It's been a long time since my last review so I have likely been forgotten about, which is fine by me. Its the sort of thing that happens when one does not possess the money to purchase new games for the prospect of reviewing them. Thus did I purchase this little gem for the X360 because it looked interesting and I could get it for less then 20 dollars.
Lets start with the concept. In this game you are a magical sorcerer who uses cards to summon beasts and minions to fight your enemies, give your monsters weapons or armour, and cast spells ranging from broken to useless in an attempt to defeat your opponent in a "magic the gathering" sort of fashion. At this point, being someone who appreciates a well made trading card game, Culdcept saga has me interested. I have to admit I like the strategy involved in building a deck, assembling combinations, and executing well planed out strategies while fighting the factor of luck that rules your card flipping destiny. That said this game adds a new dimension that I cannot really place in either the hit or shit piles.
The game takes place on a board with tiles for all four elements scattered around like someone ate too many skittles and threw up on the ground. These are territories that you have to summon your monsters on, and can be leveled up. The only time you fight your opponent is if you land in one of their territories or vise versa. If either one of those happens and the invader fails in their attack they must pay a toll determined by the level of the territory. Wait a minute this seems familiar.......holy shit this is monopoly! They combined Monopoly with a CCG! I said I can't tell if that's terrible or unspeakably awesome. I recall many nights playing monopoly with friends (usually until three or four in the morning as monopoly is a game that seemingly never ends) and the cheerful glee that washed over me as I took what was left of their corporate empire to line the inside of my golden toilets in my offices on boardwalk and park place.
This game rather shamelessly combines card collecting and battling with the randomness and finance of monopoly and I have to say that the horrible creature struggling forth on its three legs is actually pretty fun. There is a huge variety of cards, effects, spells, and gear, the 50 card decks allow for some fun designs, and the elements on territories, while useful for same element creatures as they get a toughness boost, is not so necessary that you can't make a deck of any element you choose. The artwork for the cards is also very well done, and cards look different enough that they are interesting to look at, though the lack of a 3D battle system means that you Just look at the cards while the game decides who the winner is, but to be honest that adds a refreshing element of speed to an otherwise slow game. Unfortunately strategy is almost pointless since everyone's movements are determined completely at random so you can spend all your resources upgrading a terrain only to have your opponent never land on the damn thing all game. That said I have complaints, so lets get the eviscerater out.
To win you do not have to kill your opponents, and in fact cannot remove them from the game. You have to accumulate a certain net worth which is a combination of your territories and your total gold. So your opponent can be beaten into the ground several times the game still isn't over because you are worth enough, which is a blow to a persons self image (har har har predictable joke there)
First of all, most CCG games, either single player or online, all have some way to acquire cards with fairly regular consistency. A card store, card traders, card combining, something. In this game you only get a handful of cards every time you win, which for a regular CCG would be fairly regularly but as stated before because this game is very similar to monopoly each fight can take upwards of an hour or two. ( I had one fight last all of 3 and a half hours) So acquiring cards is not too dissimilar to work. The battles can get pretty samey as well since acquiring cards is completely at random so after an hour long fight you gingerly look to your reward only to learn that you did not earn a single new card for your effort.
The storyline is completely linear with the story taking care of itself and guiding you to each board before plopping you down and expecting you to win the next fight, so the story itself is not only almost non existent but completely pointless. The characters are so predictable that classing them as two dimensional insults two dimensional characters everywhere. To the games credit you can skip every cut scene and to be quite honest I highly recommend this to get to the game play.
Finally there is no quit fight option...at all......ever. If you are in a battle that you are going to lose the game will not let you quit, instead you will actually have t reset the console. It's like the games programmers wanted to instill a sense of fair play and honour in its player base and said, no you can't surrender you need to give your opponent respect by finishing out the game. The problem with this is that most gamers, especially when dealing with someone online or dealing with a computer opponent are dicks and thus don't give two shits about being noble, respectful, or honourable and thus all this does is serve to put extra strain on the system.
One saving grace of this game is that it has offline and online multi player and I have to admit teaming up against the computer with a friend in a 2 vs 2 or fighting in a four player free for all turns a quiet game of monopoly into a CCG clusterfuck of epic proportions. Though the sheer power of your deck is sometimes determined by how many times you grind the same boards to get new cards, the game keeps it interesting enough that battles are never repeats even if the map and opponent are the same.
So all in all I recommend this game if you have even a passing interest in trading card games or just like the idea of Monopoly..........with KILLING!
Terezar
Lets start with the concept. In this game you are a magical sorcerer who uses cards to summon beasts and minions to fight your enemies, give your monsters weapons or armour, and cast spells ranging from broken to useless in an attempt to defeat your opponent in a "magic the gathering" sort of fashion. At this point, being someone who appreciates a well made trading card game, Culdcept saga has me interested. I have to admit I like the strategy involved in building a deck, assembling combinations, and executing well planed out strategies while fighting the factor of luck that rules your card flipping destiny. That said this game adds a new dimension that I cannot really place in either the hit or shit piles.
The game takes place on a board with tiles for all four elements scattered around like someone ate too many skittles and threw up on the ground. These are territories that you have to summon your monsters on, and can be leveled up. The only time you fight your opponent is if you land in one of their territories or vise versa. If either one of those happens and the invader fails in their attack they must pay a toll determined by the level of the territory. Wait a minute this seems familiar.......holy shit this is monopoly! They combined Monopoly with a CCG! I said I can't tell if that's terrible or unspeakably awesome. I recall many nights playing monopoly with friends (usually until three or four in the morning as monopoly is a game that seemingly never ends) and the cheerful glee that washed over me as I took what was left of their corporate empire to line the inside of my golden toilets in my offices on boardwalk and park place.
This game rather shamelessly combines card collecting and battling with the randomness and finance of monopoly and I have to say that the horrible creature struggling forth on its three legs is actually pretty fun. There is a huge variety of cards, effects, spells, and gear, the 50 card decks allow for some fun designs, and the elements on territories, while useful for same element creatures as they get a toughness boost, is not so necessary that you can't make a deck of any element you choose. The artwork for the cards is also very well done, and cards look different enough that they are interesting to look at, though the lack of a 3D battle system means that you Just look at the cards while the game decides who the winner is, but to be honest that adds a refreshing element of speed to an otherwise slow game. Unfortunately strategy is almost pointless since everyone's movements are determined completely at random so you can spend all your resources upgrading a terrain only to have your opponent never land on the damn thing all game. That said I have complaints, so lets get the eviscerater out.
To win you do not have to kill your opponents, and in fact cannot remove them from the game. You have to accumulate a certain net worth which is a combination of your territories and your total gold. So your opponent can be beaten into the ground several times the game still isn't over because you are worth enough, which is a blow to a persons self image (har har har predictable joke there)
First of all, most CCG games, either single player or online, all have some way to acquire cards with fairly regular consistency. A card store, card traders, card combining, something. In this game you only get a handful of cards every time you win, which for a regular CCG would be fairly regularly but as stated before because this game is very similar to monopoly each fight can take upwards of an hour or two. ( I had one fight last all of 3 and a half hours) So acquiring cards is not too dissimilar to work. The battles can get pretty samey as well since acquiring cards is completely at random so after an hour long fight you gingerly look to your reward only to learn that you did not earn a single new card for your effort.
The storyline is completely linear with the story taking care of itself and guiding you to each board before plopping you down and expecting you to win the next fight, so the story itself is not only almost non existent but completely pointless. The characters are so predictable that classing them as two dimensional insults two dimensional characters everywhere. To the games credit you can skip every cut scene and to be quite honest I highly recommend this to get to the game play.
Finally there is no quit fight option...at all......ever. If you are in a battle that you are going to lose the game will not let you quit, instead you will actually have t reset the console. It's like the games programmers wanted to instill a sense of fair play and honour in its player base and said, no you can't surrender you need to give your opponent respect by finishing out the game. The problem with this is that most gamers, especially when dealing with someone online or dealing with a computer opponent are dicks and thus don't give two shits about being noble, respectful, or honourable and thus all this does is serve to put extra strain on the system.
One saving grace of this game is that it has offline and online multi player and I have to admit teaming up against the computer with a friend in a 2 vs 2 or fighting in a four player free for all turns a quiet game of monopoly into a CCG clusterfuck of epic proportions. Though the sheer power of your deck is sometimes determined by how many times you grind the same boards to get new cards, the game keeps it interesting enough that battles are never repeats even if the map and opponent are the same.
So all in all I recommend this game if you have even a passing interest in trading card games or just like the idea of Monopoly..........with KILLING!
Terezar
