Video Game Review - Culdcept (2003 - Sony Playtation2)

There was a time, before Yu-Gi-Oh, when a collectible card game captured the socially disenfranchised youth of America with a magic wholly unrelated to the bond between a boy and his electric rat. Before that, another game made a point about how capitalism rocks the world through the mighty power of the thimble. For the record, I love the former and hate the latter of the two games described. The mish-mash of the two games, Culdcept, is an even-handed merger of the two.

From what's gleaned in the opening animation, the game employs grand artwork from some Japanese fantasy artists to tell the story of the goddess Culdra and her book Culdcept--translated as "the book of creation" in some language. There's some bullshit about how people on the world she lords over used the cards in the book (those people are called Cepters) to wage wars and, if they get the entire book, can become a GOD.

Cue the plot: There's a rogue Cepter called Geminigh going about destroying all the worlds previously created by other Cepters, prompting Culdra to send her magic cane (it talks!) to search for the Chosen One™ who will defeat the evil Geminigh. Naturally, that person is you.

With a cast of characters sure to make you laugh (by their trash talk and animated sprites alone), Culdcept ain't nothin' but the love child of Magic: the Gathering and Monopoly. Whether you win or lose, you get cards (spells, artifacts and creatures with perks like First Strike and a better version of Magic's Banding called Support). The lands on the Monopoly-like game board (with permutations) provide you with the magic needed to cast, but it needs to be occupied, much like the little green houses in Monopoly. When a chain of lands of the same element is obtained, the price of the lands goes up and the person who stops on your land must pay in magic. If they can't pay, they've got to sacrifice their lands or stocks until they can pay and be in the black while achieving a set number of gross or total magic.

Speaking of black, this game is a lot like Magic: The Gathering, but is missing the black mana of swamps and artifact creatures. Where Magic's white mana is now yellow and representative of wind, both the artifact and black creatures are mixed into a color category called Neutral. Hardly a compromise, considering that black cards are not neutral in any way.

Culdcept can get real cheap on you sometimes; you'll start out good and lose it all. Other times you'll have no creature cards--this game's 'Mulligan'--and have to walk the board discarding until you inevitably come out on top. This is an example of the game's many virtues. Culdcept allows you to have up to 10 different books of cards to battle with, giving you the opportunity to alter the 50 card deck you have or to switch between decks you've created. The game keeps stats on your battles and allows you to fight Cepters you've already beaten in Story Mode (one of 4 modes of play) for practice AND more cards to complete the entire collection. You can even trade cards via the Import/Export option with PS2 Memory cards. It's almost as though they thought of everything; sadly, they didn't. This game has one real problem: the game option 'Suspend". Suspend is the game's version of Battle Save or QuickSave, but not really. While those features in other games just stop the game to be resumed at a later time, Suspend does that and fucks you over by not giving you cards, gallery images or medals whether you win or lose. This can be a problem when you have interruptions that requre you to leave the house, barring your wanton waste of electricity.

Ultimately, this game is awesome and damn-near perfect, but only for those with nothing better to do during the summer. If you do choose to buy or rent it, prepare to surprise yourself by the speed you'll learn the game of Culdcept.