I’ve always been a huge fan of RPGs as well as survival horror games. When I saw Koudelka on the shelves shortly after its release I thought it looked like it could be the perfect title for me. Effectively it blends the two genres into one single adventure. What could go wrong, right? I hated it. To be honest I didn’t even remember exactly why. I just always had sour feelings about this title and barely even recall playing it. Only recently did I learn that this title is actually directly connected with the excellent Shadow Hearts franchise. With this in mind I decided to give it another go. Also it’s nearly Halloween. I figured there’s no better time. Unfortunately now I remember why I didn’t like Koudelka. It’s just not good.
Koudelka has a very interesting and unusual setting as far as Japanese style role playing games go. The entirety of the story takes place within a haunted castle in Wales during the year 1898. This place, called Nemeton, is an old dilapidated monastery filled with monsters. The game begins with a young girl blessed with magical powers named Koudelka breaking into the place after being summoned by a mysterious voice. She discovers a plucky scoundrel named Edward and narrowly saves him from one of the monastery’s monstrous residents. The two form a shaky alliance and set out together to explore the mansion eventually meeting and teaming up with a priest named James. There’s a lot of secrets behind these walls in Nemeton, and the three are determined to solve them.
Even the characters are highly unusual as far as RPGs go. For one thing they’re all adults. They also actively dislike each other throughout the adventure. This is one of the more interesting dynamics in Koudelka. The game is heavily cinematic so it’s not like the story was an after thought by any means. There’s a significant amount of full motion video and fully voiced sequences. So much that the game had to be spread across four discs. Production values are super high for such an unknown release. The full motion video in particular is very impressive for the time. The developers actually used motion capture technology for it, and the characters move with surprising realism in these sequences. I’m all for it.
Unfortunately I never cared about the story. Not once did I care at all what was happening with these characters, and I found all three of them to be generally unlikable. Even their abrasive dynamics were never particularly interesting. Considering how much emphasis was put on cinematics and storytelling here that’s not good. On the plus side the setting is really interesting. This, and the enemies being monsters or undead, is pretty much where the survival horror elements start and end unfortunately. Exploration feels like Resident Evil with some backtracking, simple puzzle solving, item collecting, and in how you interact with the environments. When the best the game can offer is that it ‘sometimes feels like Resident Evil’ you know there are some major problems.
What’s so bad about Koudelka then? The battle system. Yes, the very foundation for which this game was made and the primary gameplay mechanics are simply bad. Battle sequences take a nod from strategy RPGs in that these are grid based. Combat is strictly turn based. On each characters’ turn you can move them to a different grid and then execute a command. These include the typical attack, magic, item, and run. You can also change your equipment here as well, but even this takes far too long. Hitting foes with weapons (depending on which one you have equipped) is limited by their range. This means you’ll have to endure the awkwardly slow running animations no matter how you try to play.
Melee items can generally only be used up close and personal, but others such as spears can strike from one grid away. You also have access to a few firearms which can be used to shoot faraway targets. Unfortunately you’re limited in movement according to enemy placement. You cannot go past the farthest away enemy. This means if the last one is close to you then most of the battlefield is essentially inaccessible. This limits options and prevents you from being able to surround foes. Why the developers did this I’ll never know.
The first problem rears it’s head immediately. Koudelka’s battle sequences are among the slowest in the history of the genre. After a character is in motion they move like a snail. Seriously are the floors here made of quicksand or something? Executing commands is also laughably slow. It’s like the characters move in slow motion. My theory is that the developers wanted to show off the wonderful animations, but sacrificed the gameplay pacing to do so. Even standard battles often take several minutes to complete, and you’ll spend the majority of this time simply watching the action unfolding. I’m a patient guy but after the first few battles I was already frustrated.
That’s not where the problems end. Unfortunately. The battles occur at random while exploring Nemeton and it’s surrounding areas. This means there’s no way to avoid these needlessly long encounters. Furthermore you have to contend with weapon durability. As you use melee tools they break and disappear from your inventory. I suppose this resource management mechanic is supposed to make Koudelka feel more like a survival horror title, but it doesn’t work. These weapons are plentiful, and when they break it just slows down the pacing even more. Thankfully firearms cannot break, but they are limited by the number of bullets you have. Should you run out they’re all but useless. If you’re completely out of weapons the three characters can use their fists to attack which is nice, but I tended to just rely on this throughout the game.
The options for character customization are pretty good surprisingly. Your party members gain experience points like in a traditional RPG, and once they reach specific thresholds they get additional levels which boost their stats. What’s interesting is you’re given four bonus points with each of these. There are eight different stats to choose from which gives you quite a bit of options for building your characters. Unfortunately the game never explains what any of these do. Some like strength and intelligence are easy to figure out, but others like piety and luck? I mean how do you figure this out without studying ahead of time?
Unfortunately the leveling system is a bit unbalanced. In the few instances I was having a difficult time I found that gaining a level or two made me overpowered. What’s more is the fact that you can rely on your fists through most of the game with no issues. I did this because I hated the weapon durability system. Fortunately characters gain levels with the various armaments as they use them. The same goes for magic and specific spells. Even barehanded fighting gains levels as it’s used. Focus on this one for your heavy hitters and you won’t have to worry about saving good weapons for bosses, or even stockpiling bullets. Koudelka is a pretty easy game. Honestly enduring the speed at which it plays is the only real difficulty I had here.
If there’s one thing the game does well it’s the presentation. As I’ve already mentioned the full motion videos are above and beyond most other games of this time in terms of production values. Outside of battle the pre-rendered backgrounds are really well drawn, and the detailed 3D character models look great. The two contrast with each other very nicely. The dark and decrepit art style is really fascinating when compared to Koudelka’s contemporaries. Even the battle sequences look really nice. These are rendered in full 3D, and the characters/enemies feature a ton of animation to them. The models themselves look really good. I liked most of the enemy designs. They look unique and convey the game’s decrepit atmosphere quite nicely.
The soundtrack on the other hand isn’t nearly as impressive. Everything is played via redbook audio. The music ranges from decent to completely out of place. Unfortunately the battle themes fall under the latter category. I’m not quite sure what the composers were thinking here. The instrumentation is nice but they feel like they belong in a brighter and more cheerful game. A lot of the audio is simply ambient sounds which works, but honestly just falls into the background far too often. The voice overs are pretty bad overall. It’s not quite Resident Evil cheesy territory, but the acting is super flat. It certainly doesn’t make the characters more likable. It’s worth noting that the game doesn’t have text for the dialogue. It’s only audio. I suppose this was to add to the cinematic feel but I was disappointed.
