Alundra - Game Review

 Alundra came out in 1997, during the height of the golden era of gaming, where the Playstation was battling the still potent Sega Saturn. There were so many rail shooters like Panzer Dragoon, and RPG's like Final Fantasy and Star Ocean, and Shining Force 3 that were blessing the market for avid gamers of the time. Among those games was Alundra. It had some cinematic stuff to compete with, but like Golden Sun would do later on, it found a way to stand out.

  Alundra uses a very vivid and colorful, hand drawn style, that conveys an anime setting. The story starts with the hero washing up onto the shore of Inoa village. This village is a coastal town, where the residents have experienced much loss. The cry about having lost their ability to create, due to defying the gods. The characters have a very twisted and warped religious sense, that I had to roll my eyes to several times, but I got the gist of the story. The god that they were praying to, was really an evil villain who was trapped years ago by a former king. Their prayers were strengthening him all along. After a huge amount of calamity, the game climaxes with a final battle. The dialogue is at times deep, but overall, very comical and witty. Its humor holds up well over all these years. In fact, I was almost on the floor laughing during one of the last scenes in the village when the townsfolk realize what must be done and meet in the mayor's house. One of the village wino's, whose daughter you saved earlier, goes on some of the most classic and hilarious rants I've ever heard in gaming.

 The graphical style is very much like Golden Sun. It doesn't use cinematic scenes. It uses the lush, in game graphics, with a few pretty effects to convey the story to you. And it shines in this. You never feel robbed by the presentation. Other games in this era that amazed me were games like Star Ocean. That game had a beautiful cartoon style. Another game that was pretty was Albert Odyssey. However, Alundra actually rises above those games. It's simply gorgeous. The trees and different climates, such as snow and rainfall, as well as falling leaves in the mountains, are so lush and tangible. They have a lot of pop to them. The overall world map isn't huge by today's standards, but it's big enough. I remember another game from this era that didn't do the world design well. That game was Chrono Cross for the Playstation. Many list that game as their all time favorite. Personally, I liked the gameplay a lot, but the world was way too small and repetitive. Alundra does have a reused world map like Chrono Cross, but it isn't overly done. It's just right.

  The music in this game was composed by Kohei Tanaka. I had totally forgotten that he was the composer for Gundam, Dragonball, One Piece, and many other masterpieces. His work is simply marvelous and speaks for itself. The soundtrack for Alundra is perfect for the game. Every tune fits perfectly in place and does a great job conveying emotion. The catchy tune for the world-map and main village, are well done, and don't get annoying, even though you have to hear them constantly. This takes great composing. Then, in certain dungeons, the emotion and suspense will pick up, and have you on your toes. The music is right there to meet that emotion, down to the very last dungeon and boss. Even my wife leaned over during the game one time, and remarked about how emotional the music was. That's saying a lot, for someone who normally doesn't even notice video games. Games have to do a lot to bring those emotions out of such unsuspecting viewers, and Kohei gets it done.

   When it comes to the gameplay, that is where I find myself very confused in writing this review. The gameplay is what keeps me from being able to say whether I love or hate the game. I hear so many people talk about how much they love this game, and I just found myself scratching my head at times. There were several instances where I swore I'd never play this game again after beating it. In this game, you start with a simple dagger. You get boots and some simple armor shortly after. Later on, you acquire a simple magic spell, and later magic books, and a variety of weapons. However, make no mistake- this is not an open equipment game. You do not buy weapons at the store, and manage your arsenal. There is a set, and limited range of items in the game. You get a flail, for instance, to break certain obstacles in the game. Later on, as part of the story, it's upgraded, and automatically replaced the old one. All of the items are like that. They are for a purpose and replace each other as you move on. The only things that can affect your defensive stats with any kind of control, are 2 or 3 secret special items that you can get in the game, only if you know what you're doing. They come in handy. You gather little items that increase your health by one block at a time. It takes finding several of these to make any difference. You get stronger swords later on, but for the most part the majority of your equipment, is elementally and or task specific, not empowering.

   The difficulty of the enemies, who are adequately varied, was decent. The boss fights were insanely difficult. In fact they were so difficult at just a couple times, that part of me wanted to say that they were the problem. But it wasn't them. It's the depth perception and puzzles in this game, where the problem lies. The gameplay in Alundra is like Zelda, and focuses more on platforming and items than equipment and battling. The view is similar as well. It utilizes an angled overhead view. The problem with this game, is that the raised platforms and obstacles are not only misleading much of the time, but sometimes they are outright wrong. There are puzzles and parts of the plot in this game where it is almost impossible to know where to go, what to do, or who to talk to. I could go on for hours talking about that. The game requires you to platform in all of this chaos. Alundra is a big footed character, with the classic superdeformed head, and jerky movement. Many times, you are placed into a puzzle within a dangerous dungeon, where you have to figure out what to do with convoluted clues, or lack of any clues, surrounded by dangerous enemies who can kill with a few touches. You will have to perform complex jump sequences in some of the most crazy places. It felt like there were some puzzles  that you had to rely on a glitch to complete. There are pathways in the forests and dungeons that you will need to walk through, that you will never see without chance. This is due to the way the game displays depth, as well as the occasional design flaw of just blocking a pathway with a platform of some kind. That is a very big issue. I often felt like I was permanently stuck in the game. In the last dungeon, there were 2 rooms with raises switches that required you to nail the art of jumping perfectly with Alundra for 16-20 consecutive jumpes, while jumping diagonally, up and down. That task was even harder than it sounds. Alundra's jerky movement and big feet, make him stick on walls when trying to walk between objects, and fall off of platforms prematurely, or jumping way too early, due to appearing to be where you are not. Even the shadows of floating objects don't know where to fall, and will often bounce around as the object moves. It's ridiculous. Somehow this game was left with these glitches as if they aren't a problem.

  I beat this game with some tips on using spells on the last boss. It's a game that you can get permanently stuck in, if you are not careful. With that being said, I have to say I did love the game. The music, atmosphere, lush graphics, and challenge are all memorable. The ending was beautiful, and brought back memories of how far you came in the game. It was beautifully animated, and had wonderful music to close it out. The amazing thing is that I logged over 55 hours in this game. I wasn't loitering either. It 's a rare mark for a Zelda style game, to take Final Fantasy time to beat. That alone speaks of how much content is in this game. The game, unfortunately, didn't have that emotional pull on me that some of my favorite classics did, due -in part, to the wonky and ambiguous story behind it, that had you wondering what exactly, the characters thought evil and good were. But it was still a great game, and one that I'm glad I took Johnny Millenium's advice on, and played.

9/10