Lord Spencer's Gaming (and other stuff) Blog

The PS1 proves to have a strong library with a pretty solid top 80-71 games according to the Retro Sanctuary List . However, the list continues to select poor titles among those that deserve the honor. Of the below games, two are outright bad games, and two I can guarantee don't deserve to be in a top 100 PS1 games list. What these 10 games show is that the PS1 had really strong RPG and Action-Adventure titles, with games like Alundra, Star Ocean 2, and Breath of Fire IV showing up this early in the list despite being very good games. Even the titles related to those games are good enough in some way to be included in this list. Let's see in the future reports if Retro Sanctuary picks better games than these, or if we will still see terrible games like MDK and Vigilante 8 wrongly take their space. Please enjoy:-

In many ways, Matrix Software's Action-Adventure games were invariably inspired by and compared to The Legend of Zelda series. In fact, the original Alundra was heavily inspired by A Link to the Past both in its look and structure. Carrying on, you would guess that its 3D sequel would be inspired by Ocarina of Time . Yet, that's not the case, as Alundra 2 attempts to basically be a 3D-looking top-down Action-Adventure game. In that departure (which didn't age well), and in its more lighthearted story, the game was a disappointment to fans of the original. Yet, despite its shortcomings, and because of some of its quirks, I think that this game was unfairly rated at the time. It' a tremendously charming game that I would remember long after I forget the original. #80(S): Alundra 2: Year: 1999 (JP), 2000 (NA). Genre: Action Adventure. Publisher: Sony (JP), Activision (NA). Developer: Matrix Software.

Alundra is widely considered a spiritual sequel to the great Genesis game, Landstalker . Yet, other than the clear A Link to the Past ( ALttP ) influence, the game is nothing like it. It has a much more serious story, and the gameplay loop is now even closer to ALttP . In fact, if you want to consider this a " Zelda clone", then this is clearly one of the darkest and best of "the clones". #80: Alundra: Year: 1997 (JP), 1998 (NA). Genre: Action Adventure. Publisher: Sony (JP), Working Designs (NA). Developer: Matrix Software.