So after finishing Skyward Sword this weekend and doing a speed run through ALTTP again, I still couldn't satisfy my appetite for those type of games. I looked into my gaming shelf and saw that Alundra was there, a bit forgotten.

I decided to give it a go, and oh man I should have done this much more often. It's not only amongst one of my favourite storylines for a videogame, it's puzzles are also amongst the most fiendish ones, especially since right now I'm about to hit the first of the dreaded Icicle pillar puzzles. 

So, has anyone here played Alundra? If you're a fan of Zelda games, you'll love it.

Honestly never even heard of it. Actually looks pretty interesting, who doesn't love a good Zelda-esque game - turns out it's on the PSN store too - maybe I'll check it out. But just how frustrating are these puzzles?

Some of them are graded downright impossible if you don't plan for them acordingly. 

The Icicle puzzles are the worst of the bunch, since those pillars slide all the way without stopping, and in most of those rooms you have between 6 - 10 pillars that you have to position in perfect spots to open switches or form bridges to get you across the rooms. By yourself, some take up to 30 minutes to figure out, drawing schematics and so on.  Think of the Ice Cave in Ocarina of Time x10.

Other than those, there are timing puzzles, puzzles that are only hinted at the beginning of dungeons and in some of the final dungeons there's an annoying kind of puzzle in which you have to carry a breakable rock (if an enemy hits it) through the entire dungeon (which has tons of traps and enemies) to throw it at a timing switch. If you fail, you have to get back the rock from the start of the dungeon. 

Alundra (or The Adventures of Alundra as it's known here) is one of my favourite PSX games and IMO is close to the 2d Zelda games in quality. The puzzles are almost impossible on occasion, but that's all part of the game's charm. It's just a shame that the sequel was a disappointment IMO.

Alundra 2 shall be referred as "that game that's got the name Alundra but it's basically an entire different IP"  

Hope you do give it a try

The game does start a bit slow, what with limited exploration capacities due to lack of proper items, but it opens up a lot after the first two dungeons.

This could be interesting... Could you make a thread about this game again around mid-summer when I'll have time to play it?

Sure  

Alundra is probably the best game I never want to play again. I remember some of those puzzles driving me nuts. I was like 12 or 13 when I played it though - maybe my puzzle-solving-skills have improved since then.

Speaking of evil puzzles, does anyone remember the platform sliding puzzle from Lufia 2? (where you have to move a platform with treasure chests to the front) That one took me ages to solve and to this day I get angry whenever I see a sliding puzzle (damn you Prof. Layton!).

The World's Most Difficult Trick XD. I've got a save file reserved just for that puzzle alone, I always love to go back and re-do it from time to time. 

Professor Layton and the Curious Village puzzle 135 is the same puzzle as the Lufia II one, albeit flipped 90º. 

Alundra's puzzles do drive people nuts, some are really pushing my puzzle-solving skills to the max. Thankfully, I still remember quite a few things from my last playthrough (mostly because it drove me so nuts back then that they were burned into my mind ). I was 14 when I first played it and I found myself almost quitting the game tons of time back then, thankfully I persevered xD.