i bounced off landstalker when i tried it years ago but alundra is by some of the same people and it’s pretty good so far. the intro (to the game proper, not the incredible anime intro) has some eye-glazing jrpg prophecy nonsense but i was too busy looking at all the psx effects they were showing off to read most of it
everyone calls the protagonist The Releaser presumably because of what it looks like when you do the running in place animation in bed. you go into people’s dreams and use your sword to free their goo monsters and give them happy endings:
I played a fair chunk of it. Its pretty cool. Especially if you are looking for nice tweak on classic Zelda. Its got some pretty cool dungeons and puzzling. And it at times also feels like a SNES/PSone RPG, what with some of the story segments. It never really gets close to rivaling a good RPG. But it certainly holds its own in the dungeons.
With the fever over classic styled games nowadays, I think this would be a great series to revive. Keeping the old school graphical style albeit with a couple of modern refinements. Maybe like Octopath Traveller or something.
Yeah Alundra is pretty cool. I got about halfway before I just kind of stopped, probably should try to go back but I can’t remember where I was at so might be better to start over.
It kinda suffers from irritating trial and error puzzles similar to Landstalker. But I definitely wish that there were more zelda-likes in this vein, where they take the same basic top-down adventure hack-n-slash approach as Zelda, but put their own spin on the aesthetics and progression. Instead what we seem to get, at least from indies is a whole lot of ‘remember Zelda? From the SNES???’
my main memories of this game are being really interested in that big abandoned mansion just outside town, and it getting very very hard after a few hours
My dad went on a business trip to Japan once and I talked to him on the phone about buying my brothers and I a video game from Japan. I tried explaining to him how he should get Bust-a-Groove, but that in the US it was called Bust-A-Move and he shouldn’t confuse it for another game called Bust-A-Move which was called Bubble Bobble in Japan, in case he sees those there. He brought back Alundra. My Playstation couldn’t play it but it did have a nice textured map inside and it was neat seeing how the JP PSX boxes were a little different, more thin and rounder. This did put me on the path of eventually getting an Action Replay so I could finally play the JP disc.
I did play the English version of Alundra (and I feel like this was before he got us the JP version) and I remember really liking it and it having a great soundtrack. There was one song that had a part that always scared me, this one right here because of the scream, but I really liked the game’s entire atmosphere. There was some song from the game I got off WinMX that I remember listening to a lot which I can’t remember what it was now, but the US version made an English version of the games vocal Jpop credits theme, so look forward to that.
And then I used my Action Replay or Game Shark to get Moon Jump and jumped super high into some sort of fortress on the east side of the map that I wasn’t supposed to be able to get into yet, and when I returned to the village it was suddenly playing cutscenes in the middle of a plot featuring some new characters I had never seen before. I never legitimately got that far into the game but I’ve always wanted to go back in play it.
I never got around to playing it but I remember being pretty disappointed when Alundra 2 was announced and it looked the way it did but in hindsight it’s probably fine.
I stalled out in one of the harsher later-game dream dungeons but this is a really solid game with a lot of spooky character and fun exploration. Its one of those games that always has something new to show you. I think its meant to be played in 1-2 hour sessions. Its fairly linear but you can just kinda run of in a direction and find something. The challenge level is really nice. The puzzles are thoughtful. The animation and art really flow together to create a mood.
Protip though:Don’t be afraid to look up how to get the elevator in the mine working, its kinda bullshit.
Link to the Past is the quiet kid thats good at math and art and plays tennis. Easy to get along with, friendly, on the dean’s list.
Alundra is a slightly loud gothy kid with ADHD who hangs out behind the art building. Only wants to talk about the weirdest shit.
this game is psychically linked with demon’s crest as achingly last gasp wonderful audiovisual powerhouses that even feel decent-good to play moment to moment that just don’t quite congeal into the masterpieces they rightfully deserve to be or even sustain themselves but even so any body would be foolish not to play so evocative and so special
idk whether it’s the working designs influence or my garbage guttertrash brain inserting all the low-key innuendo into this charming and dreamy action adventure rpg
