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In Culdcept Saga, individuals known as Cepters move around a game board by the roll of the dice, using magical cards to call upon creatures and cast spells to occupy each area they encounter. Using cards, players can customize different decks to assist in their struggle for territorial dominance. As they maneuver their way around the board and land on occupied properties, opponents can opt to pay a fee for their brief stay or attack the guarding creature to inhabit the zone. Players can fortify their decks and develop strategies in single player mode, then apply those tactics against up to 3 friends on Xbox Live or on a single console. Gamers can further modify the game with their own style when they alter their characters’ appearances using parts won during matches.

Genre: Strategy

Publisher: Namco Bandai

Developer/Co-Developer: Omiya Soft / Rocket Studio, Inc.

Online Play:

Local Play:

February 4, 2008 –
When you play videogames year in and year out it’s rare that one comes along that truly makes you study its mechanics in order to beat it. With most games it’s a pick up and play affair. Being in the games industry you realize that most releases are formulaic in nature and thus they’re easy to break into. Culdcept Saga is not a typical release. It’s a different breed of videogame that is rarely seen in today’s market due to its incredibly hard shell that makes it tough for those who aren’t already interested in fantasy card games to dive in and enjoy themselves. Though once you do break into the Culdcept world and learn the dynamics that make it work you’ll realize that there’s a fairly enjoyable — though flawed — experience waiting to be unearthed.

For those that don’t know the basics of the game, we detailed them at length in our most recent hands-on preview. Be sure to check that out to learn the building blocks of Culdcept Saga. If you don’t want to take the time to read through our impressions, just think of Culdcept Saga as a dungeon themed Monopoly and keep reading.

So it’s a card game that can be played on Xbox 360 hardware. That much you now know. But is it good enough for non-card game players to enjoy while still packing enough to please the diehards of the world? Well, yes and no. Culdcept’s greatest flaw lies within its inherent design. Playing through the 30 hour experience you’ll feel like you’re playing something from more than 20 years ago. The graphics are extraordinarily dated and haven’t been updated much from the PS2 release which was more than four years ago. Sure, they’ve been ported to a high-definition environment, but even the textures on creatures, pieces of land, and the surrounding environments are just plain poor. Is it too much to ask for some impressive spell effects or at the very least some kind of visual stimulation beyond lumbering axe and sword swings.

But the game isn’t designed with visual splendor in mind. It’s about the gameplay. In that regard Culdcept Saga very nearly succeeds in delivering a quality product. Players who have never experienced playing a card-based board game shouldn’t run away in fear without first at least investing the time to fully grasp the concepts behind the action. There’s a lengthy set of rules and guidelines that come with the game to flesh tings out, but to really wrap your head around what Culdcept is about you’re looking at a few hours of getting your feet wet first.

Therein lies one of the core issues with Culdcept Saga and this genre as a whole. Today’s gamer isn’t someone who can sit for a handful of hours just to learn the concepts of a game so some might be put off by the initial complexities. Once you do wade through the list of rules and thumb through the manual you’ll realize that the lengthy — we’re talking upwards of three hours for one encounter — battles provide a good bit of fun.

It’s just too bad that the gameplay never truly expands into anything beyond what you’re originally playing. Sure, it adds in small tweaks and changes like different land types and (of course) the ever expanding list of creatures and spells that you can hold in your deck, but you never feel like you’re developing a character or gaining new abilities for your hero to wield. The more advanced cards have rules attached to them so, while they are more powerful than your introductory set, they actually feel more constricting. You’ll see creature cards that can only be cast on certain land types and other cards that require you to sacrifice pieces of your deck in order to cast them.

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