So? What's wrong with this? It's like an RPG version of Resident Evil and it's not bad. It is set in Wales, which is good, although naturally the entire populace of Aberystwyth doesn't speak, as you might expect, with a Welsh accent, no indeed, they speak with American accents -- but we British are used to this.
The game has you wandering around this Welsh monastery, like it is Resident Evil and you fight monsters like they are in Final Fantasy 9. Plus you have to power-up your stats like it's Final Fantasy.
The characters seem alright. The lead female is a typical short skirted, long legged, suspender wearing kick ass, not unlike Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil movie. This is very good. The lead male is pretty none decrepit American but the priest is fun, he's a nice and zealous bible-bashing type and all told I liked the scripting and the story. SNK did a much better job than Capcom ever did of this.
Straight away I'm going to say I liked this - but I seem to be in a minority of one. A quick cruise around the Interweb and, well, I don't know, the "6 out of 10s" this game gets seems a little harsh.
Sure the list of what appear to be common criticisms are indeed valid. First off, it's random battle-tastic. Not, I hasten to add, as random battle-tastic as a 'proper' Japanese RPGs but there is a fair amount of it. It doesn't bother me, but a lot of you I know get your panties all knotted up over it.
Next the weapon system. You have to find your weapons, and eventually they break. It's true. Having read a few comments out-there, you might think this is a crime of Charles Manson proportions, but honestly? It's not. I mean, Koudelka, the lead strumpet, has been knocking seven-shades of crap out of enemies all night with the same pipe. It's still working fine. Edward admittedly has gone through the gun and a sword, but honestly, it didn't make me break down in tears. 'Tis not that bad. I swear.
The good bits, the bits the belly-achers on the web forget to mention? Firstly, is the atmosphere. Which is fitting. It's creepy, it's 1800's and it's tastefully done. Did they capture the atmosphere of 12th Century Welsh monastery? Yes. Well as best they could with 32,000 colours and 2Mb of RAM. Secondly the graphics. As good as RE2 easily. The beasties you fight are very impressive. At one stage early on you stumble across a Mummyfied Mummy in a wedding dress, while you are trying to knock her out with a two-handed axe, you can't help but be impressed by the 3D animated cockroaches that act as her support. It is very good.
...the one web moan about this game is the music. It is indeed rubbish, but seriously, is it "a disaster"? No. It's not great; True. But it's not a disaster. Honest.
If I'm truthful the first twenty minutes of the game were indeed irritating. The controls aren't Resident Evil like, and you spend a while wrestling with them, but then unlike the vocal minority of the Internet, I enjoy the benefits of a frontal cortex and opposable thumbs: Good grief - I adapted! Give it go! You might too! Hurrah!
Finding doors and exits is something of a chore initially too, until you get your eye-in so to speak and everything seems a little confusing. I also played it initially on a PS3 which did a great a job of smoothing the jaggies in Koudelka thighs, but the PS3 seems to make it all a bit dark, and finding my way out of the second room had me on the brink of slamming the controller down and cursing the air. Switch off all the smoothing and unwidening the screen restoring the game to it's original Playstation glory and after that, things went swimmingly.
The game is spread over four Discs, god only knows why, as I rushed through discs one and two in a few hours, maybe the developers, SNK, felt more discs were reassuring to the one-disc-RPG equals no value of for money fraternity... that's not a criticism mind you, just a question.
All in all I think it's alright, and probably more deserving of an 8 out of 10 or higher but then scores out of ten are a load of rot anyway. If pressed to sum up Koudelka in a single world I'd say inventive. The story seems inventive, the plot, characters and monsters are inventive and the delivery is inventive.
Buy it - you can get it for under a fiver.
3DOKid
