You may not be aware of this, but Destructoid has their very own Team Culdcept, a group of editors and community members that love the card battling board game videogame. We try to play the Xbox 360 version, Culdcept Saga, whenever we can. Here recently, we’ve been daydreaming of the newest version, Culdcept DS. Today I wished my Culdcept-loving friends were with me to witness the amazing wall of Culdcept card art here at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.
The Culdcept Card Art Exhibition is a large wall display of card art from every card in the Culdcept world. I’m afraid that pictures don’t do it justice. When you play Culdcept, you’re aware that there are a lot of cards, but being able to walk up to the wall and see any one you want is quite amazing. I watched as many other press members did the same thing I did at first: walk up to the wall to find their favorite cards. A chart (in the gallery below) gives a breakdown of all the card details, including how many are in each category and how many cards the artists have created. There are 1254 in all!
Of course, this wall was here to promote the upcoming Culdcept title for the DS. Hit the jump to read our impressions.
Sega is doing things right here. Aside from the amazing wall of art, they’re giving press members the full Culdcept DS experience. They have four separate kiosks set up today, and each is set with a different map and scenario from the title. They’re letting each player play a full game up to 5,000G or 30 rounds. Culdcept fans can tell you that this can take awhile. Because of this, even with only a few people in line, the wait was 45 minutes or more to get our chance to play.
I played a map that was shaped like a cross. Castles were placed at the ends of the cross: North, South, East, and West. I’m very slow when it comes to reading Japanese, so I was a bit embarrassed with how long it took me with some of the more detailed card descriptions, but I did manage to get by and win this battle. This playthrough got me excited for the possibility that I may one day get the chance to take one of my favorite titles on the road. This works nicely as a portable game! What took them so long?
Culdcept DS looks great on the small screen. The games were never really graphically intensive, but the card art and 3D map still look nice on the DS. The extra screen real estate is put to good use here. The game map and cards are shown on the top screen, and information like scores and details are on the bottom. I was a bit surprised that the stylus wasn’t used more, though. Most of the in-game control is done with the d-pad and face buttons. While I would have liked to see map navigation with the stylus, the d-pad worked fine, and the controls were familiar.
Japan gets their hands on this title next week on the 16th, when it goes on sale for 5,040 yen. They’ll get online multiplayer, four player action, and downloadable maps. Team Culdcept is jealous! Culdcept may not be the most popular franchise in the US, but we’ll remain hopeful that someone at Sega has the good sense to port the text in this fantastic title to English.
Team Culdcept, this one is for you.
Published: Oct 10, 2008 05:29 pm