The Adventures Of Alundra: A Link To Nintendo's Copyright Department

The year was 1997...the Internet was just about passable as something that could be used for things, just as long as you had the patience

Imagine however, a world where Wikipedia was absent, where the only way to find out about the latest PS1 titles was to actually buy a magazine inaccurately stating the release dates. You could I suppose troll through the hundreds of self proposed "Fansites" courtesy of Geocities; but that would usually end in tragedy as you scrolled through a slow loading page of animated GIFS, and then got your first taste of pornographic fan art...

So Alundra, well endowed as I came to find he is; became known as a result of the now thankfully defunct "Playstation MAX" magazine. A periodical which embraced the ideals of journalism like a burly retard man who doesnt know his own strength, the neck snapping inaccuracies of this magazine however made me aware of Alundra, a Zelda clone which had I been older and wiser, would have seen it as just that...and still bought it anyway.

I recently took to replaying the game after two previous unsuccessful attempts trying to finish it, I shall recall these attempts in chronological order...

ATTEMPT EIN: Got stuck on a pyramid level although the exact details of why or what went wrong are unknown. I later discovered an array of cheats for the game on my Action Replay cartridge which may have lead to the memory card reformatting itself...game restart became undesirable on account of post traumatic memory card loss

LESSON LEARNED- If thou art to gain glory through cheating, Alundra and other PS1 titles shall be deleting

ATTEMPT ZWEI: Scrolled through the overly long introduction sequence with major disinterest, ended up strolling onto a beach only to underestimate the power of fire breathing turtles, game over without saving, prospect of seeing the intro a second time...undesirable.

LESSON LEARNED- A boring summer cannot be quelled, by a foray into games previously uncompelled (to play to the end)

ATTEMPT DREI: Seemingly ploughed through levels I previously thought of as impossible, possibly as a result of having nothing else to do other than hand out flyers for an Italian restaurant supposedly owned by a Persian. (He was able to reverse time briefly when people denied his flyers) six months have now transpired, prospect of returning to a story driven game I have neglected for over half a year...undesirable but feasible

LESSON LEARNED- In youth, skills are low. When grown, far you go

The problem with coming back to games from your childhood is that A: They are often shit B: They are far more difficult, and my tolerance to play them is far less. I soon discovered however, that Alundra falls into neither of this categories, not only does it hold up, but the difficulty is far easier than I had remembered. Perhaps it may be that now in my mature stages of adulthood, I have developed the necessary life skills with which to traverse fictional coal mines and crypts easily, whereas the ability to converse with a labourer without contempt still eludes me. Alundra still however provides the tried and tested trial and error you can never be expected to really understand.

Games from the PS1 era however, take longer to load than other consoles on account of the mega graficks and the deposit of dog shite in the disk tray. Try as my father might to remove this evidence, the noxious cocktail of fecal matter and lemon zest will forever remain in my nostrils, reminding me of a simpler, potentially blinding time...

Alundra is definitely a hidden gem among the PS1 library and in some ways surpasses the Zelda series. First of all, the story extends beyond rescue the princess by collecting three things followed by eight things and secondly, the bombs you carry are twice as comically over-sized. Regrettably the sequel decided to enter into 3D, and while I enjoyed the game at the time I can safely assume Alundra 2 has aged nowhere near as well as its predecessor. Buy it, play it, never finish it...( a fourth attempt is planned for 2023)

Poy Poy 2

For those of you who enjoyed poy poy (the first) to the extent that you thought it necessitated a sequel , then I can conclude you've either lived a sheltered gaming life, playing exclusively on unwanted copies of power piggs, skullmonkeys and a variety of other sub-par anthropomorphic titles; or more likely you don't actually exist. Its a shame to see that the 'crate throwing' genre never really took off as it had potential to move into other hybrid areas such as 'first-person crate throwing' and 'crate em-ups'. The latter purely for the opportunity of an announcer saying "Crate combo!".

Poy poy 2 struggles to be anything other than four people throwing things in a confined space, effectively simulating how Russian democracy worked for many years. Konami however has managed to create depth to something that really didn't need any, the Poy Poy cup is that most coveted of prizes among people who don't mind inanimate objects embedded into their faces. Being a televised event one might think the cameramen would like to find some edgy shots to invoke audience participation, clearly the cameraman in question is a junior rookie given a shot at the big time. His unique static camera method may not be the norm now, but when he becomes the first person to nab rare pictures of Spiderman its greenhorn no more!

Playing the 'story' mode in the loosest sense of the word provides that epic feeling of watching the second half of Eurovision. An irksome announcer introduces and closes the show with a grating voice that more than makes up for the absence of awkward banter normally seen between two presenters. Followed by every round is a score tally by a woman who possibly due to equality regulations has just as irritating a voice as her male counterpart. The score tally marathon tends to take between 3-5 minutes as the disk slowly loads up the individual sound bite for each characters name. Considering there are several divisions you begin to resent any competitor with a name over two syllables, especially when they have names like Ten Ten. Clearly he was so adept at throwing things at an early age that they decided to name him stupidly twice.

I'm sure when four players gather round for 'Poy Party' as we all know them might increase the games appeal. I along with many owners of this game however find it difficult to justify inviting three people into my home for the sole purpose of playing something they probably haven't heard of, and I know just about enough to struggle through an article about it. I know many retro gamers are all for seeking out the niche titles, but much like the ark of the covenant they are often hidden with good reason. I'm not saying Poy Poy 2 will melt the faces of the master race any time soon, but it might unlock the secrets of an ancient alien race...that secret being throwing things is the basis for a lucrative TV show.