It happens all the time. In every console’s lifespan from the Atari 2600 on up, there is that one elusive game that is simply a “must-play” for any serious gamer, above and beyond any more mainstream hits available for that console. It doesn’t matter if it was critically acclaimed or not, or if it sold well; the game itself is good enough to make it a prized find, and its scarcity on the used market only adds to its growing legend.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the sheer size of its library, there is a whole host of games for the original PlayStation that fall into this category, from Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo to Suikoden II to Parasite Eve to Evil Zone to Valkyrie Profile. Another such game, and the one I’ll be discussing today, is Alundra, a relatively unheralded and underappreciated “action RPG” in the best tradition of The Legend of Zelda, brought to you by one of the best (if most controversial) translation groups in history, Working Designs.

There is no question where Alundra draws inspiration from, as far as its gameplay goes. Let’s see… silent protagonist, overhead perspective, real-time swordfights, dungeons teeming with floor-switch and block-pushing puzzles as well as enemies, searching out new items and accessories that open up areas of the world map you couldn’t previously reach… where have we seen this before? Heck, after a fashion Alundra himself even looks a little bit like an older Link!

But that’s where the similarity ends. Alundra may be the PSOne’s answer to A Link to the Past, but make no mistake about it – the difficulty factor has been ramped up considerably from the SNES classic. First and foremost on the list of differences is Alundra’s innate ability to jump, something Link has never had (except on the handheld Zeldas, and even then only with a special item, or of course in the side-scrolling Adventure of Link). You wouldn’t think so at first, but this simple addition allows for many new twists on typical Zelda puzzles; switches that you need to jump up to reach, for instance, or pits that must be navigated one leap at a time. Ultimately things reach a point where almost pixel-perfect precision is required to get through certain dungeon rooms, and a single mistake will either kill you or force you to start all over again from the beginning. Many of the puzzles, especially in the later levels, are especially fiendish in that they do not necessarily have intuitive solutions; only through trial-and-error can you really figure out what you’re supposed to do, and in what order. If you’re easily frustrated, Alundra may not be the game for you.

On a far more positive note, the plot is actually one of the most inventive of any Zelda clone. Eschewing, for the most part, the traditional “collect x-number of pieces of the Standard Magical Artifact to open the door to the Standard Final Boss and resuce the Standard Damsel in Distress” formula, Alundra’s storyline reads like a good fantasy novel. Alundra, it is learned about a half-hour into the game, is a so-called “Dreamwalker,” with the ability to enter people’s dreams as they sleep. This is fortuitous, as the people of the small island village of Iona have been assaulted by Melzas (Alundra’s answer to Ganon) on precisely this plane, their dreams haunted by monsters and demons of all varieties; worse, if they die in their dreams, they die in the real world as well. Thus, in addition to all the typical indignities heaped upon the shoulders of a Link-clone, Alundra must also periodically descend into the dreamscapes of various villagers and save them from a nocturnal assault by Melzas’s mentally-projected minions.

It is Iona and its residents that help elevate Alundra above the mundane, and keep it from becoming just another bland clone of another company’s successful franchise. As the game progresses, you’ll come to know the people of Iona, many of whom have fully-realized personalities: Jess, the lonely town blacksmith who found Alundra washed up on shore and takes him in as a surrogate son; Septimus, the town doctor with an inferiority complex who helps Alundra understand his dreamwalking ability; Sybill, a somewhat spooky little girl with the gift of clairvoyance; Meia, a female Dreamwalker who doesn’t always approve of Alundra’s methods (the classic “she’s compensating for her true feelings” bit); Ronan, the town priest, and his assistant Giles, both of whom feel Iona’s current troubles are related to the town not keeping the faith as they should; and so on. Not only that, but as the game progresses many of these same characters will be killed off, in the fashion of any good slasher flick. You even get to see how the survivors’ lives change as a result; some who had previously called Alundra “friend” will start to grow mistrustful of him, feeling he has brought a death curse upon their village, while others will have precisely the opposite shift of emotions for our hero. It all combines to give a sense of life and vibrancy to Iona that is too often missing from videogame towns. You almost feel like these are real people living inside your PlayStation, and are thus especially motivated to save them from Melzas before anyone else has to die. (Of course, if you’re of a less sensitive mindset, you might even consider taking odds on who gets snuffed next…)

Since this is a Working Designs translation, I can’t let this review go without at least some mention of the translation itself, and of the writing quality. No matter what your opinions are regarding Vic Ireland and his band of merry men (and women), you must give WD credit for helping to increase the overall level of literacy and readability in Japanese-to-English script translations. Rather than allowing characters to speak in “Engrish” and broken sentences (as a more literal translation might entail) or adding a dialectical speech pattern to attempt to disguise poorly-written text (cf. the NES Dragon Warrior games), WD was noted for writing scripts that allowed each character with a speaking role in the game, even random NPCs, to have his or her own unique “voice,” written in plain and proper English as if it were the game’s native tongue. Any instances of “cultural humor” in the Japanese script that didn’t necessarily translate well to English were replaced with a roughly equivalent joke that North Americans would get a chuckle at; this was probably the most controversial aspect of WD’s practices, as sometimes the adolescent humor and fourth-wall gags would be taken a bit too far (as was the case with LUNAR 2: Eternal Blue) and often came at the expense of maintaining integrity with the original script. Alundra features plenty of 1997 pop culture in its dialogue (including a character who speaks in a stereotyped California “beach bum” dialect to the point you can hear Michaelangelo’s voice – the turtle, that is, not the Old Master – in your head whenever he speaks), but compared to the excesses of the LUNAR games it’s decidedly restrained. Compared to other spotty RPG translations available on the PSOne at the time (the original Wild ARMs comes to mind), the quality of writing is top-notch, with virtually none of the awkward grammar that plagued even the contemporary (and far more high-profile) Final Fantasy games of the era. It’s not Shakespeare, but neither is it “fourth-grade book report,” and I could find no instances of the fourth wall being broken either.

Overall, Alundra is a fantastic game, well worth seeking out on eBay or a used game store near you that still deigns to feature a PSOne shelf (though at this point eBay would be a far safer bet). However, a fair warning for the less-adept gamers out there: This thing will beat you up, steal your lunch money, and give you an atomic wedgie, and you can expect many frustrating retries of timing puzzles and nasty jumps until you get it right. On the other hand, if you perservere you can earn the right to say you’ve beaten one of the hardest Zelda clones that’s ever graced American shores.

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1 Comment »

1. 
   fan#1
   July 5, 2008 at 8:43 pm

   I agree, this game is a pure masterpiece, after suikoden 2 and final fantasy vii & viii, Alundra is a classic game that you never forget, a game that affected you in so many ways.

   If I ever would make a re-make of a game it would definitely be Alundra.

   [Reply]

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