Infogrames new game, Koudelka, is a horror-RPG set in the late 19^th century.  Created by ex-Square employees at Sacnoth, it promised to deliver an engaging plot with stellar graphics. Unfortunately, they forgot to add any coherent gameplay.  What could have been a game to remember became a game you want to forget. 

The story follows the exploits of Koudelka, a medium of considerable power who comes to a vast castle-monastery in response to a cry for help from beyond.  Joining her are two more adventurers, James and Edward.  During their wondering around the monastery they encounter all sorts of weird undead creatures, ghosts, and a tale of evil.  The story is told entirely through voice with no text at all which is a pleasant departure from the norm since this time around the voice acting is actually pretty good.  As expected from ex-Square employees, the CG sequences are spectacular, with crystal clear images and lots of action sequences.  The abundance of voice acting and CGI also explains why the game spans 4 discs, yet is relatively short in gameplay. 

Upon close inspection, Koudelka immediately falls apart in the graphics department.  The locations and battlefield map are atrocious.  Environments are very dark and grainy.  Characters have a tendency to move through objects or each other and are very rough.  Rather then moving smoothly through combat, they seem to stomp awkwardly.   For some reason, all battle scenes don’t have a background but are set against a black field, no matter where you are in the game's environment.  The sound and music are fairly repetitive without adding effective ambiance to the dismal locations.  Most of the game is very quiet and boring as Koudelka trudges through room after room.

Gameplay is where the game truly sucks to levels as yet unmatched by any other RPG in gaming history.  The style of the game is very similar to Resident Evil, yet it has random combats.  This is a problem when you are trying to explore a room and every step leads to a long drawn out battle.  Rather than standard turn-based combat, the battles in Koudelka are carried out on a strategy-like playing field where the characters can move a certain amount of spaces and then attack the enemy with whatever weapon they have in possession.  The problem with this is the characters move very slowly and the entire process of movement -- attack, waiting for the enemy to attack and so forth -- slows any action down to dismal levels.  Added to this problem is the fact that the characters can easily become stuck behind each other, not being able to hit an enemy until another character can kill it.  Seemingly at random, some characters will have 3 turns back-to-back without being able to do anything but wait for someone else to attack.  Another moronic idea was to have the weapons break through usage so that in the middle of combat the player can lose his strong sword and be left with either bare fists or a weaker weapon.  

The most idiotic aspect of this game is that the save points are placed after the boss is defeated rather than just before the battle like in most sane RPGs.  Not only this but you can’t even tell where a major boss battle may occur so if you play for 2 hours without finding a save spot, you are suddenly attacked unprepared and die, you have to start from the last save area 2 hours ago.  Not a lot of thought went into this game’s mechanics.