Alundra

(www.plasticpals.com) On the surface Alundra looks like a garden-variety Zelda clone, but at heart it shares more in common with Landstalker (SEGA Genesis), featuring challenging jumping puzzles not found in the Zelda franchise. That's no surprise as many of Alundra's development team came from Climax Entertainment, the company behind Landstalker and several other classic 16-bit RPGs. It's known for its above-average difficulty and its beautiful 2D graphics.

Story

Alundra, an adventurer with the ability to enter people's dreams, washes up on shore near a small town. It turns out the townspeople are afflicted with strange nightmares that can kill them, so Alundra enters their dreams to fend off a mysterious evil power. As an outsider the townspeople don't always trust him, but later he is joined by a fellow Dreamwalker named Meia who helps him fight off the demon.

While it may not have the most sophisticated characters or storyline, the narrative thread it weaves is commendable given typical genre fare. As usual the localization by Working Designs attempts to throw some humour in here and there, but thankfully doesn't go too far.

Game Play

Alundra is fairly typical of the genre: he can move in eight directions, and fights primarily with a sword (and several other weapons, items, and magic spells). Genre staples such as bombs and health upgrades are also present and accounted for, but bombs and arrows are unlimited and aren't terribly useful outside of a few specific situations. Instead the game play focuses primarily on tricky jumping and switch puzzles. While you'll explore several nightmares (which function like dungeons), the rest of the game takes place within the typical overworld / dungeon layout.

Standard enemies are a bit tougher than in most other games, often defending themselves using shells or shields and taking multiple hits to die. On the other hand the bosses tend to be fairly easy, usually relying on simple and repetitive patterns and large area-of-effect attacks, and can be killed with a few well-timed spells. Some of the bosses are even recycled multiple times, which feels a bit cheap, but at least they look fairly impressive for the most part. Presentation

This is probably one of the best looking 2D games of the 32-bit generation, with lots of gorgeous detail in the environments and characters. However, the game does fall a bit short in the animation department, especially when compared to the likes of The Legend of Oasis on the Sega Saturn. There isn't much in the way of 32-bit flair other than the animated videos which bookend the game, but what's here has aged gracefully over the last 17 years. The game's soundtrack is about average.

Challenge & Replay Value

Jumping is often the most challenging part of Alundra's puzzles, and the root cause of much frustration. Unlike Landstalker, which had an isometric perspective, Alundra has a more traditional top-down view that makes judging your footing a bit easier, but you still have to be extremely precise.

The game also gives you the feeling of being too strict with regards to its collision detection and timing, and it can feel outright unfair in some situations – such as puzzles that rely on random chance or that have ridiculously opaque solutions. There's a room in the game, for example, where you have to dislodge swinging wrecking balls from their supports to be used as platforms. Unfortunately for the player, this requires extremely precise timing and a lot of luck, as the wrecking balls roll in wildly different directions and cannot be pushed or moved after they have come loose.

In another room the game literally throws chance at the player to catch a barrel dropped randomly from one of four hatches, three of which are traps that will hurt you. You need to catch three barrels to complete the puzzle, but after a certain number of tries the trap stops dropping them (forcing you to leave the room to reset the puzzle). Since you'll be taking damage from failed attempts, it feels like a war of attrition.

In these situations the game simply isn't much fun to play, and the traps feel like a cheap way to force the player into using up their healing items. If this was limited to just one or two areas in the game it would be excusable, but this sadistic design sensibility rears its ugly head on a regular basis. Unfortunately many players won't have the patience to see the game through to the end, and it does little to entice a second play through. This is a shame, as there are some very cleverly designed areas and puzzles sprinkled here and there that help to balance out the experience, if you can suffer through it. Conclusion

If Alundra's difficulty and general design was a bit more fair and balanced, it would qualify as a genuine classic. Sadly, this is simply not the case: where it ought to be challenging and fun, it is borderline unfair and frustrating. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is a bad game, it just has its priorities mixed up. The fun part of solving a puzzle is figuring out what needs to be done, but Alundra's designers preferred making it as hard as possible to execute what are often immediately obvious solutions. You'll catch glimpses of brilliance here and there throughout its 30 hour quest, but doing so will require an awful lot of patience.

You may be surprised to learn I would still recommend it. For one thing, it'll give you an even better appreciation for just how incredibly balanced the Zelda games are, and it's a good back-up if you're running out of the better traditional 2D action RPGs.

It could have been an awesome metroidvania if not for those dreadful puzzles everywhere and unforgiving platforming. Jumping platforms is difficult, but not because you need to calculate precise timing or have lighting fast reflexes, but because camera angle makes it very hard to predict where you will land. Top down or isometric view platformers all suffer from this issue. There's no analog stick support, so good luck making precise moves diagonally with a D-pad and missing diagonal movement animation adds to this issue. So the best experience you can get from Alundra, is when level is built like a traditional side scroller. Too bad it rarely happens.

But if you have enough patience, you can have fun with this game. Pixel art is gorgeous, world if full of secrets and exploration, and you'll keep returning to visited areas to unlock previously closed paths all the time. Story itself is also quite interesting, weaved nicely into gameplay. Zelda-like music fits perfectly.

In the end, Alundra aged not too great, but I really would love to see it reimagined with better controls.

The most underated game Legend.

I remember when i was kid play this game its just make you more clever to fix a lots of puzzeles even that i was playing it in japanese version.

Thanks to the old days Rip my dear friend who tell me about this Legendary game

i hope that it will be remasters but i have heard that the studios is close down in 2005

i will never forget when i was stuck in cementary and take me along time to fix it i rememeber i got to go over 50 km to reach one of our friend can slove the problem

ohhh thats the good old days the golden days

Long live 90s the life was great and simple.

The game hooked me in at first with its simple but engaging story, great art style, pleasant music and somber atmosphere. The dialogue is also a bit punny that makes one think of fan translations or later dragon quest localizations but it's pretty well executed when it comes to story aspects.

After a simple introduction period, actually playing the game itself is frustrating and poorly structured. There's terrible platforming and precision jumps that aren't even up to NES Mario or Gameboy Zelda standards, obtuse puzzles that are either unfair, really hard to execute or poorly translated in some cases. The game gives a weak sense of direction and I on multiple occasions missed things or made my way to roadblocks for places I apparently wasn't ready or supposed to deal with yet, leaving one constantly confused as to whether you are just overlooking something in front of you or if you've forgotten something from a completely different area. I've gotten stuck in Zelda games and been frustrated time to time, but this game really takes the cake for dealing out that type of frustration almost the entire time you are playing, even when you are progressing.

There's no way I could ever recommend this without a guide, using save states, or generally just being a video game savant, which is unfortunate given the game's clear quality in many areas.