FNintendo's Review (7/10)

The Culdcept series, which is not widely known in Europe, is now on its twentieth anniversary. It started as an exclusive for Sega Saturn in Japan, went through several consoles later and now comes in its latest version to Nintendo 3DS.

Culdcept Revolt presents itself as a unique blend of genres, a mix of board game strategy and collectible card combat. It is a perfect symbiosis between the concept of Monopoly and Magic: the Gathering and that visually reverts a little to the series Fire Emblem.

Even given its complexity, the game is perfectly accessible to the less experienced, providing a very gradual tutorial that integrates the player into the game dynamics. Despite being a bit long, the tutorial is camouflaged through a simple storyline to make the experience more interesting. In story mode, the plot thickens, and if the story is a tonic to continue to advance in the game, quickly becomes a secondary experience and the player wants to move forward not to progress in the plot but looking for a greater challenge that allows him to put to test your deck and your strategy.

Although in all the board games luck has a very large weight, the strategic component in Culdcept gains prominence, being that it begins even before the beginning of the game, in the choice of the cards of the deck that will be used. The variety of existing cards, as well as the ability to play up to four players online and in local mode, gives Culdcept Revolt a high longevity and extremely varied strategic combinations.

The gameplay is not at all simple and requires some habituation, although the tutorial is quite competent and simplifies the introduction to the experience as much as possible. The dice are thrown and by means of the number, it is advanced on the board. Whenever you stop on a terrain you will find several possible situations. One of them is to summon a creature from the cards in the deck (if the creature type matches the terrain type, this results in a bonus of its features; if a creature already exists in that location, the game allows you to increase its characteristics using magic points) . The stronger the creatures that defend the terrain, the harder it will be for the opponent to deal with them when they pass through the player's field and the heavier the penalty they will have to pay. The player, in turn, will have to go through it in an analogous situation. This is where the game presents the combat mode, since it is possible to fight the creatures that guard the opposing lands. Whenever you complete a round on the board you gain magic points and creatures have their life points revitalized. Some cards interfere with game pacing, either by changing the dynamics of the dice roll or by changing the characteristics of the creatures in combat.

The controls make use of the keys, which nevertheless is curious in a console with a touch screen that would be a clear choice for this resource, finishing this by being marginalized. This leads to an experience that by itself can be extremely long to take a little longer than necessary. Given that there is this obvious concern on the part of Omiya Soft in increasing game speed and text transition, it is surprising not to have used console features to simplify the experience even further. The 3D effect has been integrated very competently but does not contribute to the immersiveness in the experience, making it a resource that is perfectly dispensable. The visual style was very well implemented, presenting a deck composed by 400 cards very varied and with an artistic style very own but that suffers a little with the graphics capabilities of 3DS, console that already accuse its age. The sound environment fits well in the type of game, without overlapping or compromising the gameplay and accompanies well the long sessions in which each match that can be transformed.

Conclusion

Culdcept Revolt arrives with the promise of making accessible to newcomers to this saga. Thanks to simplified mechanics and competent tutorials, it fulfills its promise. However, you're wrong about not making the most of the console's touchscreen. Showing a perfect symbiosis between popular experiences like board games, strategy and combat of collectible cards, it presents a very competitive strand that will bring several hours of constant challenge.