After a long wait of about 4 years fans of Omiya Soft`s Culdcept series can one again enjoy their favorite board game on the Xbox360 game Culdcept Saga.
Culdcept Saga follows the same formula of gaining as much mana as possible, as the previous Culdcept games, that was released on the Dreamcast, PS, PS2 and now finally the Xbox360. The game itself is a combination of a magic the gathering card game and monopoly. Basically battles take place on a large board with squares colored according to the type of area. The areas are fire, water, forest, plains, colorless and multi-colored. These area types also coincide with the monster types that are used to hold these locations on the playing field. By putting the same type of monster as the area it will be placed on gives it a slight offensive and defensive bonus when the area is leveled up.
As stated before the main goal of Culdcept Saga is to gain as much mana as possible over the other players or to reach the specified goal when in story mode. Mana is gained by moving past check points on the board and by reaching the castle, which is the equivalent of the GO space in Monopoly. Mana can also be earned by areas that you hold on the map with your monsters. When an opponent player lands on a space held by your monster, they have the choice to either attempt to battle it out or pay the fine in mana.
The battles are represented by the same 2d cards mixed with 3d attack effects. Although this might be a turn off for some of those new to the series, the fans will appreciate the fact that Omiya Soft did not try to reinvent the wheel in a matter of speaking. As a slight bonus to the existing system, it seems that they have also added a few new attack effects to help liven up the visuals. A personal favorite of mine is when you defeat an enemy creature using the fire effect and the card burns away in the battle screen.
With the cards themselves in the game all of the original favorites have made their return to the game, with a load of new cards also. Since I have not gotten very far yet, just from the start I am seeing a lot of new ones which makes my self very excited to try and collect them all. With the promise of new cards, fans will look forward to trying to create new combos and see what type of new and interesting monsters are to be found. Apparently many of the cards have had a face lift with the card art itself. While this is very nice for some cards, its rather unfortunate that others have had the graphic changed. One of the favorites of the fans was the Haste card which showed a man running at full speed from a flock of angry ostriches.
