Culdcept DS is one of the more interesting Japanese titles that I’ve played on the Nintendo DS. Think of it as Monopoly, crossed with Magic: The Gathering.
It’s a board game whereby like Monopoly, you get to pass “Go” and collect money. At the beginning of each turn, you draw a card into your “hand” and your hand can consists of creature cards, equipment cards and spell cards, not unlike Magic The Gathering.
If your character is standing on a previously unoccupied tiles. you can summon a creature to occupy it. You can also play spells to enhance your character (e.g. giving it a high dice roll for that turn) or spells that would disrupt your opponent (e.g. destroying cards in his hand, destroying his creatures currently on the board).
Roll The Dice
The dice roll during your turn determines where you would land next and if you were to land on a tile with the opponent’s creature is on it, you better have a creature card in hand. With that, combat will ensue. Combat also borrows heavily from Magic The Gathering, with creatures having ATT and HP points.
You can cast your creature card and an equipment card (if you have any) to give your creature a boost in combat. If you were to win, your creature card will then replace the opponent’s creature as the one occupying the tile.
There’s also a twist from the MTG homage whereby money earned can be used to upgrade your creatures on the board (in form of buffs). There’s a twist though as you can only upgrade the creature (and nearby ones) when you happen to land on their tile.
Long Haul
My first game took more than 15 minutes and it seems that my deck has an unlimited supply of cards. But in any case, I think the winner is determined after a number of rounds based on the points accumulated from winning battles and occupying tiles. Statistics nuts will have a field day analyzing their progress with the charts and stats provided after each game.
The unique gameplay aside, Culdcept is probably the first Japanese DS game I’ve played to feature an entirely English voice work for its FMVs and in-game announcements! And it’s also the first Japanese game I’ve encountered that took my name (stored in the DS) rather than ask me to key in one all over again (there’s an option to do so if you want).
It’s a shame though that the menus are in Japanese, but hey, if you are one to not let a little bit of foreign language deter you from enjoying a game, check out Culdcept DS. It’s currently available at Play-Asia. Click here for details.
