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Developer: Sacnoth
Publisher: Infogrames
Genre: RPG
Region: NTSC
Format:
Release Date: 30 Nov 99
User Rating
9.6 (7 votes) -
Overview
Koudelka revolves around the lead character, Koudelka Iasant, a witch ostracized by her village but summoned to the Nemeton Monestary. During her quest to investigate the mysteries of this menacing place, she meets up with 2 other characters - Edward Plunkett and James O'Flaherty. Both have their own unique reasons of being at the monestary; Edward who is an adventurer/treasure hunter seeks the riches of the monestary, while James is bishop on special orders from the Vatican.
Koudelka's storyline is very entertaining, filled with suspense, intrigue and horror. The exchanges between the characters are a joy to hear, as they all have differing personalities and beliefs. This, mixed with the plethora of well-placed FMV cut-scenes makes the storyline a complelling one.
Gameplay
Koudelka is essentially a mix between survival/horror games, such as Resident Evil and traditional turn-based RPG. This is arguably a great and novel idea, but the execution by developers Sacnoth leaves much to be desired. A plus point is that Koudelka dispenses the Resident Evil-type of controls in favour of directional control scheme (as in Metal Gear Solid and Parasite Eve). It makes moving your characters around much easier and less tedious.
One of the gripes that I have about the game, is the random battles. Firstly, there's too much random battles in Koudelka. You can't move freely for more than a few steps before triggering battles. While this may be a good thing (e.g. for levelling up), but the battles themselves are unspectacular and dull. You can move your characters around on a grid-like arena (much like Front Mission 3), but they take up too much of your playing time. This coupled with boring spells makes game pregession a needless pain.
Second is the lack of a 'shopping' option, like in RPGs. Granted they wanted to stick close to the survival/horror genre, but consider the fact that weapons break during the cource of the game. You need to re-procure them by fighting endless assortment of monsters and baddies, and this could get tedious.
Another annoying (not necessarily a fault) thing about Koudelka is the battle music, which is slow-paced and uninspiring. Battle musics should be lively and strong, as they underline the overall high-tempo of the situation. But instead we're treated with a sleep-inducing romantic tune. Not Good.
Graphics
Apart from the strong storyline, Koudelka also scores heavily in the graphics department. The characters are 3D polygonal models, much like the characeters in Resident Evil. They're well defined, and move very fluidly. The environment is suitably dark and brooding, but this more often tahn not make objects indistinguisable from the background, hindering some of the gameplay from the title.
So far so good. Then you'll begin to see faults with this game. When you get into battles, the backgrounds become very bland and uninspiring. The characters themselves are very poor cousins to their in-game counterparts.
Fun Factor
You'd think that Koudelka could salvage a few plus points, but it's simply not fun, and can be extremely frustrating at times. For one, the lack of save point hinders your progress. As they're usually available just after a boss battle, if you're defeated, then it's take a while to find your way back from the previous save.
Overall
Overall, Koudelka has the potential to be something special, but fall flat on its face in terms of execution. Even the 4CD filled with amazing FMVs and excellent voiceover can't save this abysmal title. Avoid at all costs!
- Gameplay
5.0 - Graphics
9.0 - Fun Factor
5.0 - Overall
5.0
