Alundra

Variants

(Alundra’s foil packaging and silver based disc art wreaks havoc on the scanner images.)

Alundra is one of the most prolific variant released on the PlayStation, and one of the original variant hunts that started Jason down his dark path of collecting every known variant. There are 8 total variants – Original, and then A through H, but with no F. According to Victor Ireland, for whatever reason Sony never approved that particular submission. The back inserts are tied to the disc art via the PSRM number located on the insert’s inner bottom right corner. The shared back insert is the same PSRM despite being used across three disc arts.

The missing artwork would have been the shop owner and father-figure Jess, using the same design as the light blue background disc art that shares the same back insert.

Each variant is labeled as the base ID plus a letter (So 00553, 00553a, 00553b, etc) and the PSRMs go up 1 per title (008940, 008941, 008942, etc). The missing, never printed variant would have been 00553f with PSRM 008946.

You can check out all the Working Design games in one page here.

Variant A

Variant A

Variant B

Variant B

Variant B – Alternate Front Insert Artwork

Variant B – Alternate Inside Insert Art

Variant C

Variant C

Variant D

Variant D

Variant E

Variant E

Variant G

Variant G

Variant H

Variant H

Misprints

• There are no known misprints.

Review

Summary – Not a Review

What happens when you take the creative team responsible for the Genesis cult favorite LandStalker and serve them up 32-Bit style? You get one of the most frustratingly fun and truly hardcore Action/RPGs you will ever happily suffer through; Alundra.

Working Designs brought the game over in 1998, and did a fantastic job in keeping their gag humor in check. The game itself is set up exactly like the Nintendo classic The Legend of Zelda, except there’s a lot more jumping and mind melting puzzles involved. In fact, these are some of the most difficult dungeons ever created for the system. False turns, hidden passages, unbelievably blind leaps of faith, all mixed together in a world with little depth perception. That visual error aside, it’s a damn beautiful game with great 2D animation and fun Full Motion Video sequences. The world map alone is worth the price of admission, as you could spend hours trying to track down every last treasure chest and golden falcon.

The game’s battle system is in real time, open environments. There are no menus sans the one you use for items and a weapon change. Most combat is performed flawlessly, but there will be issues with some of the bosses. As usual, Working Designs changed the health levels of several key boss fights, causing these encounters to last a LOT longer than should be legally allowed.

More importantly, and this is where most will turn away; Alundra is one of, if not the most cryptic role playing game created when it comes to providing clues to your next move.

Just make sure you have a few extra controllers. You will break a few of them in frustration.

Final Score: NA – No Review

Summary Text

Enclosures

Alundra included a pretty snazzy map created using screenshots with character information on the back. It was printed on thicker, almost greeting card paper stock to make it more rigid and durable than your typical included poster.

Screenshots

Videos

• There are currently no videos for this game.

Trivia

• A spiritual successor to LandStalker.
• One of the highest variant counts on the PlayStation at nine with one known never-printed.
• There are two known versions of the game (v1.0, v1.1). Only differences are minor code changes. You can determine which version you have with a GameShark type device.
• Mentions the Sega Genesis (but only as “Genesis”) in the box copy.
• This game has been nicknamed the ‘closest thing to Zelda PlayStation owners will ever get.’
• There seems to have been some sort of manufacturing or printing situation with the game. All eight copies in the game-rave.com library have the same small tick / scratch mark on the upper left of the front insert, where the PlayStation logo is. We photoshopped it out of the site imagery for sake of cleanliness.
• Europeans got the game under the name “The Adventures of Alundra”
• Alundra was the first true PlayStation Role Playing Game from Working Designs in what began as their break away from Sega. After some turmoil with Sega, all projects on the system were scrapped and everything sent to PlayStation. Sony’s gray monster would see the most Working Designs titles for a system in the company’s history (10 total).
• Alundra has more total variant releases on PlayStation (9), than the entire system library of Working Design games on the Turbo-Grafx 16 (6), Sega CD (4), Sega Saturn (6), and PlayStation 2 (3).
• You can still poke around most of Working Design’s old web-site thanks to archive.org.