by Jay "THE FLEA" Wade
What happens when you put Final Fantasy, Resident Evil and Nightmare Creatures 2 into a blender? You'll get Koudelka. A new RPG survival horror.
Exploration and puzzles like Resident Evil, turn based battles and upgrading like in Final Fantasy in a setting from Nightmare Creatures 2.
The setting is in Wales 1898, You play as Koudelka a cold young girl with psychic and magic powers. She is drawn to a castle where the dead call to her and she can't resist Where she and a few others she'll meet along the way find out the evil deeds that took place in the castle.
The characters are wonderful in Kondelka, with real voice acting that doesn't make you shudder or laugh at. The game is also filled with FMV that are in the same league as Final Fantasy & Parasite Eve.
You explore the castle just like in Resident Evil games. And have to solve puzzles to continue your quest. Only with out the funky control and camera angles Resident Evil has.
All the dungeons, rooms and hallways look like they where designed by the RE crew.
The battle system is like most any RPG, A turn based system but added you can move characters around the battle ground. You can run afar and use a gun or magic or take them out hand to hand with swords and axes. but you'll take more damage the closer you are.
You'll battle creatures of all kinds, From the undead to monsters that look like they should be in a Final Fantasy game. You'll discover items, weapons and armor and level up characters with experience points. And when you do level up, you can place the experience points in any of the characters attributes. Put them all in one area or spread them out, it's your choice.
Any character can use any weapon found, Pistols, Shotguns, Swords, Knifes, Sledgehammers, Lead Pipes, Spears and Axes to name a few. A character can also use spells and change weapons during a battle. One complaint of on Koudelka is that you can break your weapons. So you find a cool weapon like a sledgehammer and kick some major butt then it breaks and you lose the weapon and are stuck using another weapon that isn't as good.
The game is four discs but it's only takes about 8-10 hours to beat. But compared to Resident Evil, that's twice as long.
PUBLISHER: INFOGRAMES / SNK
GRAPHICS: 9.5 MUSIC SOUND: 10 CONTROL: 8
SECRETS: 7 ORIGINALITY: 9.5 FUN & REPLAY: 9
If you loved the Final Fantasy and Resident Evil series and wished they would make a game with both aspects your prayer has been answered.OVERALL: 9