Review: Culdcept Saga for Xbox 360
Culdcept Saga is a new card-based game from Namco Bandai. It may have a strange name and an other-worldly look, but this is not a game to be ignored.
Graphically, the title features very interesting and stylized people–sort of a mix of anime and Tolkein’s Middle Earth. The Dungeons & Dragons type characters are inside the cards, and the anime characters are in charge of the cards. Basically, they are the real world as far as the game’s concerned.
The gameplay is fast and addictive, which really surprised me. Many times card games are particularly tough to get into unless there is a large built-in infrastructure, such as with “Magic” or if the game is meant to support one, such as with the PlayStation 3’s Eye of Judgment.
The semblance of a story that frames the gameplay can basically be ignored. I tried to follow along with it, but quickly tired of it. The game itself makes a lot more sense, though.
You move around a board, taking turns picking up cards, rolling virtual dice, casting spells, and more. As you land on unoccupied squares, you can set up your cards. When dropped onto the spaces, they basically come to life, kind of like Battle Chess.
As you go around the board, you can pick up bonuses and additional magic, which you invest in your creatures to level up the lands they occupy. String a few like-colored properties together, and it increases all of their power. This is somewhat reminiscent of Monopoly, but it’s definitely a different dynamic.
The battles themselves are similar to many card games in that the action is representative of violence, not violent itself. For example, a sword slashing through another card, which falls in half, as opposed to a sword slashing through another character.
The games continue for about an hour or so, depending on how lucky you are and how well you execute. Although there are clearly preset magic totals that you must achieve, I felt like it took much longer than I would have expected. I was cleaning the CPU’s clock, and then all of a sudden I hit the magic total and got the “W.”
The biggest drawback to this title could also be its biggest advantage. You could consider it a real time waster or an enjoyable title that you could spend hours upon hours on; both are true. Regardless of how you look at it, you can drop many hours into the game without getting anywhere, so to speak.
All told, Culdcept Saga is a game that many people will ignore, due to its strange name and card-based dynamic, which many associate with tired, old gameplay. It’s quite enjoyable, and I’d suggest that teen+ gamers at least give it a rent. It’s a surprisingly solid title, which defies its packaging and genre.
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