Alundra was always one of those games that wore its influences firmly on its sleeve. Despite probably looking more like Zelda than a lot of the games in the Zelda franchise, Alundra took on a more adult tone than its competition, with a darker story and some fiendish puzzles to boot. Released in 1997 for the PS1 Alundra saw a pretty impressive first run with over 100K copies sold in a single month in early 1998. After this initial pressing Alundra has all but vanished, and despite a very loyal and vocal cult fan base, the game has unfairly receded into obscurity as time has gone by.

Why it was awesome

Alundra was able to cut a very fine line between a cartoony and bright visual aesthetic with an intriguing plot filled with morbid themes. Imagine Zelda: a link to the past but dealing with clinical depression and you’re about there. The story featured our hero, a silent protagonist unsurprisingly called Alundra, being shipwrecked on the tiny island of Inoa and attempting to find out his origins. He soon becomes aware that he is a part of an ancient clan of Dream walkers, who possess the power to enter peoples dreams and alter them. Soon Alundra finds that the mysterious comas the villagers are falling into are caused by an ancient demon named Melzas, who Alundra must prevent from being resurrected at all costs.

Whilst the bit about ancient demons being revived isn’t exactly a fresh plot mechanic, Alundra’s dream walking abilities gave each of the game’s levels a unique twist. All the dream levels are based upon the dreamer’s personality and traits, giving a needed variety to the game’s locales as well as granting further insights into the characters. It was also nice to see that this mechanic wasn’t wrung for all it was worth. When I first read the blurb for Alundra I was concerned you’d just hop from one dream to the next in a linear fashion, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. The over-world of Inoa was expansive and full of secrets and side-quests, and there was an equal amount of dungeons both inside and outside of the villagers minds to keep things fresh.

Even though they weren't very impressive at the time, Alundra's graphics have aged surprisingly well

The results of your forays into the surrounding area and the minds of the villagers were also a mixed affair. Remember those dark themes I was discussing earlier? I wasn’t just saying that lightly. Alundra was a game that was not afraid to kill off the odd character hear and there, and it was anyone’s guess who would be next to go. It gave the game a certain tension that other RPGs of the time were lacking, and every time I came out of a person’s dream I’d be biting my nails waiting to see if they had survived or not… The guilt you felt when that foreboding acoustic guitar melody kicked in is something that has stayed with me till this day. It certainly kicked the more predictable “well done, you got the medallion of the forest” scenarios seen in other RPGs in the teeth.

One of the other aspects that always seemed woefully under-appreciated in Alundra was the level design itself. All the layouts of the levels just made sense and the game had a very natural progression as a result. The dungeons themselves were also well made, and had what I would describe as an organic type of design. I know that sounds like an odd way of describing it, but bare with me here. In a lot of other action adventure titles you never feel like you’re exploring the mines of Trarg (or wherever it is). You feel it’s a dungeon in a game that has a tile set resembling said mine. This wasn’t the case in Alundra. Obviously discounting the abstract dream levels, the dungeons in the game all felt like they were a real mansion or mine or lumber mill etc. that you had to navigate your way through. There were no convenient blocks and switches to use. If you wanted to progress you had to work for it and think a little bit outside of the box. There was no hand-holding going on here that’s for sure.

That leads us on to one of the more jarring aspects of the game: The difficulty. A lot of the puzzles inhabited the familiar “you need particular weapon X to access this area” paradigm, but others were just plain nasty. One forum member described some of the puzzles in Alundra as “the work of the devil,” and it was regularly stated that the game is in-completable without a guide or FAQ to hand. I look back on this with a certain fondness going for the whole “games were harder back in my day” sort of quip, but actually at the time I was just plain annoyed by the challenge. I had no internet and no paper guide to hand, making Alundra a constant uphill battle. The game was still fun as hell, but there is no denying that Alundra was never designed for the faint of heart.

A real mind-bending puzzle, and there are plenty more of them along the way

The best thing was that Alundra was a title that kept on giving. Provided you could climb each of the exceptionally high hurdles it threw your way, Alundra was long. Like really super mega large. That’s just to clear the main story, if you wanted to dabble in some of the side-quests, take in the sights and go for the elusive maxed out health and magic bars, then you would have many happy hours of gaming ahead of you.

Why it was forgotten

Alundra was an odd title to be forgotten as it had, not only a very commercially successful first few months, but also received a unanimous critical applause. So why is it seldom discussed today? Well partial blame must be levelled at its publisher Working Designs. Working Designs were famed for translating a lot of eastern RPGs and publishing them for the western audience. They had an odd habit of going overboard with the packaging though, often printing games with full colour manuals, full spread maps and in the case of Lunar: Silver Star Collection, a leather bound manual well over a hundred pages in length! As cool as this was, it did mean that ordering their titles was an often expensive endeavour leading to fewer establishments stocking their games. Combine that with a frustratingly low production rate and we can see how Alundra’s commercial reception was able to run out of steam quite quickly. The irony is, despite their reputation for premium packaging, Working Designs packaged Alundra as a standard edition only with no whistles or bells whatsoever.

When discerning the legacy (or lack of) surrounding Alundra we must also consider industry trends at the time. Alundra was an early exclusive for the original Playstation, but arguably it didn’t fit in particularly well with its usual repertoire of games. Being not only the newcomer, but also the least technically impressive of that console generation, the PS1 games that are remembered are the ones that pushed gaming to its limits and gave the system a unique identity. Titles such as Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid immediately spring to mind. Unfortunately Alundra, whilst oozing quality, is clearly derivative of the Zelda franchise. This pinpoints exactly why Alundra was never going to make a lasting mark on the industry as we know it.

It certainly doesn’t help its perception among more modern gamers, that the quality and exposure of the Alundra franchise has been going downhill since early 1998. Fast forward to the start of the new millennium and we see the release of Alundra 2, a game that taught us just how far an apple can fall from the tree. The original game, whilst not inventing in any way, was able to compete with the gameplay of other titles in the genre while having its own unique identity. Alundra 2 however was just really bland. It lost the tight level design and gameplay mechanics, along with the dark overtones of the original, causing it to be a game that was mediocre at best. It’s not its fault in truth, as it was originally designed as an entirely different IP, entirely unrelated to the Alundra franchise. However, some retarded suit, most likely suffering from every mental disability known to man, had the fantastic idea of calling it an Alundra sequel in order to perpetuate more sales. Guess what genius, it didn’t work. All it has done is poison the name of a once great franchise that had barely got off the ground. You can ignore and deny its existence, but Alundra 2 is a parasite that never goes away.

Possibly the biggest crime against Alundra, and one that is inflicted upon most forgotten classics, is the untapped potential to turn it into DLC. Alundra would be the most insane download on the Playstation network by a long shot. But it’s probably too much to ask. Don’t get me wrong, it deserves a re-release, but I’m a reasonable man and I can understand that publishing rights can get in the way. The true crime against Alundra is the fact that it is actually available on the PSN, but in Japan only. It really is a situation of holding the midget (that’s us Alundra fans) at arms length. There is already an English translation, and considering that the western publishers closed down five years ago, I can’t fathom why on earth this fantastic title hasn’t seen a western release on the PSN.

Anime style visuals always hit me in the soft spot, but they arguably attracted the wrong audience for Alundra

The fatal flaw that all hero’s possess in a good tragedy isn’t lost on Alundra, and is possibly one of the key reasons for its modern obscurity. The game’s visual direction is an anime style and, even though it has aged quite well, it was always at odds with the dark sensibilities the game otherwise possesed. I’m not saying the visuals detracted from the experience, but it wouldn’t be a wild assumption to say that a darker, more realistic graphical style may have attracted the hardcore audience that Alundra’s gameplay is so clearly aimed at.

Without a downloadable alternative, (yes I’m still grumbling about it) gamers interested in taking on the Alundra challenge must track down an old physical copy and hope that it’s still in working order. Considering the limited print run, this is actually easier (and certainly cheaper) than you might expect. UK residents will be best served by amazon.co.uk where a used copy is currently going for a fantastically low price of under £10. Best snap this bargain up while the going’s good. US residents get it even easier with copies on ebay going for around the ten dollar mark. Time may have forgotten it, but if you play it, I can guarantee that you will not.

Back in the halcyon days of the SNES, Capcom released a little RPG title called Breath of Fire. For what it lacked in innovation, it possessed an almost flawless execution of a simple yet gripping story with some hardcore turn based battles. The game was good enough in fact that square actually took the time to localize it for the western market in favour of releasing the fifth Final Fantasy title on these shores. Fast forward to the year 2000 (or 2001 if you live in Europe) and we see the release of the fourth, and in my opinion strongest, title in the Breath of Fire franchise. Yet sadly the game doesn’t feature in any of the top games of all time lists and generally seems to have been unfairly forgotten as time has moved on. So I want to take a few minutes of your time to remind you of just why this title is well worth remembering.

The game opens with Nina, princess of the Wyndia kingdom, and her friend Cray, leader of the Woren tribe looking for Nina’s sister. During their travels they encounter a strange man, our amnesiac protagonist Ryu, and decide to help him recover his memories, whilst searching for Nina’s missing sister. Did I mention that our hero is able to transform into a dragon? The plot thickens as a simultaneous sub-plot follows the games antagonist, Fou-lu, the resurrected first emperor of an ancient empire who also shares Ryu’s draconian powers.

Why it was awesome

You have two guys who can transform into freaking dragons! That’s insane! I was just a kid when I first picked this game up and I don’t think I’ve ever recovered by how much this blew my mind. Sure it was a staple part of the series from the beginning, but having played all the games in the series, I can safely say that four was the magic number when it came to insane dragon-based action.

In terms of coolness dragons are right up there with ninjas and shotguns

The story also had a hell of a lot going for it. You had the continuing search for the missing sister, the origin of Ryu’s powers, his link to the mysterious and sinister Fou-lu and not to mention the reasoning behind the bizarre little robot guy who follows you around. The tale also had a great atmosphere evoked throughout, not afraid to tug at the heart-strings, but also pretty humorous and jovial in some places. It was nice to see that all of theses threads of story came together at the end perfectly, culminating in a fantastic and memorable climax. You also had the choice of two endings. Not much by today’s standards, yet at the time I felt spoilt for choice.

If you did decide to go for true ending you had one hell of a final boss to take down. Now I normally hate the huge combat spams at the end of JRPGs, but Breath of Fire made it pretty exciting. That final battle took me two hours. You heard right two whole hours. That’s not including the cinematics before and after either. But it was so enjoyable. The battle mechanics were as tight as can be and I had 120 intensely enjoyable minutes of action points and party management, complicated magic element combos as well as the costly but effective ultimate dragon attacks.

There were other aspects to the combat that also kept it fresh throughout the 20+ hour long adventure. If you used the guard command you could learn enemy skills and could then reassign these to any party member of your choice at camp. The amount of versatility in this system was astounding and my 12 year old mind boggled at the sheer possibilities of the skills I could learn. It was also pretty fun tracking down the masters throughout the game. Upon finding them you could embark on a side-quest and get them to train one of your characters. This would give them combat bonuses like new skills and stat boosts. It certainly kept me investigating all the NPCs in the game

Oh turn based combat, I miss the days when you were really good

While we’re on the topic of side-quests BOF4 was full of fun little diversions. You had the masters mentioned above to track down, as well as various dragons who would further unlock Ryu’s powers. His ultimate dragon form “the Kaiser” was also a pretty meaty side-quest in its own right, as without finding all the dragons and getting all Ryu’s skills you couldn’t keep control of Ryu whilst he was in this form. You also had the fairy village to consider. You had to task the various fairies with different jobs to ensure the economic and military success of your fairy village. If you did your job well enough you could visit the shops in your village that would often stock items and equipment that wasn’t available elsewhere. That and the fairy characters were hilarious to boot. If you still wanted to waste time and avoid the main plot arc you always had the patient and unnecessary fun of the fishing. These last two mini-games had enough depth to them that they even got their own spin-off mobile phone games in Japan.

The presentation was also spot on with graphics and sound that were pretty good by the standards of the day. The anthropomorphic inhabitants of the world returned from previous games (and believe me you never get tired of seeing cat and fish people) and the whole palette had a vibrant and cartoony feel to it. This was the only title in the series apart from the PS2 entry that was able to break away from the super-deformed character models of the previous games, and it was graphically stronger for it. Sure there were a few camera issues, but this is an RPG. You have time to fiddle with your camera settings and take in the sights. The audio was also pretty gripping. SFX were satisfying enough to keep the ball rolling, but the music was out of this world, breaking from the disjointed and plain odd jazz effort of the previous game. It’s one of the few times I’ve imported a soundtrack CD from Japan and it was totally worth the wait. Ironically I spent more on the CD than I actually did on the game when it came out, but it was worth every penny.

The visuals were bright and fun, and you never do get tired of seeing big dogs with swords

While we’re discussing the price of things, Breath of Fire caught my eye when it was first released due to its budget retail price. I can’t attest to US retail trends, but here in the UK PS1 games were roughly £45 a pop, yet BOF4 was only £20. So not only do you pay half the price of a normal game, but you probably got at least twice the enjoyment. Talk about value for money.

Why it was forgotten

For starters the game suffered a rushed and poor localisation due to Capcom having taken a financial hit at the start of that year. For similar reasons very little advertising was done, meaning this game flew under the radar for all but fans of the series who saw it coming. The financial problem also meant that, much like its predecessor, very few copies were printed in the west. This also accounts for why the game is considered quite the rarity these days.

Another point that probably didn’t help was the inevitable competition from Final Fantasy 9, released the same year in the US. It’s a shame really as I personally preferred BOF4 to FF9, though it’s easy to see why Breath of Fire was overlooked when it was released at the same time as an RPG heavyweight like the Final Fantasy series.

The game’s sequel Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter received a lukewarm reception, both critically and commercially. It’s a shame as, whilst it is certainly the weakest entry to the series, Dragon Quarter attempted to address previous criticisms that the BOF franchise was failing to innovate. It’s most likely due to this that there has yet to be any word on a Breath of Fire 6 and why interest in the franchise has waned as of late.

For all the talk of no new sequels some attempt has been made recently to renew interest in the series. Hand held ports of the first three games have been made, with the first and second games gracing the game boy advance and BOF3 joining the ranks of PSP games. Yet for some bizarre reason it stopped there and the most accomplished title of the series failed to get a portable remake. A true shame If I’ve ever witnessed one.

Breath of Fire 4 was one of the greatest RPGs of that generation, and personally is one of my all time favourites, yet is always forgotten in favour of the more commercially successful titles such as those in the Final Fantasy series. If this article has peeked your interest and you wish to obtain a copy of the game then you can find it on Ebay, priced at roughly £15/$45 at the time of writing. Whilst this may seem pricey for such an old title, it has sadly become hard to track down as of late. Needless to say you’ll find enough enjoyment here to justify the purchase.