Developed by Sacnoth, a Japanese company comprised of Square’s ex–employees, Koudelka is an unusual mixture of Resident Evil–style, survival horror, turn–based and role–playing games. The four–disk game features an amazing mixture of CG movies, in–game cut scenes, and several hours of character voiceovers. The game’s story revolves around a young woman named Koudelka Iasant who is mysteriously summoned by the voice of a ghost to the menacing Nemeton monastery. In her quest, Koudelka tries to unravel the mysteries of the monastery and will discover many dark, and sometimes hideous, facts about its gloomy past.
Along the way, Koudelka meets up with two other characters that become key members of the journey; Edward Plunkett and James O’Flaherty. Edward, who Koudelka saves from certain death before allowing him to join her party, is a shady character that has ventured into the monastery with the hopes of scoring riches and women. While James is a bishop who has been sent to the monastery on a mission from the Vatican — his religious beliefs often conflict with the viewpoints of both Edward and Koudelka. All in all, Koudelka has a tremendous storyline that is filled with plenty of suspense, mystery, and horror. And it is, for the most part, extremely entertaining. Furthermore, as all of the game’s dialogue is handled with voice instead of simple text, combined with a plethora of cinematic cut scenes presented in full CG movies or in game sequences, the game’s presentation creates a movie–like feel.
However, all is not good in the world of Koudelka. While a fantastic storyline is usually enough to guarantee a good role–playing game, the story can’t always be enjoyed if the game play isn’t quite up to snuff. This is the key area wherein Koudelka falls flat on its face. You are in control of a 3D polygonal character situated in prerendered environments that are quite reminiscent of games such as Capcom’s Resident Evil series. However, unlike Resident Evil, Koudelka features play control that is more akin to games such as Metal Gear Solid and Mario 64, requiring you to press the directional pad in the same direction that you wish to move. This is contrary to the cylindrical control scheme used in Resident Evil. It’s easy to move Koudelka about the screen — OK, so far, Koudelka is good.
Another difference is reflected in the fact that there aren’t any onscreen monsters. The game plays out more like a traditional RPG with random enemy encounters and turn–based battles. It’s in these turn–based battles where the promising title becomes a painful gaming experience. The manner in which the battle system is setup is similar to strategy games as well as traditional RPGs. The characters and enemy creatures move about on the battlefield that uses a grid–based setup. Depending upon the location of the character, in relation to the enemy, determines what kind of attacks or options are possible. Spells can generally be used at any location on screen. The problem here is that the general pace of each of the game’s battles are painstakingly slow, and generally become quite tedious. Even though most of the random
encounters aren’t too difficult, they’re generally somewhat wearisome because of the large investment of your time. The characters move around the battlefield slowly, there are noticeable load times between some character’s moves, and it just takes way too long to complete simple tasks. Simply put, the game’s battles suck just about all of the fun out of the game.
Next to the battles, the game’s other major failing comes in the form of a shortage of save points. There just aren’t quite enough save points in the game, which can be a major pain when you have to stop your game for an emergency, or just to take care of life’s everyday tasks. What’s worse, many of the save points are only opened immediately after defeating a boss — so, if a player dies at that boss he must start over at the previous saved game point.
Visually, Koudelka is a solid game. The 3D polygonal character models have been designed extremely well and they generally animate on the Field Screen and in the in game cut scenes quite nicely. On the other hand, some of the animations during the battle scenes leave a lot to be desired and 3D characters in the CG movies are poorly animated. However, while the character animation in the CG movies are less than stellar, the character models and the scenes themselves are very beautiful and feature some of the best renders that you’ll find in a PlayStation game. The backgrounds are made up with some very detailed textures, but they’re sometimes difficult to distinguish because most of the game’s locales are poorly lit and a bit too dark. However, considering that the game is based in a haunted house, perhaps this was a stylistic decision by the game’s developers.
Hiroki Kikuta, the composer of the music in Seiken Densetsu 2 and 3 for Super Famicom, created Koudelka’s music causing one to assume that this game’s soundtrack would be nothing less than fantastic. Unfortunately, contrary to this assumption, Koudelka features what must be the worst battle music that has ever been heard in a console role–playing game. The music is slow–paced and it doesn’t deliver the sounds that RPG battle music should reflect. It reminds me of the music that you would hear during a touching romantic scene. Not something that goes with battling for your lives against an onslaught of enemy attackers. The music is slow and boring, surely making some players sleepy.
On the plus side, the game actually features some quality voice acting. While there are a few duds in the bunch, the majority of the game’s voiceovers are not only passable, but also quite good.
When I first heard about Koudelka it went to the top of my PlayStation most wanted lists. First, I had high hopes for the game because there was a lot of hype surrounding the fact that Sacnoth is made up of many talented ex–employees of Square. And secondly, the first footage of the game that was shown featured some of its amazing CG movies. In some ways, the game actually lived up to my expectations. The story, CG, and even the voice acting were all good. On the other hand, the game play is just so bad that it makes it extremely difficult to enjoy the game. If it weren’t for the monotonous and boring battles, Koudelka might’ve been an "A" quality title. As it stands, it’s just slightly above average.
"If you take some of the best and the brightest from Square and mix them into a new company called Sacnoth, you’d be believin’ their first product would be bright and shiny and grand. Think again!"
