programming is a major factor for this negative experience. Every other aspect of gameplay works just fine and looks great in it's own way. Though not my favourite, the soundtrack is still good. The dungeons and puzzles? Zelda-worthy. The story? Amazingly deep and unconventional, especially for games of this genre. Very dark as well, which I didn't expect starting this, but it caught me very quick and kept holding me up until the end. No spoilers intented.
So, if you enjoy playing (old) Zelda's, but would like to experience a darker plot,
The Adventures of Alundra should serve you well.
This is the 11th game I beat this year, being the the second one out of my pile of shame. Can't wait to get my hands on a copy of the 2nd. Alundra-Game!
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