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Well, one good thing to come out of not getting Street Fighter IV over the weekend (and it still hasn't arrived yet, but I'm not going into that right now), is that I was able to play through the rest of Koudelka.
Even taking into account that it's an old PS1 game, it's still pretty cool. The battles may be a bit on the slow and easy-side, but that's about it. I'd recommend it, if you can find it.
However, now that I've finished it, I've moved on to its successor, Shadow Hearts. As I said in a previous post, I'd already played through this one time, but it's been a few years.
After playing Koudelka, Shadow Hearts so far just seems rather... juvenile, by comparison, more so than I remember it being when I played through the first time. Koudelka had a more mature, serious feel to it than does Shadow Hearts, at least so far. I mean, sure, Shadow Hearts does start with "Roger Bacon" (and after playing Koudelka, that name has much more significance now) massacring a bunch of Japanese soldiers, and chopping off Yuri's arm (he gets better) in the opening scene, but still. I'm only up to the sewers of Fengtian, which isn't very far at all, but I don't remember it getting all that much better in the way of the overall feel of the game, based on what I remember from the last time I played it. So far, and from what I remember, the entire overall scenario in the game is way more "out there" than the one in Koudelka. It didn't bother me before, but now, having first played Koudelka, it's rather noticeable.
The voice acting in Koudelka is worlds better than Shadow Hearts, and there seems to be a lot more of it as well. Every cut scene in Koudelka was fully voiced, and there was a minimum of text elsewhere, aside from menus. That scene near the end when Edward and Koudelka decide to get drunk while James is making nitroglycerin in another room is one of the more moving scenes I've seen in a video game. Shadow Hearts, by contrast, is mostly text, and what little voice acting there has been so far (only in the opening scene up to the point I am now) is atrocious.
Also, the number of missable things in Shadow Hearts just irks me. You have to have a guide or three if you want to have a hope of getting through without missing a lot of stuff. As far as I know, there was only one missable in Koudelka that, if you didn't have it and tried to approach the final boss, would lead to thebadhorrible ending. Well... aside from the ridiculous "save the game at these specific times with this specific number of items in your inventory then reload to get uber-game breaking gear" that is. I didn't even bother with those. But Shadow Hearts, from what I recall (and from what I gathered by browsing through a bunch of FAQs prior to starting the game), has a ton of missable stuff.
I don't know... I guess my point is that I think Koudelka overall is better than Shadow Hearts, at least so far, despite the fact that it's an older game for an earlier gen system. Though I do still want to play through Shadow Hearts in order to get to Covenant and From The New World, it's kind of starting to feel a bit chore-ish almost, and this is really early in the game. Though most of that, I imagine, is because I'm being anal about getting the acupuncture upgrades for the weapons as soon as possible, and am refusing to move on to a new area until I have done so. For some reason, I don't remember that being as annoying before as it is this time. I guess I should just not bother with that and keep going, at least until I get the end game weapons. I really hope the 3rd and 4th games, which I haven't played at all yet, improve upon Shadow Hearts, in the various flawed areas I mentioned above.
Even taking into account that it's an old PS1 game, it's still pretty cool. The battles may be a bit on the slow and easy-side, but that's about it. I'd recommend it, if you can find it.
However, now that I've finished it, I've moved on to its successor, Shadow Hearts. As I said in a previous post, I'd already played through this one time, but it's been a few years.
After playing Koudelka, Shadow Hearts so far just seems rather... juvenile, by comparison, more so than I remember it being when I played through the first time. Koudelka had a more mature, serious feel to it than does Shadow Hearts, at least so far. I mean, sure, Shadow Hearts does start with "Roger Bacon" (and after playing Koudelka, that name has much more significance now) massacring a bunch of Japanese soldiers, and chopping off Yuri's arm (he gets better) in the opening scene, but still. I'm only up to the sewers of Fengtian, which isn't very far at all, but I don't remember it getting all that much better in the way of the overall feel of the game, based on what I remember from the last time I played it. So far, and from what I remember, the entire overall scenario in the game is way more "out there" than the one in Koudelka. It didn't bother me before, but now, having first played Koudelka, it's rather noticeable.
The voice acting in Koudelka is worlds better than Shadow Hearts, and there seems to be a lot more of it as well. Every cut scene in Koudelka was fully voiced, and there was a minimum of text elsewhere, aside from menus. That scene near the end when Edward and Koudelka decide to get drunk while James is making nitroglycerin in another room is one of the more moving scenes I've seen in a video game. Shadow Hearts, by contrast, is mostly text, and what little voice acting there has been so far (only in the opening scene up to the point I am now) is atrocious.
Also, the number of missable things in Shadow Hearts just irks me. You have to have a guide or three if you want to have a hope of getting through without missing a lot of stuff. As far as I know, there was only one missable in Koudelka that, if you didn't have it and tried to approach the final boss, would lead to the
I don't know... I guess my point is that I think Koudelka overall is better than Shadow Hearts, at least so far, despite the fact that it's an older game for an earlier gen system. Though I do still want to play through Shadow Hearts in order to get to Covenant and From The New World, it's kind of starting to feel a bit chore-ish almost, and this is really early in the game. Though most of that, I imagine, is because I'm being anal about getting the acupuncture upgrades for the weapons as soon as possible, and am refusing to move on to a new area until I have done so. For some reason, I don't remember that being as annoying before as it is this time. I guess I should just not bother with that and keep going, at least until I get the end game weapons. I really hope the 3rd and 4th games, which I haven't played at all yet, improve upon Shadow Hearts, in the various flawed areas I mentioned above.
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Date: 2009-03-04 07:56 am (UTC)From:Now here's the bad part about combat. First of all, it's really SLOW. I didn't mind it too much, but I've seen complaints about it. Also, Edward tends to break weapons fairly frequently, which is annoying. And also, if the front line character dies, then the enemy can move past him (or her), at which point you can't revive him, until and unless you manage to knock the enemy backward (which is possible).
I played the game with Koudelka as a full mage (increasing INT, PIE, MND, along with LUC, VIT, and AGL per level up, totally ignoring STR and DEX), and Edward as a full fighter (increasing STR, VIT, DEX, along with LUC, PIE, and AGL per level up, totally ignoring INT and MND), and James as a half/half (keeping all stats about even). However, I ended up using James almost solely as a buff/healer, so I wish I'd built him the same as I did Koudelka, though it didn't really hurt him that much.
There are no shops in the game, so any weapons/armor/ammo/items that you get are things that you find lying around or that you get from enemy drops. One other annoying thing about the game, though, is that you can only hold 50 items (of any type) maximum. If you find more than one of the same item they do stack and only count as 1 toward the max, so that's good, but it's still annoying that the max is so low. Stacking doesn't happen for weapons/armor/accessories though, only items.
There are two types of save points in the game. Temporary saves are fairly regularly encountered. If you enter a room and a (S) appears with the name of the room, then you can temp save there. You can only have one slot associated with a temp save at any time, and using these does not refill your HP/MP. Then there are full on save points. These are usually initially guarded by a mini-boss fight ("Something isn't right here..."), but once you unlock them, you can use them whenever you want. You can fill up the memory card with multiples of these types of saves, and using them does refill HP/MP. They're good to use as a hub if you want to grind or farm monsters for items.