Culdcept SAGA

"Intercept my Culdcept!"

Culdcept Saga is the follow up to the original Culdcept that came out on PS2 in 2003. Culdcept is wildly popular in Japan, but had enough of a following in North America to warrant a sequel on the Xbox 360. As odd as it may sound, Culdcept Saga is essentially a hybrid of the collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering, and the popular board game, Monopoly. This hybrid proves to be an incredibly powerful combo that yields a fun and addictive game.

Players control “Cepters,” who are people that are gifted with the ability to handle the power of the cards. In the campaign you control a young lad who dreams of one day being a Cepter, and with a little luck runs into a lady who recognizes his special power and bestows upon him a deck of the almighty Cepter cards. Players traverse across a variety of boards that all have four types of territories (fire, water, wind, and earth). When players land on these territories they can summon a creature from one of their cards to “capture” the land.

When capturing multiple territories of the same type, players form chains (i.e. Monopolies) that increase the territories' toll value. Additionally, players can use gold to level up the territory in order to increase the toll. When the opponent lands on a territory, they can either pay the toll or summon one of their own creatures, where if they successfully oust them in battle, they will capture the land from the opponent. However, if they fail they will lose both their creature and gold. Lapping the board, and capturing land nets points, and victory is achieved either by totally bankrupting the opponent of gold or by whoever meets a predetermined amount of points first. If all of this sounds overwhelming, don't worry, Culdcept Saga features a tutorial that explains all of the intricacies of the game as the first round of the campaign is played.

Getting past those first few rounds is a challenge, as you start off with a weak deck. It took me five tries before I finally got past the first opponent in the campaign. Win or lose, cards are awarded at the end of each round to help flesh out and upgrade the deck. Players can save up to several types of decks in their profile which saves a lot of time organizing specific creature or value-oriented decks. I would have preferred a couple of easier opponents to help ease me into the campaign, but the campaign is seemingly all about building your deck to get it ready for some intense local or online multiplayer.

Graphically, Culdcept Saga's antiquated visuals will leave a lot to be desired. They don't necessarily look bad; it is just that they're several years behind the times. For what it's worth, they are marginally improved over the graphics in the PS2 game, and the card art still looks amazing like it did before. There is a fitting medieval-esque score, and the sound effects are all on the spot. One other thing I would have liked to have seen in the game, or ideally through downloadable content, is a board editor. I could only imagine the many possibilities of the unique boards the Culdcept community could create.

Culdcept Saga is still a good package all things told. It got delayed over half a year after its Japan release because of some nasty technical issues, but the developers ironed them all out for the North American release. If you dig card battle and/or board games, then you owe it to yourself to at least give this a try. For a MSRP of $40, it would be a disservice to this game to pass up on all this content.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/03/08

Game Release: Culdcept SAGA (US, 02/05/08)