The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Backlog #2

Once upon a Time, there was a little known Company named Nintendo.
After making a little known game starring plumbers and mushrooms, they decided the world needed something new that didn't involve falling into a pit every 5 steps.
That game, was The Legend of Zelda, starring green-clad elven boy Link and it spawned all kinds of hideous commercials, both in the West and in Japan, and maybe I'll share them with you once the time cometh, My Young Grasshoppers.

What it also spawned was this: A LOT (and I mean a LOT) of derivatives and copy-cats, an endless stream of wannabe's still continuing to this day, and none have ever reached the same lofty heights, even though, and let's be fair here, the first two Zelda games were really rather crappy.

Alundra is one such game. YOU play as Alundra, otherwise known as The Dream Walker, and you have the uncanny ability to transport yourself into other people's dreams to rid them of their nightmares. The Rustic village Inoa is being plagued by nightmares, caused by the Evil Demon (as opposed to all those Really Swell Demons out there) Melzas, whom the villagers wrongfully worship as their God.

Now don't get me wrong, as far as Zelda clones go, this game isn't really that bad, it's just that, in their urge to discern themselves from the Big N, Sony Computer Entertainment decided to include an all new gameplay factor, which is commonly called: Frustration.

Yes, this game can really be the nail on your coffin at times and that really destroys so many of the good things it has to offer. There's cool dungeons (by which I mean Ice levels. Hur Hur) and clever puzzles, lots of Humor and even a very decent story. The problem is, they made this also a kind of platform game. There's a lot of puzzles that involve Jumping, and if you're playing an RPG with an overhead view like this, Jumps are very hard to judge. It's not so bad if you have to jump from left to right or something, but if you're going from front to back, distances are extremely hard to measure. And the game requires you to do this a LOT.
Imagine how much fun this is when you're hanging over a Lava Pit, trying to Freeze rapidly moving Balls of Fire into icy stepping stones to get up to a very high ledge indeed, and you will understand how enormously annoying this can be.

Other than that the game is great fun and the ending is still one of the absolute best I've ever come across, so definitely worth the while. A 7.5! Chilling!

posted by Ingen! @ 12:01 PM