2nd Op By

Chi Kong Lui 3.5 RATING

It's too bad their characterizations and somewhat decent voice acting all go to waste on utterly poor design that never properly bridges the RPG and survival horror genres. What makes survival horror games so annoying is how exploring and finding items in the prerendered backgrounds almost always proves to be a rigid and awkward experience. Koudelka makes this quality about a thousand times worse by adding random attacks -- more typically found in RPGs -- to the mix. So not only is spotting necessary objects in the backgrounds nearly impossible, but its further compounded by nagging attacks. Of course this wouldn't be so torturous is the battle system was good, but sadly it isn't. Dale pretty much mentioned all the negative aspects of the battle system, and there isn't anything I can say in its defense.

What hammered in the final nail in the coffin for me was how poorly the puzzles were setup. Players are basically forced to run around and recover objects that don't really make sense, and for some sick reason the developers thought it would be fun to have players do a great deal of confusing backtracking. Either the developers were just plain mad, or they were unnaturally trying to stretch the length of the game. The answer to that question will remain a mystery, but it doesn't take a detective to know that Koudelka is a wretched experience and has about as much redeeming value as its cast of rogues.

Public Opinion

jason 4.0 Rating

Let's see:

Intriguing story.
Some chilling CG moments.
EXCELLENT character interactions made apparent through good voice acting that help bring the characters to life.

Sounds good so far? Well, it's all ruined by an awful battle system. It was a struggle for me because I think I wasn't leveled high enough for boss monsters -- and I had no interest in those necessary level-up random battles due to the mind-numbing battle system. It's like the developers tried to merge some strat-RPG style tactics into a standard turn-based system, but forgot to check the results. I think half of my battles were spent playing hide-n-seek around a checkerboard. And I found the whole thing both difficult and confusing -- and this is from an RPG veteran. (That may be because I wasn't leveling up enough though; what a catch-22!)

This game is worth checking out in conjunction with its excellent sequel Shadow Hearts, which shares some storyline elements. But you'd find it less painful to grab the story from a FAQ.

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