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Token Female Gamer's Review (4/5)

I love getting games as presents and when said game turns out to be a) one I don't own and 2) one I really like, it's a near miracle. Turns out, Culdcept Saga is such a miracle.

The fabulous friend, who gifted us this excellent experience, knew that waiting would just not do. So he presented it at the first available opportunity. It was just some random day, but I have since dubbed it "Culdcept is Awesome!" Day. (And like most holidays/birthdays/anniversaries I never remember the actual date!!)

This thing is, even though the game arrived with such fan fare I didn't believe it was going to be that great (because, really, how often does it happen that a fabulous game gets shoved in your face?), so it just sat around for a while (sad and lonely).

After the third call from my friend asking how I thought the game was, I finally popped it into the Xbox and started playing. I devoured it whole.

Colosseum III
(A 12-die? What I wouldn't give to play a pre-release version of Saga! - Andyman)

My Impressions

I have to admit that I had a rather rocky start.

Oh, the early battles were easy enough. Much was explained before each battle started, and I learned a bunch by trail and error – the game was easy enough that it allowed for such learning.

The first rock I stumbled over was about confusion with deck size. See, ultimately this game is a trading card game (TCG), which means that you collect lots and lots (the more the better) of cards, which you then whittle down into a deck.

As it turns out there are limits to how many cards you are allowed to place into your deck. Nowhere does it say this, nor does the game stop you from putting more cards then you should have into creating a deck. What happens is that it simply does not let you enter a battle. (Much screaming, fist shaking, threatening, and cursing commenced!)

My second rock is embarrassing, but I shall tell you anyway. =D

The game seems to make each battle sound like life and death. "If you do not defeat this boss you will never be free from slavery" or "Defeat the water demon or watch the land be flooded and millions die". It all sounded like do or die to me.

If I got to a point in the battle where it seemed obvious I would loose, I would just restart, since according to the game loosing was not an option. Turns out, loosing is okay, the story will continue regardless of win-loss. Of course I had already replayed a myriad battles before I was informed of this little fact.

My third rock is more of a detour, and I totally blame on my friend. He showed me how to set up a custom game that would result in a guaranteed win and take minimal time. Since new cards are the reward for victory in battle, this turned out to be the best and fastest way to grow my card collection. It was quite exciting discovering new cards, but after a while I realized that I had gotten stuck in farming cards mode.

By the time I finally came out of my fixation, I had acquired almost 90% of the available cards and was left with the daunting task of creating a deck out of more then 500 cards. Some tough choices had to be made (not something I'm terribly good at).

Despite all of my complaining I really did enjoy the game immensely. The fact that I stuck it out regardless of difficulty speaks volumes for the game's quality. It's an incredibly well paced and deep strategic game that might be suffering a little from informational anemia (and Xbox exclusivity!)

Review

Release date: Feb 5, 2008
Developer: OmiyaSoft (JAMSWORKS)
Platform I played on: Xbox 360

Game Summary

Traverse a variety of different playing fields as you challenge other Cepters to battle. Summon magical creatures from your deck of cards to control territory, fight, and defend.

Game Play

The simplest description of this game is that it's a combination of Monopoly and Magic the Gathering TCG, the result is a turn based strategic board game that includes monster combat.

The similarities to monopoly extend further then just a tiled board, rolling dice to move, and collecting a monetary reward after traversing the entire field. The field is defined by a Castle, the starting point, and up to four towers: north, east, south, west. All these need to be touched to consider the circuit complete. This is important since each battle has a vastly different board layout.

Culdcept also includes the owning of tiles and collecting payment from trespassers unlucky enough to end a turn there. This currency is used to summon creatures, upgrade lands, casts spells, and so forth.

ColosseumDefining ownership of a specific tile is accomplished by summoning a creature, using a card from your dealt hand, to occupy the space in your stead and to defend it in your absence. If the creature were to lose the battle defending the tile, then ownership of said space falls to the victor.

The cards that create each persons individual deck are very similar to Magic TCG. Each player brings their own personal deck – filled with creature cards, weapons, armor, and spells – to the battle. This is the pool of cards that player draws their hand from.

Similar to Magic, the game has colors that represent different elements, fire, earth, air, and water (red, green, yellow, and blue). Summoning a fire creature to occupy a red square will give that creature "land bonus" and make it more powerful.

Since there are over five hundred unique cards available in the game (must be collected via playing) and about half are creature cards, it's easy to see that there are a wide variety of strategies available. Some creatures can equip weapons to help attack or defend, some can cast spells, some can boost up other creatures.

The overall goal is to reach the Castle tile having accumulated the required amount of points or more to win. Owning land, summoning creatures, collecting gold, upgrading land and creatures, traversing the board are just some of the ways that points are earned.

Really there is so much more to the game then this, but I think this is a good enough overview. For anyone that has played Monopoly and Magic the Gathering picking this game up should be almost instinctual.

World and Story

In a world filled with magic and monsters, a young man finds himself willingly sold into slavery to save his village. Just after saying his last goodbyes he is met by a beautiful princess, who insists that he is the savior that she has been seeking.

Doubt of this claim is dispersed when the young man defeats an ambush wielding the power of the princess's magical cards. She explains that only a true Cepter can call forth and manipulate the magic locked within the cards.

The princess convinces him to help her defeat the evils threatening the land, but only after he has battled his way out of slavery, so he may be free to follow her where she leads.

Graphics

CravoniaThis game came out of Japan and the graphics don't let you forget it with their cute anime styles and fantastical and varied monsters.

The playing field (background and board) and cards seem to be 2D and are quite beautifully done. The physical manifestations of the cards and the main characters all have 3D characters that animate in a natural mode as they populate the playing field.

Where the graphics really break down is the cinematics. The animation is horrible. Nearing the end, I resorted to skipping most of the cinematics; watching them was giving me the creeps.

Unlike the cinematics, the playing field is three quarters view so you can see as much of the playing field as possible, just like sitting over a board game.

Replayability

While the story is linear (and thus not so replay able) each board is replay able as many times as you like.

The game also allows the users to create their own games. It tolerates quite extensive rules manipulation, which can make for a wide variety of game strategies and difficulties.

And really replay ability is all about the flexibility of the game. In general user controlled flexibility works even better.

Multiplayer

There is online multiplayer available, but it's not something I have played. For two reasons, the first being that it's all competitive (not cooperative), secondly I don't pay for the online Xbox service.

Either way it doesn't bother me much since playing with strangers isn't something I tend to seek out. Now if I could play cooperative on the same box with buddies, that would be awesome!

Things that bothered me

-Xbox 360
I should write more extensively on my serious dislike of this machine, but never before has the Xbox made playing a game more difficult then it did this game.

As the game progresses the length of each battle tends to increase. Often, once I made it past the hour mark, the Xbox would freeze the game with a disk read error. As there isn't really a save your progress option this created quite a bit of frustration for me and was the ultimate reason I stopped playing the game.

Oh I know what you are thinking, just go get a new machine. There is no way in hell I am spending more money on a product that is so fucking shoddy. Just make a PS3 version already!

-The instructions are hiding.
This is almost a misnomer since the game does give lots and lots of instructions. The problem is mostly that there is so much information that the game would spend more time on giving instructions then anything else.

The information is also there to be had, it's just terribly hard to find. The in game manual reads like an SAT test. Ick! Some tool tips would really enhance the experience. (Never thought I would be voting for tool tips!)

-Interface is a bit convoluted.
A good follow up to the hidden instructions, because if the interface were a little friendlier the information would be easier to find. =)

-Where is my save?
There is no real save game option (there is a suspend option which turns out is the ugly step sister of the save). As the battles get longer and longer having a viable option for saving would make a huge difference (especially when dealing with a crash prone Xbox!)

Time played

A good thirty hours. I spent a lot of time trying to farm the cards. Didn't manage to get all of them but got enough to make creating a new deck a seriously daunting task.

Game Finished

I think they need to come out with a better version on the PS3. I want to keep playing, but not on the Xbox (fail-box). Which means I didn't quite finish the story mode, almost, but the random crashes just drove me crazy.

Rating

Four out of Five mushrooms. An excellent game that I couldn't help but play, regardless of its few flaws.

Green MushroomGreen MushroomGreen MushroomGreen Mushroom

 

Mood Progression

(1 Blue) Disbelief, it can't be that great! – (3 Green) Obsessed convert to the greatness of Culdcept – (1 Red) Irritation due to lack of information – (2 Pink) Gleeful card farming – (1 Red) Crash! – (1 Purple) So happy playing a great game – (1 Red) Irritated that the Xbox can't seem to not crash.

Blue MushroomGreen MushroomGreen MushroomGreen MushroomRed MushroomPink MushroomPink MushroomRed MushroomPurple MushroomRed Mushroom

Last Thoughts

Please no more Xbox exclusive games. Please please please!! (This was either due to her copy being a pre-release version or having a defective early-model Xbox 360. The final game doesn't crash, other than the occasional online disconnect. - Andyman)

Originally posted on June 24th, 2009

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 January 2014 17:17

Card of the Moment

Boggart 360
ST:10 HP:30 MHP:30
G:40
Item Limit:
Claims double the standard toll value. Returns to user's hand if destroyed by spell or territory ability.

Culdcept Saga

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