About a year ago I'd never even heard of Koudelka, but that's the thing about being friends with TransWitchSammy, you're gonna find yourself waking up at 3 in the morning with "play Koudelka, it's peak...!" being whispered from your vents.

It's actually surprising that it's taken me this long to discover Koudelka and actually commit to playing it, because it's such a mish-mash of my favorite fifth generation design tropes that it seems made for me. Survival horror exploration, JRPG combat, haunting pre-rendered environments, a story told with maturity and supported by excellent voice acting...? Shit, it's even got music by Hiroki Kikuta of Secret of Mana fame, and he wrote, produced, and directed the game!

It's clear Kikuta had a well-defined vision for what he wanted Koudelka to be, being so involved with the project that he embedded himself in vocal recording sessions, opting to have all releases of the game share the same English dub. Vivianne Batthika (Koudelka), Michael Bradberry (Edward), and Scott Larson's (James) vocal performances are excellent, at times loud and theatrical in a way that suits the sort of "stage play" quality of the game's cutscenes. Character models are scarcely more detailed than those in Metal Gear Solid, rough and limited in all the ways you'd expect from this generation. Metal Gear Solid's workaround was the Codec, which used cut-outs to help connect the player to the characters, but Koudelka rarely zooms in on its characters to show us their emotional state (outside of FMVs, which are used whenever the action becomes more complex) and instead lends weight to the actor's performances with body language. Kikuta's choice to have his cast further embody their characters through mocap gives Koudelka a look that's so rarely seen on the PlayStation.

Softening up the image with a good scanline filter is something I would definitely recommend if you plan to play Koudelka through emulation, which you almost certainly would have to do since Price Charting pegs loose discs at around 142$. Maybe I'm spoiled, but the low-fidelity models can clash against the densely detailed backgrounds when viewed raw, and like most PlayStation games, there's a lot of dithering. Hitting Koudelka with a good shader can help desaturate some of the colors, and I feel a more muted pallet makes the game look even better.

As impressed as I am with the story, performances, and presentation (after shaders), the gameplay itself leaves a lot to be desired. Navigating the mansion is pretty typical survival horror fare, but there is a distinct lack of puzzles that the player needs to directly interface with to solve. For example, you might find a lock that requires an understanding of the Greek alphabet to open, but Koudelka and her companions will simply glean the answer from a note and apply the solution automatically. There's a puzzle involving some very basic math to change the counterbalance on a scale and another that requires you to rearrange the position of some dolls, and that's about the most you get. At least doing laps through the monastery feels good even if there isn't much meat to the progression. The frustrating thing is, you can see the frame of a good survival horror game in here, Koudelka just doesn't embrace it.

Likewise, the JRPG battle system is good but very dry. You navigate a sort of chess board where your position relative to the enemy's becomes a strategic factor... except magic and ranged weaponry is so grossly overpowered that by the middle of the game you'll probably have everyone outfitted with firearms and advanced spells, allowing you to comfortably take pot shots from the back row. Most battles devolve into spamming your more damaging moves, and while you can spec your characters however you wish, the short list of spells the game provides you bottlenecks your ability to craft particularly unique builds.

Koudelka has all these survival-horror and JRPG elements but it doesn't commit hard enough to either for my tastes, and so it rides out a lot of its short runtime on vibes and good storytelling, which is fine, but there's a better game here that just didn't coalesce.

I could go on, but at some point I'd just end up paraphrasing most of TransWitchSammy's video essay, which you should probably watch instead. She gets into a lot more detail about the production of the game, its themes, and stuff like the soundtrack (which is great), and I'd definitely defer to her as the resident Koudelka expert. I may keep going and give Shadow Hearts a shot, because I am interested in experiencing the series' transformation from this gloomy, mature story about religion, loss, and love to whatever goddamn goof-ass antics act as the driving force behind From the New World.

Ended up playing a 3rd Playthrough for a video I've wanted to make about this game for a while. This playthrough absolutely cemented this as being one of my favorite PS1 JRPG's. Everything about it is so wonderfully executed. Everything about it absolutely fucking hits. It's beautiful.

The antagonists are deeply human and the protagonists are the same. The protagonists are deeply similar. James especially.

I'm very very excited to play Shadow Hearts but I honestly don't know if it's gonna live up to how genuinely perfect this game is to me.

If you want to see the analysis I did of the game it's right over here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDxQqABH3Y0

Please for the love of everything play this game. Give it a chance even if the combat isn't amazing.

This was an incredibly hard game for me to put down!! Looking around the internet it seems like people think the RPG gameplay weighed it down compared to more typical horror games, but I thought the battles were impressively well-balanced (I never died once, but most boss battles did have me close to the wire so every victory felt satisfactorily earned) and allocating characters’ stats proved to be meaningful and engaging, something which other games can flounder with. And for someone like me, who doesn’t do especially well with scary stuff (I usually get my friends to play scary games so I can watch…), Koudelka wound up being pretty perfectly tuned to my exact sensibilities of wanting that creeping, dreadful, oppressive atmosphere with some abstractly-gruesome imagery, while never being anything that discouraged me from playing by being “too much” (a balance I’ve only ever really found in Silent Hill games). What an incredible little thing!! A horror RPG that even wimps like me can have a wonderful time with - and doesn’t waste that time either, clocking in at only 13 hours in my sometimes meandering playthrough. Not even to mention some of the absolute best voice acting and choreography I’ve seen in any game, let alone one on the original Playstation. What a refreshing gem to have stumbled into by accident. Going in I knew nothing, but coming out I’m leaving with a new favorite.

damn this game is actually peak horror
i like the in-game cutscenes and how people move like real people (pretty impressive for ps1 standards)
the gameplay is a mix of jrpg and srpg combat (you have your normal jrpg magic/physical attacks, weapons but you have a chess-like board that you can move around, very unique and surprisingly works well) although i hate the amount of backtracking in this game and how vague it is, playing this first-time without a guide was kinda painful for me
the characters are a charming bunch, they blend well with the overall setting of the game too
the ambience, story and cutscenes genuinely give the game a creepy vibe to it, one of the only horror games that made me feel fear
if you are into survival horror or jrpgs this is a must-play

Koudelka sucks to play and isn't fun. In terms of a "survival horror + jrpg" merger, it basically merges some of the least interesting and annoying bits of both genres - the weird puzzly logic and backtrack slog through weird camera transitions (that in this case aren't even trying to emulate cinema, which is kinda the point of the RE camera) of survival horror combined with the "japanese role playing game"'-'s pointless onslaught of random battles, obscure combat mechanics and bosses that WILL make you grind for hours to beat them if you happened to not read an encyclopedia on stat allocation before starting the game.

Despite this, this game fucks. The setting is extremely well-researched, the characters very human and "real", the voice acting better than a lot of modern AAA titles and the writing itself manages to be interesting while exploring a combination of several otherwise tired tropes. The part that fails the gameplay, the mix of these two genres, saves the world built for this game from being a ripoff of anything. You are in a fantasy adventure, you have magic, but it's rooted in real lore and the horror genre, which makes a unique and great aesthetic without crossing into too quirky or pandering territory.

FINAL RATING: read a guide/10

Solid mix of JRPG and early horror genres, with good voice acting and interesting story, albeit a bit short. The entire game is set in a huge haunted monastery filled with secrets and in that pre-rendered ps1 greatness in which every room feels like a piece of art. I really enjoyed the exploration, even though sometimes it can be a bit confusing to navigate. I wouldn't have it any other way though, as the vibe the game is going for only works so well thanks to the fixed camera angles.

Also I feel people exaggerate when they complain about the combat being too slow, it kinda is, but it gives you a ton of options on how to build your characters and you can, for example, pump magic to one hit everything, so personally I don't think its slower compared to most JRPGs at the time, including the famous ones. However I believe the random encounters don't really add much to the game, they're pretty easy to begin with, so you don't feel threatened and even the battle music at times feel too "usual" and kills the horror vibe the game is going for. Probably for scaredy people like me that's actually good though.

I feel like Koudelka is one of those games that sort of becomes a bit hard to appreciate without actually taking into account the context in which they were released: on a technical level, it was universally acclaimed for being highly innovative in its use of motion capture and for the creation of truly stunning cgi scenes, elements that for his time certainly led the way for new perspectives on the expressiveness of storytelling through the physicality of characters.
It is also certainly interesting how these technical factors have been applied to a gothic horror setting, created with the goal of providing an experience that is dense with atmosphere and rich in interactive cues, with many environmental puzzles and objects to collect to enhance the gameplay experience.
Unfortunately, Koudelka was also, and above all, a title with a troubled gestation, which had to juggle too many different angles without really coming to a sufficiently defined direction, ending up integrating very different influences with, in my opinion, very variable results.
It was definitely an overly ambitious project for a rookie independent studio, which had to manage an overly complex balance between survival horror, tactical rpg-like elements and genuinely wanting to push the immersiveness front.
What we are ultimately faced with while playing Koudelka is a not always satisfying experience, one that works quite well as an rpg and much less so as a horror game, with great charm and a real passion oozing from every angle, very fascinating to look at but not as original to play.

Completely obtuse, doesn't tell you anything about how type weakness works, and has some honestly weird balancing throughout. and this game is STILL an underrated PS1 classic to me. What infected me to keep coming back was its terribly thick atmosphere and its really interesting character dynamics between the main 3. What really sold these interactions within the dynamics for me is the animation, just when I thought MGS 1 was ahead of its time this game came in with a mix of CGI scenes and in-game interactions commentating on the events in the game pointing you to the next objective. Although it isn't all just story dialogue they get angry at each other, share drinks, and just act like people. I generally loved watching them and I mainly looked forward to seeing more of them. What I said shouldn't diminish the gameplay ik people generally don't fuck with it but once I learned the mechanics it was an interesting blend of chess and tactics-type gameplay I was loving it when it was at the perfect difficulty. This game also has some really dope ass monster designs I had my fist over my mouth when they revealed the final form of the final boss. Strikes a perfect blend of nasty and dope-looking. The pitfalls for me land more with the backtracking when you miss an item and figuring out how the maze-like mansion weaves together. I also found the character arc of Edward kinda weak and Koudelka's arc ending but I still like them nonetheless they just were too funny and charismatic. My other big one is that the puzzles are pretty meh some can be good but most of them are just kinda "you placed this item."
Other than those man damn I loved this shit it makes me excited as hell to check out the rest of Shadow Hearts and the Koudelka manga as well.

Note: I got both endings and it's odd the bad one leads into Shadow Hearts but ig ill learn why.

Koudelka is one of those few games that come along from time to time that really just hit ya know? Horror is kinda bobbed and weaved throughout JRPG's in different ways and concepts but there are quite few that tend to bathe themselves so completely in pure gothic horror fashion like this.

This game oozes an aesthetic that I fuck with on every single solitary level. The architecture, the music, the cold, dead and lonely vibes of this dead and fucked up place. Uncovering horror after horror, secret after fucked up secret as you get more and more around the facilities. It's beautiful.

The combat isn't perfect but honestly the fact that I can make magic so instantly overpowerdly busted and just blast through all of the fights so I can get to more of the plot and beautiful environment makes me not really give a shit. The enemies as well even being extremely well considered for the setting, themes and ideas of the entire game itself.

I absolutely fucking adore the plot to this game. It is absolutely one of my favorite JRPG stories simply because Edward and James are asshole bastards and Koudelka's hard edge stances towards the entire world creates a really interesting party dynamic where all of these people clearly either hate or at least definitely do not like each other to the point where they bicker and yell and argue at each other as they try to figure out what even is going on. Resulting in some actually pretty great for the time performances selling this tragic work about loss and being able to move on from it. About how these broken people all have no clue how to deal with the loss in their lives. Edward really being the only one who is so privileged that he can't relate to any of the characters and their awful experiences, problems or pasts. In a lesser game Edward would be the protagonist and focus on the "adventure" of it all when that's not what this is. It's a gauntlet through a person's psyche, unable to cope with the person they lost and extending out to harming now you the player as you fight and fight and fight through this medieval spencer mansion.

One of my favorite scenes in this game is specifically a scene where Edward and Koudelka get drunk in front of a fireplace. I feel like this scene in particular cements why Koudelka herself is such a strong and fascinating character compared to Edward. It strongly contrasts their differences and his childish outlook on the world versus the actual shit and awful times she's been through. The loss and pain that she's had to suffer from the world and how even after ALL of that she STILL wants to help spirits move on.

Koudelka is at this point in time my favorite JRPG ever made. I recommend everybody play it at least once. It's fairly easy and honestly pretty short at about mayyyybe 12 hours for a playthrough.

I'm happy that it leads into Shadow Hearts and I'm very excited to play those games. Happy I replayed this and excited to write a more concise video about it sometime soonish.

genuinely one of the most impressive games on the PS1 in terms of presentation. everything from the animations, music, naturalistic voice acting, settings, and so on comes together so well. a true feast for the senses. it feels so uncommon to play a game where the main characters are at each others necks like this which made for an interesting dynamic.

i even enjoyed the combat system which at a glance seemed to be more difficult than it ended up. going for most of the content in the game (i collected the rare weapons, did backtracking for optional puzzles, fought the superboss, upgraded all weapons and spells except for Revive and one handed knives, etc.) had me so overpowered that i didn't have to think much about any of the later game encounters and i could just smack or blast things with whatever spell and they'd die within two rounds usually.

the animations and loading in combat are a bit slow and i could see how playing this on actual hardware would be a bit of a slog but being able to fast forward on duckstation got around it.

absolutely deserves to be more popular than it is. can't wait to dive into the Shadow Hearts games eventually too.

quando eu fiquei sabendo que Hiroki Kikuta era viciado em ler tudo fez todo sentido

há uma inerente distorção na percepção de outras culturas vindo de qualquer lado do universo. se a gente adora atribuir "tradição e modernidade" pro japão, não é surpreendente que eles atribuam "samba, futebol e alegria" para nós. e sinceramente, não sendo simplista e nem racista acho que ta tudo bem, viver nesse mundão gigantesco é muitas vezes não entender os outros.

mas Koudelka quase que imediatamente começa citando Lord Byron, e ai começa a citar eventos reais da Inglaterra, lugares reais, escrituras e mitos ocultos, tribos ciganas, e eu não fico pensando que esse homem tinha algum tipo de reverência ao ocidente nem nada, não em um nível como o Kojima tem (affectionate), mas sim que esse homem é viciado em saber, em entender, em estudar e pesquisar. Koudelka lida com personagens e eventos reais junto de personagens e eventos que não são reais. é difícil terminar o jogo e não sair procurando se o monasterio Nemeton existiu mesmo em Wales, ou se existiu mesmo os documentos Emigre. é mais difícil ainda quando você descobre que um dos membros de sua party é alguém que existiu de verdade.

Hiroki Kikuta bebeu Wales e a Inglaterra inteira, integrou no seu jogo e criou uma das obras de realismo mágico que se passa no ocidente mais curiosas e únicas de todos os tempos. sei que Shadow Hearts segue o mesmo estilo, mas há uma finesse aqui que é difícil de ser replicada.

uma direção de cutscene que sinceramente deixa MGS com inveja, é uma pena que Koudelka esteja renegado a ser apenas "o precursor de Shadow Hearts" (a descrição do próprio IGDB e daqui é extremamente nojenta) porque há poucos jogos especiais dessa maneira que avançaram e influenciaram um meio artístico inteiro sem quase ninguém saber

koudelka sits in this very awkward spot in my rankings where it's too good to be less than okay but not good enough to be really good, yet it's still a super memorable game despite its overall messiness.
there's so much i love about this game honestly... the voice acting is surprisingly really good compared to games that came out during this time. also koudelka's drunken speech before encountering the final boss haunts me and almost made me cry because of how utterly raw it is. that was the moment i became convinced trudging through this game was worth it and also the moment koudelka shot up to the top in my "favorite characters in gaming" list. i love her!

Like most RPGs, –or at least this is my experience– if you look for a guide or walkthrough when you get stuck you suddenly discover there is a lot (and I mean A LOT) hidden: secret items, weapons, scenarios, techniques... and people know how to use those hundred items that you tend to ignore.

Anyways, Koudelka is not a hard game and it's pretty unique. The enemy and character design is quite cool and only gets repetitive once you're almost at the ending, the story is compelling, the voice acting is totally out of the league of any other Playstation game and even if the gameplay os quite slow (while fighting, characters take a few seconds to react) I found it fun. I loved the cutscenes and it can get pretty parasitevesque.

On the bad side, the music, although it drags you in, can get monotonous, there are basically two themes: regular fight and boss fight. Controls are crazily clumsy, but you get used to them after a couple... hours. And you can get lost and miss that f*cking door because of absurd camera angles.

Even being 4 CDs it's not that long. It's a unique thing and even if it doesn't excel at being a horror game nor a RPG, it's fun to play and it looks beautiful. And yeah, I agree, they should call her Kooldelka.

I'm madly in love with this game. The acting bounces from powerful to complete cheese like a radio drama, the aesthetic choices set such a unique and consistent tone, the characters are unlikable blowhards who grow a fair amount, and the CG cutscenes are out of this world.

The missing half a star is almost entirely due to the odd mechanical decisions i.e. slow combat, unspoken secrets being required to beat the game, the difficult to parse save mechanics. These quirks will chase a lot of players away, and I can't even blame them, but if you can look past them, the mystery, literary obsession, and well-written dialog within this RPG are beautifully suffocating for the perfectly short run time.

I have such a hard time with RPGs, I have zero patience at all for menus and turn-based combat, Fallout was as close as I got. I wanted to try the Shadow Hearts games because they seemed so weird and distinct that maybe they could get me more interested in the genre. I don't think I'm dissuaded from them, but Koudelka definitely feels more compromised than Shadow Hearts itself (which was from the get-go going to be a JRPG.) the shift between haunting atmospherics to tactics gameplay is extremely jarring, but the surprisingly decent voice-acting and tone make it easier to get through than I expected. I also don't mind the tactics stuff even though it's woefully out of place. Probably best to just go to Shadow Hearts but Koudelka is an interesting little thing.

As one of the plebs who walked away from Breath of the Wild disgruntled with its flimsy weapons, Koudelka's weapon durability system proved to be a pleasant surprise. Seeing my characters' proficiency with certain weapons improve every time they broke one meant that I ended up welcoming the notification that a weapon had shattered, rather than dreading it. Koudelka's handling of weapon durability encouraged me to experiment with different types in the hopes of seeing the extended melee combos that came with higher aptitude. The weapons also lasted long enough that obtaining one felt rewarding rather than redundant.

In terms of tactics, the final boss was the only enemy in the game that demanded my attention. As such, the combat was only inadvertently entertaining through its oddball enemy design and quirky animations. Thankfully the customisation afforded through stat distribution, coupled with the generous levelling system, meant that sitting through the sluggish encounters rarely felt like a waste of time.

Although random encounters were tame and tended to last a few minutes too many, Koudelka's story was intriguing enough to hold my attention. Developments came at a steady pace, and seeing things unfold was consistently entertaining thanks to the frenetic CG cutscenes and solid voicework. The singular quality of the performances in this game lent the characters a weird charm, and despite only spending 15 hours in their company, Koudelka's three dysfunctional leads won me over me in a way few JRPG parties do.

Putting Koudelka up against its peers one facet at a time would probably lead to a series of unfavourable comparisons, but as an experience in and of itself, the game holds up pretty well. Its pre-rendered backgrounds don't hold a candle to those of Final Fantasy IX or Resident Evil 3, nor do its encounters warrant the tinkering that other JRPGs of its era invite, but for me Koudelka remains an endearing game that admirably reworks the tone and progression of a survival horror into a curious RPG that accomplishes a lot without asking for much.

Finally played this one and what a blast!
A horror JRPG that's feels like the best theater play. The vocal performance of the actors really is as outstanding as everyone says!
The small setting with just the Monastery and the more personal stories of the three protagonists give the whole thing a really interesting atmosphere I've never seen anywhere else. Kikuta really came up with the idea to mix resident evil like puzzles with a fully voice acted (I'm talking EVERY scene!) intimate RPG story line.
I also love how the game has small little things like finding certain items changing the outcomes of cutscenes or the absolutely ridiculous choice to make a certain items be mandatory so you don't get the worst ending. What normally drives JRPG players totally mad is pretty much fine here as the game is only like 8-10 hours long. Even if you mess up and get a bad ending, playing the game again and exploring the monastery further isn't too much of an ask.
The battle system could have been better, I guess. It feels pretty generically turn based/ SRPG except when you're losing and you notice that positionining is important to actually revive your teammates.
The monster design is top notch though and so are the character stories and interactions. I really loved these flawed beings with their tragic back stories. This game is just awesome.