Koudelka

"Flawed But Still Fun"

Koudelka... A cross between Resident Evil and a strategy RPG. An epic horror adventure spanning four discs... Well, how does it stack up? Let's find out...

The game stars a young woman named Koudelka. She hears a voice calling out for her help, and she has strange visions. She heads to Nemeton Abbey. Breaking into the building, through its gable, she drops to the ground and finds a man who is near death. She is then attacked by a monster, and so begins her first battle.

There are numerous FMVs in the game, which are all done quite well and do a great job of telling the story, which becomes much more interesting, eventually, than the initial ''why are there monsters here?'' It's full of betrayal, murder, and death.

The in-game graphics are sometimes used during certain conversations, as you meet different people throughout Nemeton Abbey. There are lots of plot twists to keep you interested.

There is also so pretty good voice-acting in the game. Yes, GOOD acting. Whoever plays Koudelka does mess it up a bit, for the most part, does a great job. That's something that can't be said for a ton of the games out there.

Two other people will join Koudelka's in her quest to find the origins of the monsters that dwell in the abbey: Edward and James. The battles deifintely get a bit more interesting after they join but still aren't overly eventful.

The battles in the game are all random, meaning they can happen at any time. Battles take place on a seven-by-seven square area... Kind of small. The battle screens all feature a floor, with tiles slightly matching the ones of the room you are in, against a boring blue to black background. Coulda used some livening up, I'll say that.

Battles can also be too easy. Even the final boss in the game was easy for me -I won in no time and didn't have to heal at ALL. Of course, there is ONE super hard battle in the game...

Leveling up your characters is also too easy and can make the bosses that much easier. All save points in the game will fully heal all your character's HP and MP. Just level up around one of those, and you'll never have any trouble with the game at all. Oh, well... It can be forgiven.

You control your three characters around the battle field. Each turn they have, you can either have them cast a spell, move, wait, or change weapons, and of course, the most obvious, attack. When it is your turn, you must move near the monster you want to attack before you can hit it (unless you are using a gun or something similar.) Each character can move a certain amount of squares each time.

After your character attacks, they will be forced to stay right where they are (probably next to the enemy) and get pummeled. It really won't matter, though, and you'll probably hardly ever need to heal. I made it through the game only using healing magic a couple times and NEVER using a single item. Just goes to show how easy the game is, huh?

During battles, for some reason, all the blood is green... Even when your characters are hit. I have no idea why this was done, and red blood would have worked just fine with me. I was constantly thinking how stupid the green blood looked.

Luckily, random battles don't appear NEAR as much as, let's say, Final Fantasy, the king of random battles. You can usually make it through a couple rooms before a random battle comes up... UNLIKE our example we just used.

There are plenty of different weapons and items to find throughout your quest. ANY character can equip ANY weapon. There are many different kinds of hand-to-hand weapons and guns (which require ammunition.) Some weapons have a chance of breaking, however, which can be annoying. Some weapons just seem to not last very long.

The exploration is similar to any survival horror game. You explore dimly lit corridors, all featuring pre-rendered backgrounds. One key difference from most survival horror games, however, is the fact that Koudelka moves in WHATEVER direction you push, relative to the camera angle. This makes travelling the abbey just that much easier.

The menu screen is also so easy to use -very straight-forward and simple... Not that you'll be looking at the status screen much. There isn't much use for any of the options in the menus. You'll hardly ever be re-equipping or healing and such.

There really aren't many puzzles in Koudelka. There's really NOTHING to solve. You simply make your way around, grabbing the ocassional key to get you through. Sure, it's different sometimes, but mainly finding keys is all you gotta do. You'll definitely never get stuck for very long in this game.

The music in this game is OK. You'll quickly grow tired of hearing that annoying battle music (especially that stupid blaring part -you'll know what I'm talking about when you play it.) Other than the battle music, everything is fine.

The character graphics aren't anything to write home about, but they certainly aren't bad. The pre-rendered backgrounds are up to par with anything that Capcom has dished out, though. The lighting in the environments is also used nicely, adding to the great feel of the game.

While it doesn't exactly dish out the scares, it does have a rather creepy and suspenseful atmosphere. The dark and gloomy areas do have a certain spooky feeling to them.

The game is somewhat linear. Although there is one event that is affected by what you do in the game and two endings, you probably won't want to play through again (and you won't need to to get both endings!)

I have to recommend that you rent this one first. It sure wouldn't be worth its price to most people. Besides, you should be able to beat it on a rental anyway, eliminating the need to own it.

PROS:
-Nice pre-rendered backgrounds
-Random battles aren't too frequent
-Good atmosphere
CONS:
-Battles are boring
-Game is too easy

SCORE BOARD:

GRAPHICS: 8/10 - No problems here

CONTROL: 8/10 - Simple and easy to use

SOUND: 5/10 - Ugh... Battle music

REPLAY: 3/10 - You'll probably never want to play it again

ENJOYMENT: 5/10 - Not too fun...

DIFFICULTY: Very Easy - No challenge at all... Um, I've never even seen the Game Over screen

RENT

OVERALL: 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/01, Updated 08/14/01