A look back at: Alundra 2

GREAT JOB GOOGLE YOU ROGUE COMPANY YOU RUINED THE ABILITY TO POST IMAGES ON BLOGSPOT NOW I AM USING A URL.

So I had of course planned to play Alundra 2, or should I say Flint, since that's the protagonist's name? Whatever, we can actually all tell that despite being a sequel, this game has literally nothing to do with the first Alundra, and many people hated it for that. I hated this game for something totally different.

The game, it's just honestly ugly. And I'm not talking about JUST the graphics. One of the things that I can't really get with certain action games is if the action gets to a point of tedium. And that's what actually can happen easily here. Alundra 2 thankfully allows the usage of combos, but you must unlock them with puzzle pieces as an optional sidequest. And then there's magic, which gives you both long-animated summons that do tons of damage and the simpler spells that are more on-the-spot. That's cool. The game is super awkward about its mercy invincibility after a successful hit, on either you or enemies. And the knockback, jeez, this is it, and even the first few enemies will do it, taking you like five seconds to get back up after just one blow. Not every enemy does this, thankfully, but it prevents the bum rush strategies that some other action RPGs or Zelda-like games seem to be okay with. Damage discrepancies are another thing I disliked, you seem to do very low damage, but this is fine since the enemies don't have a whole lot of health. But at the same time, it looks like you'll always be dealt tons of damage in return since you have so much more.

Not helping matters is that game cutscenes seem out of sync, or maybe that's just emulator settings, which I still don't know what the absolute best ones are for this game. And the bosses? Well, they are quite predictable after a while, some still annoying especially the ones where you have to wait until you FINALLY can charge in for an opening, and you can usually only hit them with one combo before the invisible mercy invincibility comes in and you have to wait again. Yeah, the bosses aren't really hard, they just take a while. The first Alundra also had this issue though. And of course, the puzzles take some getting used to to figure out, with the timed ones being the worst. Magic is, unfortunately, the game breaker here too, you will WANT to use it to defeat the most annoying enemy encounters in a single hit, and hey, notice those health and EP bars? Yeah, they're high enough that they go all the way to 999.

The plot is okay, nothing like the harrowing nature of the first Alundra, but still quite terrifying considering the main villain puts wind-up keys that turn things into homicidal creatures, which can include humans or even a gigantic whale who of course ends up being an entire dungeon. The music is nowhere near as great as the previous game, which oozed of atmosphere, and the cutscenes show off the slapstick comedy which may or may not be quite overdone (seriously how the heck can pirates build a raft out of a destroyed ship while BEING IN MIDAIR). So the plot oddly enough ended up being the game's strongest point, the gameplay revolves around annoying knockbacks, waiting for bosses to come through for an attack, and overpowered magic spells. Oh, and minigames, which were honestly more fun than the main game itself.

A look back at: Alundra

Three in one month, let's go! And I do plan on doing the sequel game next.

This game is one that certainly has been on the backburner, and its strongest quality has to be its sensational music track. I'm familiar with Dust to Dust, the somber theme, Coastal Cave, as well as Kline's Nightmare from playing Doom wads for a while, so to actually hear them in the original orchestration was great. Better yet, the tracks can all be listened to in one room! Though you do have to progress in-game to get to some of this stuff eventually, that's fine.

On to the gameplay, and it's basically a Playstation version of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. A fine game in and of itself, so that's a hurdle that can't be crossed. But at least this game has plenty of hallmarks to coincide with its attempt at a similar yet different premise. Sword-swinging, arrows and bombs (here you get infinite ammo), medicines to heal, seven crests to pick up (like the seven crystals), life vessels (the heart containers), a religious sanctuary with a cemetery next to it, a swamp, lake, desert, and mountain, boss fights with strategy, just one village, upgrading weaponry, and plenty, and I mean PLENTY of annoying dungeon puzzles. What makes it even moreso here than in ALTTP is that you do have platforming and puzzles combined, and many dungeons actually feel way longer than they should because of these puzzle moments. If the music wasn't so good, I would have hated this.

I was hoping for a truly perfect playthrough of this, but unfortunately I capped out at 49 hit points and 49 Gilded Falcons. Three of each can be done in the casino section, and I got two, but for some reason, the roulette section was unfortunately completely bugged and I was in a dead-end room with no way out other than reloading, so that was the only one I couldn't get to. Also sometimes some textures end up disappearing when I try to save and load and speaking of loading, those loading times are quite annoying. So would I consider this a true action RPG? It's really complicated. There's significantly more immersion in this plot in my opinion, and the upgrades to weapons are certainly a thing. So I really could care less. This one does feel RPG enough to me.