alundra 2 review

The long awaited sequel to the popular action rpg, Alundra, has finally arrived. Let's compare notes with Alundra 1 and Alundra 2. Alundra 1 has sprites in a 2-D world with 1 village , many dungeons, puzzles, and a few mini games. Plus it was translated and ported over by Working Designs. Alundra 2 has polygons in a 3-D world with many towns, many dungeons, more puzzles, and lots of mini games. Activision did the porting and translations. To simply put, Alundra 2 is much bigger than Alundra 1. But is bigger better? Let's find out.

The King of the Varuna Kingdom has been imprisoned by Baron Diaz and his servant, Mephisto. The King's daughter, Alexia, sought out our hero, Flint, and convinced him to save her father and the kingdom. Flint then begins his quest which will take him throughout the Varuna Kingdom and it's many dungeons.
Now the story is your typical save and rescue the princess and kingdom story. Nothing new here. It's not the greatest story in the world but it's not bad too. Like with most action rpg, Alundra 2 tend to focus more on puzzle solving in it's dungeons then the story itself. Now the difference between how the story is presented to us in the sequel as oppose to the first Alundra is that there are alot of story sequences throughout the game with voice acting. Personally I like the voice overs and story sequences. It gives you a much more deeper feeling to the story. The story quest itself is very big. You'll be going to lots of places around the world map so don't expect just one village and a bunch of dungeons like in the first Alundra.

Now Alundra 2 does have a good cast of supporting characters with their voices. The problem is that you don't really get to know much about the character themselves. They do sometimes come out too cartoony as if geared towards kids. Flint's (hero) background isn't showned much or explained much. This applies to all the characters in the game. Another note is that all the characters talk except for Flint. Why they didn't give Flint a voice is beyond me. All Flint does is make funny sound effects and body expressions. Granted at times. it's funny to see Flint make his expressions and sound effects but overrall you do wish he would talk like the others

Now Alundra 2 decided to use a 3-D world with polygons instead of 2-D stuff. I have mix feelings on this. I understand the need to go to polygons because if you're going to have story sequences with voice overs then polygons and a 3-D environment is best suited for it. The problem is that in a 3-D world, you better give the player good camera angles or else the 3-D stuff will become an annoyance. Which at times it does. The colors in this game are quite dull as well. They could use some better brighter colors.
Good points about the graphics? Well, the game really does know how to put the 3-D in the a 3-D environment. The underwater gameplay look very impressive. In fact the whole underwater dungeons game sequencs are impressive. I like to see 2-D do that. Also some of the story scene sequences look very impressive in 3-D polygons. As I said, I have mix feelings on this.

The music selections in Alundra 2 is very weak. There are maybe 3 tunes at best. On the bright side these 3 tunes are excellent and I mean it. I really like the town theme. It is quickly becoming one of my favorite rpg tunes.
Now the voice overs are quite good in this reviewer's opinions. Of course this is expected since Activision is an American base company. The story sequences comes off kinda like a Saturday morning cartoon but I think that's the way it's suppose to be.

By far the strongest part of an action rpg is the gameplay, and Alundra 2 is no different. How can I best describe the gameplay? Hmm, puzzles, puzzles, puzzles, puzzles, puzzles, and more puzzles. For every step forward there's a puzzle waiting to be solve. Alundra 2 is pretty much like the first one. Hack some bushes for gold coins, use elemental summon magic, find items that raises your HP and MP maximum, buy new weapons and stuff. You get the idea. Now a new aspect that they added is puzzle pieces. Puzzles pieces are scattered throughout the world. You need to find them and collect them inorder to learn combo moves.
Now I know what you're thinking. "That's all fine and such but is the game hard?" Yes and no. There's an easy mode and a normal mode to choose from. The puzzles and dungeons can range from downright easy to downright hard. Best advice is the be patient and put on your thinking cap. As long as you're patient, you should be able to solve all the puzzles without any difficulty.
"How about the bosses?" Well, all the bosses are pretty easy to kill once you know their patterns. Once you know their patterns, you can kill them without using any healing items. You may have to die 10-20 times before finding out what their patterns are though. LOL. The only thing that can make some boss fights hard is the crappy camera angles. In fact the only thing bad about the gameplay is the crappy camera angle. It's an annoyance at best but it is an annoyance.

There are tons of mini games in this game. Some are part of the story quest while others are not. Some are easy while others are hard. Some are a pain in the ass while others are fun as hell. All mini-games gives you good items though.
While there is no multiple endings and such, one can't help but want to replay this game again. It's one of those game you just have to replay again.

Finally, in the end, Alundra 2 is a great action rpg. When someone ask you what good action rpg are out there, you'll probably say Alundra 1 and 2. Is it better than the first one? You have to find out for yourself.

Alundra 2: Oh, how I hate puzzles!

Alundra 2:
Oh, how I hate puzzles!