Dear god, that’s a terrible title.

This is Tunguska: Legend of Faith, an obscure adventure game for the PlayStation. And I’m not using the term ‘obscure’ loosely here, almost none of the internet has even heard of this game. It follows Jack (who is literally jacked), a person who is framed for murder, and is on his way to death row. When you start a new game, you’ll watch a cutscene where four security guards lead Jack to the electric chair, where he not long after meets his unfortunate end. Yep, the main character actually dies in the very first cutscene of the game. His spiritual body is ascending upwards, with images of Jack’s past. Then, he ascends through a portal of some sorts.

But guess what? It’s not the end! This is where the game actually starts. I nearly got a heart-attack from the transition the graphics made. I can look past some dated visuals, I mean, this is the PS1 we’re talking about. But Tunguska: Legend of Faith looks beyond terrible, especially for a game that’s apparently made in the year 2000. The intro cutscene still looks decent, but then you get to the gameplay and… look, it’s just terrible. Anyway, I was put on a platform with a bridge leading to a tower with two statues, each with an indent in them (took me some serious concentration to make out what it was). I assumed I had to go back from where I came, through the big door I started in front of.

Okay, let’s get this outta the way: What the heck are you supposed to do? What’s your goal? The game shows you some weird, cryptic cutscene about your character getting executed, and then it drops you in front of some big door, basically telling you “well, good luck bro!” and then just leaves you. Let me tell you how this game controls. It’s bad. You move Jack around through Resident Evil-style controls. Not only are these not quite as fluid as in any Resident Evil game on the PlayStation, the game also has a dynamic pre-rendered camera, which actively moves with you to new screens as you progress through the place. This feels really awkward as you’re trying to keep control of your character running in a straight pace while the camera keeps transitioning to new screens.

So you go through the door, which presents you with the only piece of music you’ll ever hear during gameplay, and you walk through a hall. At the end of the hallway, you’ll be jumped by a guy and you have to fight him. I have no idea why, but you have to fight him. This game has no clear goal to strife towards, you just roll with the punches the game throws at you. Still, the fighting is neat. There’s quite a lot you can do. With the left- and right directional buttons you throw a left- and right punch accordingly. If you do this while pressing ‘X’ at the same time, you use kick techniques. Pressing up and ‘X’ at the same time makes you do a jump kick, and pressing the circle button lets you block and sidestep in combination with the left- and right buttons. This is quite in-depth, although it’s a shame most of the fights can easily be won by performing the jump kick over and over. This is the most complicated thing the game has to offer, the rest of the game is shallow as all heck. You have to fight the same people over and over again, all who can be dealt with with the flying kick attack, in order to get an item to place it in the tower with the statues so you can progress through the game. That’s what the entire game is about. It’s very simplistic, and might I say, repetitive.

Soon, you’ll come across a spinning razorblade-trap thingy. Apparently, this game is Indiana Jones all of a sudden. Don’t think timing your way through the traps is easy, because it’s not. It’s near-freakin’-impossible. The traps close at a rapid pace, so you’ll only have one opportunity to run through the trap, and your timing has to be perfect. The first trap is really early in the game, and this is where I got stuck for the first time. Really, this is about the 5^th screen you enter. This alone makes the game punishingly difficult. It’s a good thing it doesn’t incorporate a lives system though. Dying will just put you back at the start of an area. But don’t think this makes the game much easier…

I’m still not too happy with the title I gave this review, but I feel it fits this game to a T. You’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel with Tunguska: Legend of Faith. It’s just that bad. You start the game with no clear goal and thus no real motivation to play the game, the shoddy Resident Evil controls don’t mix well with the dynamic camera movement making it awkward to walk through the sorta interesting environments, and there’s just no music present aside from the short tune you hear when you open a door. Tunguska? You’re disgusta.

Pros:

-          The fighting is interesting for a while

Cons:

-          Horribly dated graphics

-          The game has almost no sound, AT ALL

-          Unclear story or goal means lack of motivation to play

-          Very repetitive

-          Dodging rapid deadly obstacles doesn’t work with the shoddy Resident Evil controls

-          This was developed by Take-Two Interactive. Ouch…