95%PlayStation

The most chill relaxing jrpg horror I've ever played.

45%Emulated

Playing this thing on native hardware is a PITA, there are so many unnecessary animations we have to sit through. Overall, a very simple game but it feels very experimental in the way of design. The story is... a story. The voice acting is great... most of the time. It's very short.

50%PlayStation

Finally, after trying to play this for 7 times, I have given up on it.
Never in my life have I met such a difference of gameplay vs style in a jrpg. The in-engine cutscenes have expressiveness, the menus ooze ambience, the FMVs are gold (hence the 4 discs), the music is memorable, and the VA direction for the time is nothing short of impressive. The environments are a joy to explore, aided by gorgeous baked-in lighting, and the cinematic fixed camera angles are very good despite the occasional pixel hunting.

However, the crux is the gameplay. The amount of guesswork needed for any sort of cohesion to be brought to the rhythm of fighting is arbitrary at best. There is no enemy element colour coding. All weapons break, with no chance to avert that. The animations are extremely slow. The grid-based tactical combat is a place-holder at best in terms of implementation. The character leveling is unnecessarily customizable. This is a piece of shit to play through-and-through. Not even fast forward can save it.

Better experienced by watching all cutscenes on yt.

80%PlayStation

Great graphics, animation, cutscenes, voice acting, music, and story. Combat seemed too easy or maybe I just accidentally built my characters too well? Most encounters use the same exact song, and I mean its a good song, but variety is nice. The combat grid system is neat but seems very underutilized outside of weapon range damage scaling. A few puzzles were a bit vague.

70%PlayStation

A strange horror themed RPG, Short and sweet with decent voice work

100%PlayStation

Masterpiece of jrpg, criminally underrated

80%PlayStation

I really enjoyed this one. Gameplay was really fun. It has warts, but really, remove those and speed some stuff up a bit, and this could have been something really great. Excited to visit the shadow hearts series now. 4/5 from me.

100%PlayStation

What an amazing experience! This is like semi-Lovecraftian Resident Evil if it were an RPG (in a different way than Parasite Eve)).

The story is a real treat. It's engaging with interesting characters and a neat plot. It's a bit Lovecraftian being set in the late 1800s set in the real world with an occult twist. The cutscenes are always interesting with almost great voice acting (they're a bit too over the top). The only problem is the cutscenes end without any resolution. Some crazy thing will happen in them, and the characters won't even talk about what happened. It will just go back to gameplay. The story I think is very worth it.

The game looks great. It's a bit dark, though. The music is also very nice, although it feels a bit out of place with the atmosphere. It looks a lot like Resident Evil also being set in a manor and using pre-rendered backgrounds, The models are very detailed. The only problem is that interactive elements could be made more clear.

The gameplay is... fine. It's a turn-based RPG, but you control the stats of your characters. There are a total of 8 stats, and 7 stats that matter (what does luck do?) Each level up, you can upgrade 4 stats. It's a bit hard to manage, as there are 2 defensive stats (magic and melee), agility, and the offensive stats come in pairs - one for damage, another for hit chance. So you want to balance 5 stats with 4 level up points. What you should do seems obvious, but it still gives the fear of screwing up the stats. Gameplay is stupidly easy, though, and you quickly grow way more powerful than any enemies you will encounter. Animations are super slow, but you can fix that by playing this game emulated.

I've heard this game described as janky, but I don't agree at all. Play it!

40%PlayStation

Fantastic cutscenes and atmosphere for the time, but the gameplay sucks monumental ass. I gave up and watched the rest on youtube to see the rest of the cutscenes

80%PlayStation

Unique game that was way too ambitious for the PS1. A survival horror RPG. The atmophere, graphics, voice acting, story, and enemy design are great. The battles are way too slow, and the rpg elements are not too complex. Maybe should of had the combat of Parasite eve instead of turn based. Fans of old school survival horror should give this a try.

60%Emulated

Really fun atmosphere and characters, gameplay mid at best, basically unplayable without liberal use of an emulators fast forward feature because of how long most animations last

Fun game overall and worth a play if the atmosphere peaks your interest but hard to recommend for the gameplay

80%PlayStation

Great RPG with unique and creative enemies, gothic/horror atmosphere, and an interesting story.

90%Emulated

Criminally underrated hidden gem, holds up surprisingly well despite it's age.

Play it if you like:

✅ Like Shadow Hearts and want to know how the series started
✅ RE/SH-style puzzles and movement
✅ Tactical RPG-style combat
✅ Grinding that doesn't overstay it's welcome
✅ Music that fits the era that also gets quite "twisted" during battles
✅ Goth vibes
✅ Voice acting that's cheesy but still good (something more akin to the PS2 era rather than the PS1 this released for)
✅ Bragging rights for playing cult classics/forgotten gems

65%Emulated

Koudelka was a more thorough exploration of Parasite Eve's genre-bordering. Like PE, it pairs survival horror elements with JRPG encounters, with a few differences though: A sluggish SRPG combat system instead of ATB, and a focus on the supernatural and religious subject matter over sci-fi horror. Its fixed camera and single-building setting requiring exploration, backtracking and puzzle-solving make it a more faithful interpreter of Resident Evil, but the real merit - however, lies in the long, dramatic, CGI cutscenes with plenty of voice acting and personality, approaching Metal Gear Solid's own drawn out passages. The battle system may be nothing special, and backtracking gets a little tedious, but its interesting cast and dark, disturbing themes paint the experience into something worthwhile.

70%Emulated

Koudelka is an interesting title. Despite appearances, this is not a survival horror game, but a horror themed JRPG with the expected tropes and drawbacks from both genres. In other words, this game blends the use of limited inventory space, backtracking, cryptic puzzles, and an unconventional save system with turn based combat, random encounters, and experience points. On paper, this might sound as if Koudelka is mixing oil and water, and at times it feels that way, but the incredible presentation, excellently paced cutscenes, superb voice acting, and slow to unravel story bolster many of the more rickety gameplay design choices.

The combat and level up systems are somewhat overcomplicated and neither are explained very well nor utilized to their full potential due to the short runtime. Enemies often have elemental weaknesses, but the lack of any option to scan them for this info results in a trial and error approach to nearly every encounter. Even so, Koudelka is also a very easy game. Your party levels up very quickly, and since your HP and MP are restored every time a character reaches a new level, healing items are rarely useful and clog up your limited inventory space. Weapons are also breakable meaning you will want to carry a few as backups, but again, this takes up precious item space that is also occupied by key items that can’t be dropped.

It’s certainly not a game for everybody—I would much rather play a unique and interesting game with questionable execution than the opposite and your enjoyment of Koudelka will likely depend on your stance on this matter.

60%PlayStation

In terms of story and presentation, Koudelka is a 10/10. It has some of the best video game writing and production value of its time, and has a couple of the most emotional scenes I've seen in a video game. It also looks great and has really good voice acting for the time.

Unfortunately the gameplay is unbearable; the combat is the only reason I give this game a 6 as opposed to a 10. It's that bad. The combat system is fucking atrocious; it baffles me why such snail-paced SRPG combat was forced into this game, when strategy isn't even involved. A mook that should take a few seconds to kill will take up to 5 minutes because of how slow the combat is, and random encounters are so frequent that it kills any enjoyment of the game.

If this game had action combat like Resident Evil (which it apes the exploration gameplay elements of), or even regular JRPG combat without the pointless strategy grid-based movement elements, it would be amazing and I would recommend it instantly. But there you have it: Koudelka, an otherwise brilliant game dragged down by its awful combat. Watch a game-movie on YouTube instead.

90%PlayStation

This is my favorite 6-7/10 game. Design-wise, there's a lot to dislike. Random encounters when exploring a survival-horror space full of backtracking. Poor signalling in terms of items and doorways. A map that comes too late and might be optional. Very easy to screw yourself without a guide on the character builds. But DAMN that VIBE. IT'S SO SICK. Definitely made better through emulation. The horror aspect is so cool. There's so much flavor in the castle. The game just jumps right into it and the dialogue/story is just enough to give you enough of what you need to know about the characters and lore. It's so breezy too. So glad I finally played this. I wish Koudelka was a playable character in Shadow Hearts.

80%PlayStation

Gameplay: 4
Story: 5
Graphics: 5
Sound: 4.5
Replayability: 4

60%PlayStation Vita

PS1 rpgs have not aged well. Annoying super aggressive/angry characters. Farfetched story. Unbalanced gameplay. Key items easy to miss because everything blends into the background. Had to follow guide to complete. Pendent requirement was pretty much impossible to know. Good music.

90%PlayStation

Incredibly engaging story with some gameplay flaws yet a wonderful hybrid that is sadly not utilized more in more video games. Honestly some of the best voice acting in a game, especially for the time. Koudelka is filled with rich complicated 3-dimensional characters, more complicated than typical moral stories of making clear distinctions of good and evil.

The game certainly isn't without its flaws, however. It takes turn based combat with a tactical grid play style and falls a bit short in this regard. The survival horror element is implemented with weapon degradation the more you use a particular weapon. It isn't necessarily deep, and what it does is decent overall.
As the story progresses, combat picks up a bit more Its sin is it's combat is slow at times, and the puzzles with its RE1 inspired gameplay is simple if you've played survival horror games. Despite all this, it doesn't stop the from elevating the game into something special.

If you were to take Parasite Eve and light Final Fantasy Tactics mashed up with Firefly in a gothic horror dressing, you'd get Koudelka - truly one of the most unique games I've ever played.

60%Emulated

Good story, good characters, decent soundtrack, mediocre gameplay. Way ahead of it's time in terms of voice acting and animations.

80%PlayStation

Surprisingly good rpg, very unique for its time. Interesting story as a prequel to shadow hearts.

70%PlayStation

Let's just get straight to the heart of the matter with this game... Koudelka's most common criticism was the speed of its turn based battle system. Admittedly, the battle system is unnecessarily slow. (However, that is buffered by a low encounter rate.) For those who have patience for the lethargy, they will be rewarded with one of the most unique JRPGs ever developed. Primarily Koudelka's mature characters and plot are extremely unique and enjoyable (no we-can-save-the-world teenagers here). That is if you can deal with a heavy dose of the macabre. Koudelka's plot contains subject matter that is entirely adult (suicide, murder, child abuse, child prostitution, for starters), and the gore factor can be high at times. These elements are made believable thanks to excellent voice acting and FMV that holds up well for its age. Further strengths are creative and diverse enemy variety, fantastic atmosphere, and a protagonist you will find endearing by the end. My only complaints are the brain dead simple puzzles and weak OST. This game's composer is world renowned but he utterly dropped the ball with Koudelka's quirky but ill-fitting soundtrack. Well if you are an open minded player with patience, give Koudelka a shot. It might not be a masterpiece but it's an innovative and completely unique experiment that I doubt we'll ever see attempted again any time soon. Koudelka billed itself as a survival horror RPG, and it delivered exactly that.

60%PlayStation

This game seemed to have an excellent foundation - strong art design, solid writing, phenomenal voice acting, an interesting approach to gameplay and a dark story in a usually ignored setting (probably the only non point-and-click in this setting outside of Clive Barker's brilliant The Undying). There's also quite a bit of FMV, which is genuinely quite excellent. However, the gameplay has some very serious problems that do considerably lessen the impact. First, grinding is sometimes necessary and can take a while - and since grinding generally means putting points towards certain attributes, if you've been putting these points in the wrong ones, so to speak, you will need to start grinding yet again for a hard battle. The battles are also awkward in that they're set up like a TRPG like FFT or Front Mission, but you can't go past any enemies to go behind them - if you're on the left, where there's no monsters, and one is one space in front of your grid-point far on the right, you can't go past the 'frontline' so to speak. And can somebody please explain to me why all three characters are able to use magic when only one of them is able to in the story scenes, and the other two seem bewildered by the very existence of magic?! Also, some of the puzzles can be quite obtuse - an FAQ should be on hand at all times. And lastly, while the backgrounds are beautiful, they're so dark sometimes that it's difficult to appreciate them, and even more difficult to navigate. But for what does work, I will have to say that I can appreciate it.

70%PlayStation

Strong story, writing, and acting. Interesting design choices. Unpolished programming, however. Far better than its reputation.

70%PlayStation

Got only the canon ending so I'll consider this beaten, plus, I'll get around to try and get the good ending soon enough. The game was really interesting it's a shame no one got to refine this formula because I'm sure it would be very very interesting. Loved the dialogues, voice acting and atmosphere.