Clear River Games and Neos Corporation have released Culdcept Begins on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.
Fans may recognize the Culdcept name from a decade ago when the last entry, Culdcept Revolt, released on Nintendo 3DS. The series originally started back in 1997 in Japan, but didn’t arrive in the US until the second entry on the PlayStation 2 in 2003.
The Culdcept series is an original digital board game that combines the concepts of Monopoly with that of a strategy card game — wrapped in a JRPG story.
On their turn, players roll dice (a d8!) to move around a board of different elemental tiles.
Instead of owning property and building houses and hotels, players have a deck of cards they use to summon creatures onto the tiles. When landing on enemy spaces, they also have the option of battling using the creatures, items, and spell cards in their hand.
As players travel around the different boards and win and develop territories, they accrue more mana. Once they reach a certain mana goal, they only have to travel to the castle (the Monopoly GO space, basically) to win the match.
Culdcept Begins features around 400 different creature, item, and spell cards with which to build 40-card decks. Players earn gold and levels after finishing different scenarios and missions, and use gold to purchase card packs and expand their collection.
The game features a single-player Story mode, as well as a Versus mode against AI opponents, and an Online mode against other players.
The Switch 2 version also utilizes GameShare, and the Mouse functionality of the Joy Con 2. With GameShare, owners can share the game with other players on Switch or Switch 2 for online multiplayer — even if they don’t own the game.
Players who purchase the game before September 17 will receive legacy character avatars and special book covers from the series’ past.
Culdcept Begins is available now on Switch and Switch 2, and rated E10+.
