Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Culdcept Saga is the sequel to the forgot about PS2 game Culdcept. It is set-up like a board game in the same tradition as Monopoly but where you only roll dice in the classic board game, Culdcept Saga incorporates a deep card battling system like Magic: The Gathering in a Mario Party style game-board. As for a story, you are a boy in a poor village who sells himself to a trader only to find that you have the special give of battling with Cards.

What's Hot
The card battling system Culdcept features is a sight to behold. Not only are there millions of deck strategies, the way Culdcept pioneers a new method for card duels. You travel around a board (think Mario Party) and start claiming board pieces (think Monopoly). If you land in your opponent's claimed square, a duel takes place. The object is to gain points and by fighting, you can win or lose those precious points. Creatures are placed into four categories and have benefits if their type matches the board square type.

As you progress in rounds, you'll notice that your strategy needs to continually shift because you never know what kind of dice roll you will get. Culdcept is flexible enough that no one deck can dominate an entire match. Part of the reason is because there are so many cards to choose from around 400. It seems with each match, you find another nugget of depth and you can nuance your gameplay style further down the rabbit hole. This extreme level of depth carries Culdcept far.

At first, all the nuances might seem daunting. However, Culdcept is extremely accessible for anyone that wants to give the game a shot. With easy and fun tutorials, the game ramps you into more strategy as you get more comfortable with the mechanics of deck building. That is not to say the game isn't as rewarding for experts because they will find the most entertainment out of the title because of the all the tiny intricacies. No matter what category you fall into, you will let time slip away as you play "just one more match," especially if to take your deck online with Xbox Live.



What's Not
Culdcept nails gameplay execution. It must have forgotten about the value of presentation. The illustrations on the cards themselves are nice but everything else barely passes as acceptable. You never see monsters battle, just their 2D cards on a screen with limited animations. The world and characters aren't detailed at all either.

The game itself bends and breaks genres left and right, it still gets stuck being labeled a niche title. The heavy card battle gameplay isn't going to turn a lot of people's cranks, even though Culdcept when the extra mile to make the game mechanics accessible to everyone that wants to give the game a go.

Final Word
Culdcept is a deceptive game. At first glance, it looks like the game would too complex to understand. The graphics are barely acceptable and the voice acting is bad. At second glance, when you get down to the woodwork, Culdcept starts to shine. The game is easy to grasp, there is tons of depth and you'll spend hours playing without realizing it. The price point (MSRP of $39.99) is a good selling point for those curious enough to try it.