The storyline of Sudeki is rather interesting, just takes a little to get into. Characters fail to have a great scope of development to them. They have their own side stories, but are told rather poorly and don’t have a definite conclusion. I did enjoy the storytelling to the tried-and-true side quests.
The problem with the story revolves around cliches and the lack of originality. There's some tricks and turns that are... Weird, but perhaps not as invigorating as a more dramatic change in the storyline. Really in a game that is character-driven rather then event driven it's hard to follow if the characters are stiff and one-sided. For example, Buki is a fierce amazoness, outside of that? Eh, nothing much there. It's a linear story with linear characters and told not particularly well.
For the most part, it's not a story you'll be remembering years later not like some of the more prominent story-driven games on the market in both the RPG and general video games category.
Rating:
One aspect Sudeki hits nicely is its graphics. At the first opening birds’ eye-look at the first environment, I was immediately wowed by the graphics. It was a vastly large city, with a lot of detail in it. All the environments in this game are wonderfully done and are great to look at. There’s also a diverse amount of different places to encounter from the large cities to the dark, evil locale, all very fitting graphically. The only problem I found was though the ambience was strong, certain areas felt lifeless. When making substantially long walks from battle-to-battle or traveling between cities there wasn’t much to look/interact with. A few paths had some falling leaves and random butterflies, which looked great, but there just wasn’t a lot of it, which was a shame, since some of the walks are a bit of an annoyance length-wise.
The character models are also done very well. Nicely animated and drawn. Again, detail was immense. Being able to see
individual clothing patterns and hair strands was definitely a plus. There’s also a lot of individualization in
the game character-wise. Not a lot of similar looking people. A bit of distinct differences between the various NPCs was
definitely another nice touch. Finally, probably the best thing they did with the character models was with the baddies
in the game. There’s over 100 of them in here and they all look great. And it’s not like they have minor
differences between them. Some are large, hulking ogres to tiny dragonfly-esque creatures. Climax just does a really job
graphically.
Rating:
Sudeki does a nice job with the sounds of the game as well They fail a bit in ambience sounds, which could’ve given the atmosphere a bit of a kick, but it’s not a big issue. The music is also done pretty well, a little generic and a bit similar between tracks, but fits the action right. Nice and mellow guitar solos in the calmer areas and nice up tempo stuff for the action. What finally really finished off the pretty good sound work are the voiceovers. There are over 1,000 spoken lines for over 300 NPCs, which all fit each character nicely, and all done relatively well (For a video game, I mean). There’s a bit of a strange mélange of accents (But then again this is a fantasy world) and a few winces for some of the character’s voices, but generally done nicely.
The one problem I found with the sound was that sometimes it got ahead or skewed and didn’t match up alignment-wise with the game. It happened here and there resulting in a minor mismatch with dialogue and game positioning. Sometimes the music would also stop midway and restart a few times. I had several other reports of this problem from a few other Sudeki players, so it wasn’t just a faulty disc. Not a big problem, but a bug that should have been caught in testing.
Rating:
As fun as Sudeki is, there are still some major flaws that seriously take away from the whole experience, which is truly
a shame coming from a game that could have been a serious head-turner. Climax does a lot of right things with Sudeki,
but a little more design and development probably could’ve made this title a little more accessible and made it
ultimately an amazing title. The design flaws list is a long one, but regardless, it’s definitely a fun game and
you should definitely give it a look. The amazing graphics may just be worth a look alone. Just don’t expect to
get too much time from the game as game length does suffer a bit ranging from 15-20 hours.
Sudeki, to say the least, is certainly an interesting experience. It takes classic RPG style elements, mixes in live,
action-based fighting, and tops it off with a mature theme to ultimately create a fun, but stinted game. United Kingdom
based developer Climax creates a nice fantasy RPG to help fill the closing RPG void on the XBOX, but doesn’t pull
out the standout title they were looking for. Climax hits a lot of great aspects that outweigh the poorer parts of the
game, and definitely warrants a look for any RPGer or even any action fan.
Final Fantasy, this is not. Sudeki really deviates from the lighter and airy mainstream look that RPGs tend to have and aims for the more mature audience of the XBOX, which is definitely an appeal of this game. To see headless corpses and large pools of blood on a spectacular looking fantasy background is pretty grimacing and shocking. This level of violence is usually reserved for war-based shooter games and not typically seen in a fantasy-based RPG. And yes, disturbing as it is, it’s really cool. Okay, maybe I’m disturbed, but c’mon! It’s just amazing to see such a deviation in a beautiful looking, innocent world. The game also boasts some nice adult, double-entendre filled humor in conversations and little jokes here and there, that again, deviates from the audience RPGs tend to aim for.
Sudeki, to say the least, is certainly an interesting experience. It takes classic RPG style elements, mixes in live, action-based fighting, and tops it off with a mature theme to ultimately create a fun, but stinted game. United Kingdom based developer Climax creates a nice fantasy RPG to help fill the closing RPG void on the XBOX, but doesn’t pull out the standout title they were looking for. Climax hits a lot of great aspects that outweigh the poorer parts of the game, and definitely warrants a look for any RPGer or even any action fan.
Rating:
6.6667 (above average)
Reviewed by Mtank325, Sep 29, 2005
Strange that none have yet commented on this review, which is extremely detailed, well-written, and informative. I admit I have never played Sudeki and therefore cannot comment on how close (or far) your ratings fall to my own marks, but you certainly justify your ratings and give insights that are of great value to ones such as myself who have yet to experience the game.
Kudos for a job well done. Keep up the great work!
Hey, thanks. I did this review for another site and just editted it for here. Definitely this game is a rental if you're looking to play it, unless you get it uber-cheap.
wow its really great
Simple but not a bad review. Good job.
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