Culdcept the First Review: Perserving History | The Gamerheads Podcast
Platform reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
Also on: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (Steam)
Price: $29.99
1997. My first year of college. Well, technically, I started at a community college, dropped out, and worked for a year before returning to a four-year school. A lot was happening in the gaming space. Magic: The Gathering already had a strong presence in the gaming community. Final Fantasy VII released that year. And a new IP started: Culdcept.
It wouldn’t be until 2003 that the series hit the United States. And even then, we didn’t see the first entry in the series until now, twenty-nine years later. And it still holds up well to this day.
Now, for those of you who may not be familiar with Culdcept, it’s a mashup between a board game and a collectible card game. There certainly seems to be a lot of influence from Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering. The rules are pretty straightforward: you move your character around a board by rolling dice. There are four elemental spaces on the board: Green (Earth), Blue (Water), Red (Fire), and Yellow (Air). Each creature card represents these elements as well. And while these characters can be placed anywhere, placing the same elemental type of cards on the same elemental space gives that creature a bonus to defense and/or attack, the two main stats on each card. There are also neutral cards that can be placed anywhere. And finally, there are spells and item cards that can turn the tide of battle as well.
Each player can have up to fifty cards in their book (deck), and while it can be a mix of any of these cards, it’s best to have more creatures in your book. Placing characters on the spaces is the most important aspect of the game. When an opponent lands on these spaces, they can either try to defeat the creature with their own creature, using spells and items to help them in battle, or pay the magic toll associated with the space. If they defeat the creature, they take over the land. However, if they fail (or simply decide not to try and take the land), they still need to pay the magic toll.
Magic is the currency of the game. It acts as both the currency you spend and what’s needed to be victorious. Playing cards (both creatures and others) costs magic. Leveling up spaces costs magic, but the toll for that space goes up with each level. Each player has magic at hand, which is what they can spend to place cards and level up territories, and total magic, which includes the magic they have in hand plus the value of their lands. Every time a player completes a loop around the board and gets back to the start (the castle), the game counts up how much total magic they have based on the lands they own and grants them additional magic they can spend.
Each board or level has a certain amount of total magic needed to win. As you might have guessed, the higher levels require more magic to win.
I was first introduced to Culdcept on the Nintendo 3DS with the release of Culdcept Revolt and have been wanting a new game in the series ever since. I was lucky enough to play both Culdcept Begins (which is a prequel) and Culdcept the First.
Culdcept the First does a fantastic job of preserving the look and feel of the original Sega Saturn release. Perhaps a bit too much. My only real complaint is the fact that the B button is used as a confirmation and A is used to back out of menus. I can’t tell you how many times I thought I was backing out of a menu, only to confirm a selection I didn’t mean to do. And there’s no way to configure the inputs either.
What the game does offer are some features that make it a bit more manageable. First, there’s a rewind button, which allows me to go back to the last milestone I passed (either a castle or a fort). And then there is the bonus cards option, which grants me additional cards after a match is played. Of the two, I used the latter more often. Gaining cards and building new books is the best part of a Culdcept game.
The game is challenging. The first board requires 5000 magic points to win, which is the same as Culdcept Begins. However, the currency earned per lap feels like a lot less in Culdcept the First than what is earned per land in Begins, which is probably why each match lasts quite a bit longer than the prequel.
The opponents in Culdcept the First are no slouches either. Not only are they taunting me throughout the entire match, but they don’t make mistakes. The game doesn’t do much to ramp up the opponent's difficulty, whereas I feel like Begins did a better job of providing some easier opponents in the first couple of battles so the player can get used to the game.
A match in Culdcept the First can easily last an hour, especially in the later boards, and losing by a few hundred points can feel, well, frustrating. That’s why I suggest turning on the additional bonus cards, as this allows you to build a stronger book faster.
Culdcept the First has some really interesting boards as well. There are boards where I needed to visit all four forts (North, South, East, and West) before returning to the castle. There were also shrines that, when landing on their spaces, either granted a gift (for example, not having to pay the next toll) or a curse (like all creatures receiving a twenty percent reduction in health).
I also loved the card art and the variety of cards, even if they look a bit dated. I can only have three of the same card in each book (even though I may own more of those cards). This levels out the field because some of these cards can be very powerful. Some cards grant attack equal to the number of territories I own of the same color. Some creatures require the opponent to stop on the space the creature is placed on, and if that space is leveled up to the max, that could be very costly. And the computer opponents seem to know how to play the cards really well. This puts new players at a disadvantage, especially since part of the game (and what I enjoy most) is finding out what cards work well together. The computer already seems to have a deep knowledge of this.
Besides the story mode, there is also a local multiplayer mode where you can have up to four players. There isn’t an online option. Which is a shame, because it’s an addition in Culdcept Begins. However, it’s staying true to its original release, so I can understand why it wasn’t included.
Final Grade: B
I’m so glad that Culdcept the First finally made its way to the West. This port truly preserves the original game. Fans of the series will be able to jump right in and play this game. But for new Cepters, I’d suggest playing Culdcept Begins first. It has the advantage of lessons learned over nearly thirty years of Culdcept, more modern mechanics, and the pace is much better for learning the game. Then, after playing the prequel (and discovering your new favorite series), jump into Culdcept the First.
Review code provided by Overload PR Team
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