Culdcept

[Glockstar]

I've put about 160 hours into the game now. I have over 1000 cards total; 436 (of 480) different cards; 48 of 56 gallery images unlocked; and 32 (of 50) Medals.

My original obsession was with getting new cards, but for the past couple of weeks now I've been obsessed with the Medals. Sadly, I think I may be at a dead end with them now. A lot of them are asinine ('fill the map up entirely with Powder Eaters', gtfoh!) and it would seem like that's most of the one's that I have left. Besides the normal get all the creature cards; get all the item cards; get all the spell cards... I am still kind of hoping to get those.

But damn, the cards are coming slow now! Out of the last 60 cards that I've got only, like, 2 have been "new". :( I need to make some trades! Gadfly, we need to work something out.

[Gadfly2317]

Damn Glock!

I doubt I'm anywhere near where you are with the cards. I mostly play this game as a 2-player game with my wife, so while it's a game I've played off and on for several years now, I'm still woefully far from completing it.

[Glockstar]

Aw man. :( Do you guys at least have a Battle Gear Beta? No wait, that wouldn't do me any good either. I need 3 of them.

That's another of these ridiculous medals that I have left to get: 'Get 3 BundleGears on the map at once'. After 160+ hours and 1000 cards I still can't achieve this medal because I still only have 1 Battle Gear Alpha (only half of one of the three BundleGears needed). There's another one for getting 'all 11 idols on the board at once', it's impossible for me to go after this one as well, because I only have ten of the idols. Aaargh... this game!

I'd like to move on to Culdcept Saga... but not until I'm done with Culdcept. And I won't be done with it until I have all the creature cards. I've been tracking my progress, and I only have 15 more to go total.

Another weird thing about that: When I started out - and thru the first 100 hours, I swear - I was severely lacking in red cards. Now I only need one more. (A "Sharazad"... whatever the frack that is; I've never seen one of those played, ever.) Contrarily, my initial stock of cards was strong in the blue and yellow cards, but now those are the two that I need the most of.

Some of the more noteworthy Creature cards that I'm missing: Decoy; Migoal; Master Monk; and Wyvern.

One big Item card that I know I'm missing: Catapult. That damned card has tipped the battle in my opponents favor many a time! I need one!

[Gadfly2317]

Aw man. :( Do you guys at least have a Battle Gear Beta? No wait, that wouldn't do me any good either. I need 3 of them.

That's another of these ridiculous medals that I have left to get: 'Get 3 BundleGears on the map at once'. After 160+ hours and 1000 cards I still can't achieve this medal because I still only have 1 Battle Gear Alpha (only half of one of the three BundleGears needed). There's another one for getting 'all 11 idols on the board at once', it's impossible for me to go after this one as well, because I only have ten of the idols. Aaargh... this game!

I'd like to move on to Culdcept Saga... but not until I'm done with Culdcept. And I won't be done with it until I have all the creature cards. I've been tracking my progress, and I only have 15 more to go total.

Another weird thing about that: When I started out - and thru the first 100 hours, I swear - I was severely lacking in red cards. Now I only need one more. (A "Sharazad"... whatever the frack that is; I've never seen one of those played, ever.) Contrarily, my initial stock of cards was strong in the blue and yellow cards, but now those are the two that I need the most of.

Some of the more noteworthy Creature cards that I'm missing: Decoy; Migoal; Master Monk; and Wyvern.

One big Item card that I know I'm missing: Catapult. That damned card has tipped the battle in my opponents favor many a time! I need one!

I have a catapult. :D

The weapon I HATE because I don't have it is the boomerang. It's not that its the strongest weapon or anything, but it returns to your hand after you play it. So when my wife has one, she can go for a LONG time always having a defense/attack card available with the boomerang (it provides something like 10defense and 20 or 30 attack.) This causes me to have to stack a number of "destroy item cards" so I can destroy her boomerang. But she has TWO of them. ARGGGHHH!!!!

You know how it is, sometimes you have no item or weapon card in your hand, but with that boomerang, until someone destroys it, you ALWAYS have a weapon/defense available. And it chaps my ass that I don't have that power yet. I think the issue is, is that I need to play more of the single player campaign, because I think you win that weapon at some point in the story.

[Glockstar]

You sonuvab!tch.

But, haha - you don't have a Boomerang! I've got two of those too. And you're right, they're a must have in my book too. It allows you do to so much, strategy wise. It not only allows you to carry less weapon cards, but it can also do the job of that Shatter card. :wink5:

As far as getting one, you don't have to do anything special. It is a "Normal" card.

[Glockstar]

I just got my 47th Medal! That leaves just 3 left. Which are: a medal each for getting all creature; item; and spell cards.

So yes, that means I got all the "asinine" medals. Got 3 BundleGears on the map at once; got all 11 idols on the board at once; filled the map entirely with Powder Eaters; filled the map entirely with Gooba; defeated a Dragon with a Powder Eater; won a game without using any item cards; won a game using only Normal cards; won a game that was me against 3 allied opponents...

And I gotta tell ya, I actually had a ball going after them! It seems like every time I got one of those asinine medals a lightbulb went off in my head about a way to get another asinine medal. I would spend hours strategizing... daydreaming about the game at work - making notes; staring at my complete card collection; laying awake at night - unable to sleep... And I would sometimes spend an hour to an hour-and-a-half just tweaking a special book. What a great time it's been.

But alas, with only those 3 medals left to get there's only one thing left for me to do... and that's to just keep plain ole playing. And now with nothing specific to aim for, it's getting kind of boring.

I'm thinking of starting up a new "campaign" from scratch. And if my new dude gets some cards that my first dude needs (which I hope he will) then I will, somehow, find a way to trade for them.

I reckon I've put about 235 hours into the game now. I have 472 unique cards. 1823 total.

My record versus story characters is 108-88. I just got the medal for winning 100 battles against story characters - at victory 108. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I believe the games where you have a partner don't count towards this tally.

I have 52 of the 56 gallery images/movies. I just figured out that the last five - now four - are directly related to acquiring either all of the creature cards of one type (like fire/water/earth/wind) and acquiring every single last card in the game. (I just completed my collection of the red creatures tonite as well.) As a bonus, when you complete one element line you get an "Extra Rare" card for - and related to - that type. Like I just got "Bistair" - which is a spell card that deals damage to one target creature in the amount of how many red spaces you own x10. Yowza!

So anyways, I have 13 non-E cards left to get:

Creature cards needed:
1. Decoy (Neutral/Special)
2. Doppleganger (Neutral/Rare)
3. Banshee (Blue/Rare)
4. Leviathon (Blue/Rare)
5. Gargoyle (Green/Special)
6. Leprechaun (Yellow/Rare)

Item cards:
1. Counter Amulet (Accessory/Rare)
2. Luna Stone (Accessory/Rare)
3. Ruby Ring (Accessory/Rare)

Spell cards:
1. Influence (Special)
2. Tempest (Rare)
3. Weathering (Rare)
4. Wild Growth (Rare)

Fracking Decoy and Counter Amulet... doesn't that figure?! Two of the worst, biggest pains-in-my-rear cards, and I of course still don't have them.

Oh that Catapult? I finally got one about 4 cards ago!

230 hours in and I'm still learning new things about this game. I just figured out the Sea Bonze. I've had one since, like, the 30th hour, but never understood what his special dealio was. And thus never knew how invincible he was. Omigosh!

Now when I say that I've played the game for 230 hours and am still learning the nuances that does not mean that I'm saying the game is necessarily deep and complex. No, what takes so long to figure out is the cards descriptions. That is one of the BIG beefs I have with this game: they did an awful job of telling you what each card does! Lots of stuff was lost in translation, methinks. Luckily the 360 game has got the video game populace talking about Culdcept again, so information that was once buried is now being put out there again.

[Gadfly2317]

Jesus Christ dude!

(Also, I agree with you. . .my biggest beef with the game is that I don't know what some cards do. . . the descriptions are poorly written. I think some of it might be translation issues, but mostly they seem poorly written to start with.)

I think I should follow your example. I'm so scattered on what I'm playing that gaming almost feels like a chore sometimes, like I've spent the money, so I need to play the games, and right now I'm just buried in partially played games I feel obligated for some weird reason to keep playing.

Culdcept, I've barely scratched the game because I've spent virtually all my time doing multiplayer. I haven't even finished the single player campaign after all these years much less started going after medals.

I wish there were a handheld version of this game. There's probably nothing more in the universe of gaming that would be more awesome to me.

[Glockstar]

Shoot. My plan was working - thru just three story-maps my new dude (actually a dudette - "Mimi"; haha, get it?) had gotten 2 of the cards I needed - but unfortunately I can't figure out how to "trade" for them. So there goes that idea. Starting over from scratch and winning with a shifty book is actually pretty fun... but I'm not sure if it's that fun. Guess it's back to the old grind.

And, I was mistaken about the hours I've put into this game. As I am so apt to do, I severely underestimated my game time. (Hey, I prefer to err on the side of caution okay?) I just discovered the "Results" section for my character, and it says that I've put in 280 hours total on all the maps. And this is just is just for time spent in battle; this doesn't account for all those hours I've spent in maintenance, nor does it factor in the time I just put in on my new character.


I think I should follow your example. I'm so scattered on what I'm playing that gaming almost feels like a chore sometimes, like I've spent the money, so I need to play the games, and right now I'm just buried in partially played games I feel obligated for some weird reason to keep playing.

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what happened to me, or when exactly it happened, but I game a lot different now then I used to. If I didn't have more than one system then I wouldn't be playing more than one game at a time. Because I don't switch out my games for nothing anymore. They stay in until I'm "done" with them. Am I focused... intent...driven? Yeah, maybe. But it could also be that I'm just lazy. :p

[Glockstar]

YES!!!

I did it!!!

I got all the cards! I got all the medals! Everything gained, everything unlocked... 100% completion! Universe completed!!!

This is my greatest accomplishment in video games. Even if I would have sent my Tetris score in to Nintendo Power and had it printed in their mag (way back in the day), even if I would have done those GameFAQs/Walkthroughs I came so close to doing... I know, I didn't do them, but I'm saying even if I did... this would still be numero uno. I mean it. You don't know how long this took me; how hard this was; how much effort I put into this.

306 hours spent in battle.
Record of 138-89 (227 total matches).
489 unique cards; 2123 total cards.

And the weird thing was I got to 100% this morning, but then went back to it this evening and put in another 4 hours or so. I have been so looking forward to being done with this game, but even getting all the cards and getting all the medals that does not mean that you've done everything there is to do in the game. Because for one thing, at the attainment of the 50th medal, 5 more maps unlock. And of course, there were those new "boss" cards I had to check out.

And yes, my final record is correct there; that is not a typo. I really did go 30-1 over these last 10 days/26 hours. And that's all with special, color-specific books. And just going down the line of opponents, playing on whatever map I had spent the fewest hours on up until that point.

Which btw, I think had a lot to do with the unlocking of those final 13 cards. I don't know - could be that it was just a coincidence - but I don't think so. I think the game is looking for certain... experience points... to be met, as a a criteria for rewarding you with new cards. I don't know...

Now going back to my 30-1 record over this last 25+ hours... and I don't know why I'm admitting this... but there were two resets in there. Hey man, this game can be a real frackin jerk sometimes. It. Cheats. So. Bad. Luck plays a huge role in your wins and losses, but a lot of the stuff you have to go thru in these single-player matches against the story characters is beyond luck. I know it's not luck; and that there's nothing random about it. It's preordained, predetermined crap, and it's the computer cheating. For example, there is actually a medal for having the bad luck of rolling a "1" three times in a row. I got that medal my very first game. And if they would have given me a medal for every time I did that then I would probably have about 120 of them. That's no joke. Remember I said I started up a new character and a new campaign? Same damn thing, three 1's, first game. There a lot of things in video games that piss me off and will have me cursing and swearing, but there is nothing more aggravating than, say, moving only 7 spaces in 5 turns. Or, thru the first 11 rounds of a game, drawing only 1 creature card. (And that's with a book that has 23 creature cards, 27 item and spell cards.) That was one of my resets. A couple of games later I landed perfectly on my opponents heavily leveled territory early in the game, which had me releasing all but one of my territories - it left me outnumbered 6 to 1 - but I played thru that bs (and won btw). But I tell you right now, I don't care if I'm playing the computer or somebody online, I will not fracking put up with that other crap. I did during my campaign playthru, and during all of my quests for medals (because you still get a couple of cards even in a loss) - I put up with a lot of bs (probably 80 of my 89 losses were bs!) - but no more.

There's no doubt about it, after getting some of these killer, Extra-Rare cards that the cards in your book are big a factor to winning the game. And, as I went 30-1 over those last 31 matches, I discovered that experience is another factor. And even bigger than strategy. But there is no question in my mind that luck is the biggest factor. It's almost 50% of the equation.

And that is why this why, even after spending 300+ hours on it, and dreaming about it, and being obsessed with it... I cannot call this the best, or even my favorite PS2 game. I stand by my previous list: Ico and Champions of Norrath are above Culdcept.

But we'll see. A year from now, memories and feelings of this time - this intense month of May especially - may come flooding back to me and I'll have to declare this game an all-time favorite. I think that's the way it is with most of those ATF's anyway: you don't know how well you really like a game until sometime after.

Speaking of such a game... it's now OB64 time baby!!!