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Koudelka: A pleasant surprise

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 17
Date: August 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I picked this game up never having heard of it before. What I found was a compelling story line, a unique main character, beautiful graphics, excellent voice acting, but a less-than-great battle system.

The story line is definitely one of the strong points of the game; talk about unexpected twists. The plot folds out through written documents found throughout the game, secrets that your companions are hiding, and through bizarre NPCs, including a quirky several-hundred-year-old man. The characters were unique, especially Koudelka herself, who's a no-nonsense, sarcastic tough cookie.

I've heard people complain that the graphics are too bleak and colorless, but I think they fit the atmosphere. Plus, it reminds you that the game takes place over 100 years ago. The cut-scenes are gorgeous; the characters' mouths match the words they're speaking. The voice-acting itself is much clearer than other games I've heard, which is good since there isn't any text to follow.

However, the RPG battle system is where I started to get annoyed and disappointed. You work with three characters on a grided battle zone. The battles drag on, especially when you're building up weapons and magic spells. You have less than 10 magic spells to unlock, but they get stronger with each use. The weapons do the same; the more you use axes, your axe strength goes up. Unfortunately, weapons have a VERY bad habit of breaking after a few whacks. You eventually find an abundance of them, but during the first quarter of the game, my stomach was in knots since I was down to so few.

What REALLY disappointed me was the lack of scary elements. The atmosphere was perfect for things to jump out and scare the daylights out of you, but the RPG-style battles eliminated monsters walking around. PLUS, the game relies on text to explain events. In one case, you open up a closet, see a mummy lying there and a message pops up saying something like, "You open the closet and a mummy dressed in a wedding dress jumps out at you!" Could you imagine how frightening it would be if it actually jumped out at you, accompanied by appropriate music? But no. *sighs* There are many cases in the game where scariness is sacrificed.

Koudelka, overall, is worth playing. It's short enough that I was willing to sit through the whole game and enjoy it, but I was still disappointed with several elements of it.

Curious Hybrid

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: April 01, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Koudelka seems to be a survival horror game that has substituted battles from an RPG game into the action instead of "real time" encounters. As a Resident Evil fan, it was inevitable that I would have to try out this title, and in a lot of ways, I was not disappointed. First of all, the graphics and cut scenes are superb. The decrepit Abbey is beautifully recreated in the many pre-rendered backgrounds, and the characters are believeable and interesting (They fight with each other all the time, and the resulting slanging matches are often very entertaining!) As you explore the Abbey, a disturbing story unfolds, with some truly unpleasant secrets being revealed, especially in some of the written documents that appear along the way. However, I have to say that the game is let down by the implementation of the RPG battle sequences. Every now and then, at random times, there is a "woosh" and a swirl, a la Final Fantasy, and suddenly the three characters are in a huge arena, confronting a monster or three. The battles are actually very basic, you take a turn to either move position (which actually scarcely impacts on the proceedings) or cast a magic spell, or attack physically. This is followed by the enemy doing likewise until one of you is defeated. It's all incredibly slow, and after a while the battles become tedious. It's not helped by the fact that the battle music, pleasant though it is, is actually very non-threatening and relaxing! However, stick with things, and there are some real challenges to be had beating a couple of very bizarre and difficult bosses (beating the mighty Gargoyle took me well over half an hour!), and a lot of the monster designs are pretty nightmarish, so it's not all bad news. There are also lots of weapons and items to try out, which adds interest. Don't worry about the fact that weapons break after use, I never got close to running out of swords and hammers, but the infuriating thing is that you inventory soon gets full and you find yourself having to discard items you have never even used. But I enjoyed myself enough to stick around with Koudelka through to the end, so think about picking a copy up, as it seems to be going cheap everywhere now, and enjoy the sights and sounds of this brave and mostly successful merging of styles.

This is what you can expect from ex-Square employees

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: July 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I love the beautifully- written horror storyline and great FMV, especially ones with the ghost Charlotte and Koudelka (almost all of them)!. Many of the pre-rendered backrounds are quite beautiful, too, and the gameplay is fun. You explore the huge, centuries-old Nementon Monastery which at times has been a place of worship, a pretty bad prison, and the home of very strange and evil people. It is 1898 and Koudelka Iasant has been called to the remote area by an unknown woman's voice.

You travel throughout many floors of the monastary and as new events happen and you get new items, more areas become open to exploration. People are still not returning from the monastery, so you try to learn what has happened to them. It's kind of like Castlevania:SOTN in 3-D, but more serious.

Early in the game, you get two more allies: Edward, a shady charcter looking for rumored treasure, and James, this really annoying bishop who preaches to you all the time. He's so angry and fanatical about religion you'll want to kick him out of the group.

The horror is based more on suspense and terrible things that have happened in the past and are still happening, rather than zombies jumping out at you from every corner. Hardly anything jumps out at you, but it still happens sometimes. Instead, battles are turn- based like in RPG's. It is annoying how it takes so long for your characters to do anything, but you get used to it. I suggest raising agility to around 15. The battles are annoying most of the time, as in most RPG's. It's also a bit short, about 20 hours if you don't use a FAQ or walkthrough.

And the story is completely read out by the characters; there is nothing that you have to read yourself. Thankfully, this is one rare case in which the voice acting is actually good. There isn't anyone's voice thats sounds at all stupid or annoying or makes you lose respect for them like in most other games with voice acting. The voices fit the mouth movements in the movies well, because when this game was in Japanese they had English voices with subtitles. A great game except for the battles!

One last thing: many reviews in publications (such as the "Washington Post") said there were too few save points, mostly after difficult bosses. They didn't read the intruction booklet, apparently. In specific rooms without a visible save point, you can still save by pressing the "menu button" when the name of the area comes up, if there is a "S" to the left of the name.

A wonderful nightmare

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: July 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

In the game, you play as Koudelka, a young woman who has journeyed to an old monastery. After joining up with some of the people you meet there, you try to unravel the mysteries of the building...

Koudelka is one of the most frightening games made for the Playstation console. It has thrills and chills and it's characters and landscapes abound with secrets galore. The CG animations are breathtaking, and the voice-acting is on par, if not better than Metal Gear Solid. Think Resident Evil w/o all of the corny acting and nonsensical puzzles.

The games only fault lies within it's battle system, although those familiar with an RPG-style of battle won't be too out of their territory, the encounters are random, so be prepared to fight. Alot.

Other than the fighting system though, this game has some of the best stories and characters I've seen in a game, and the exchanges between the characters (in full voice) are amazing to hear, as they yell and scream at each other, struggling to figure out what is going on around them.

Do not pass this game up, you will not be dissapointed.

A very cool new survial horror/RPG game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: January 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Koudelka takes a new look on video games. It's different than most you'll find these days. It's kinda like a mix of Resident Evil and your Final fantasy-like RPG.

GOOD THINGS-It has turn-based battle screens, however, you can move your characters around the battle field, much like Final Fantasy Tactics. Only the rest is your usual RPG battle system. The level-up system is very cool. For each enemy you defeat, you get a certain amount of points, in which you can distrubute throughout your chatacters status. For example, if you recieve five points, you can choose to increase your strengh, dexterity, speed, etc. Also, you get a wide variety of sweet weapons and flashy spells. When I first bought Koudelka I was very surprised in the smooth graphics, quick load time, and high quality cinematics. The entire game has extremely good voice acting. Their speaking even moves correctly with their mouths. The general environment is very dark and gothic. Very nice.

BAD THINGS-Koudelka didn't really have many notable screw-ups to mention. Although not as violent or gory as Resident Evil, it still has its share of blood and thrills.

The story line is huge(hence the four discs). It has a LOT of unexpected twists and turns. Not to mention, Koudelka herself looks pretty sexy through the whole game. All in all, Koudelka is a new, worht-the-money experience.

Great ! Just great !

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: June 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

After being a major rpg fan I decided to try out a new kind of rpg instead of treading the same "Final Fantasy" wheel over and over again. Don't get me wrong, I love Final Fantasy and I try to get a hold of every game possible. Koudelka is a rpg/ horror game, in spite of some of all the negative things that's been said about this game - I'll go ahead and give it a shot.

Koudelka is a mixed bag, its great at times and very frustrating at others, just when you though you've defeated a certain kind of enemy, the bounce right back and kill you all over again!! and the leveling system is slow and they only seem to level every other hour, so you try out a boss and get your ass kicked - you level for an hour - and take another shot - but once again You get your ass kicked. The game moves at such a slow pace, you wander around for hours and hours without really having done anything - if this problem were fixed you could easily finish the game in 10 hours instead of 25.

But Koudelka also have some good things in it, the atsmosphere is so immersive and you get complete caught up in the story and the characters, the Monastery is one of the spookiest places I've ever played. The weapons however seems to brake once you've used them for a while - but not to worry, you'll find yourself a new bunch of better and higher evolved weapons as the game moves along. This way it won't get to frustrating.

The graphics in Koudelka are amazing, the FMV movies are fantastic and they really compliment the amazing story and the suitable characters. The atmosphere is so immersive, you can't help but to get involved - and even if you won't, the game will drag you right ind. The opening sequenze is alluring and it certainly sets the mood for the rest of the game - even though I haven't finished Koudelka yet, I look forward to see the ending, all in all Koudelka is a nice change from Final Fantasy.

Story 4.5/ 5.0
Graphics 5.0/ 5.0
Sound/ Music 4.0/ 5.0
Gameplay 3.5/ 5.0
Replay Value 4.0/ 5.0
Final Appeal 4.0/ 5.0

Not a bad game, but not so good either.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: December 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Koudelka is very interesting; it's got a nice horror feel to it, some elements of RPG thrown into the mix, but overall it's rather average. The graphics, even during the time period it was released, are great when used in prerendered backgrounds, but the character design is quite bad.

Another problem with the game is the movement and voice acting. It's rather difficult controlling the youngster as you attempt to run up stairs (using the EXACT stair-climbing from Resident Evil.. What a disappointment there) and even though the actors did a relatively good job, COME ON! They don't sound their supposed ages, and they do not have accents from where they are supposed to be from. It sounds like Konami didn't really feel up to it to make the game any better.

It's a nice entry into the survival horror field, and I like the battle system alright. You fight across a chessboard in a strategic kind of way. I HATE the bonus point distribution; it would have been better if you got a point on each attribute and had the bonus points too to do whatever you wanted with them. The game slowpaces like hell, too, offering no real fun.

If you can look past all these flaws, you'll find Koudelka a bit engrossing and a little original. I like the ghost thing as well. Don't mistake my words for something else; I'm not saying its a bad game, it just could have been much, much better.

A great quick game . . .

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: August 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

As an adult gamer I enjoyed this game - wasn't the biggest challenge or best I've every played but it held my interest, graphics were good, storyline was interesting, locales and battle were good and the game had different endings depending on the final battle.

Starts out with one character and you pick up the other two during game play. The battles were challenging without being to tough. Satisfying variety of weapons and spells - although the weapons do break after so many uses. You can also strengthen your magic with use.

Recommended!

A sad entry to a genre full of great games

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: September 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The other reviews for this game are generally accurate. The story line in nice, the voice acting is above average, the character interaction is good, the script is better than average, etc. There are a lot of nice things about this game.

That said, this game is terrible. It has major design flaws. The control system is way sub-par. The worst I've ever felt. Don't like the way Lara Croft can't round corners? It's nothing compared to how hard is to move these characters around tight little pre-rendered rooms the way you want. Remember how disappointing "Fear Effect" was? This game is worse and doesn't even let you see the background while you do combat on a chessboard that bears no relationship to the size or space of the room you're supposedly in.

Also, the combat system is about as un-fun as it gets. If you like some of those mecha-shooters you might like it but there are a dozen games out there that are *so* much better. There are ten "Final Fantasy" games, all much better. It's embarrassing to live in a world where a game as good as "Vagrant Story" is in the same general category as "Koudelka."

Do yourself a favor, get "Vagrant Story" or any of the others, don't buy this game. Or buy it from me in the Auctions. I'm going to be selling mine for $5 with free shipping.

Scary

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 08, 2002
Author: Amazon User

i bought this game...actually by accident. i wanted a new rpg to play and since this one had 4 discs i knew i would be in for a challenge. boy was i!
i loved the storyline, the graphics rocked...and the ending that i chose was rather frightening...
however..the actual battle scenes were a great disappointment, after awhile it just became frustrating (the fight scenes).
all in all it was a great game and i am going to start playing it again just to check out the other endings :-)

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