Culdcept (2001 video game)

The Goddess Culdra foresees that a powerful Cepter known as Geminigh will gain nearly infinite power, destroying all of creation. She sends Goligan, a talking cane who is her messenger, from her original world, Ruedo, to the player's world, in order to track down the Cepter who will become Geminigh and stop them. However, Goligan is unsuccessful, until he meets the player, in the form of a customized avatar. Sensing that the player has great power, Goligan teams up with them in order to track down the evil Cepter, stop them, and save the universe from destruction.

The original Culdcept II was given a high score of 37 out of 40 by Famitsu. The expansion was given a 35 out of 40. The game had sold over 65,000 units to date.

In the West, Culdcept's PS2 version received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Jeremy Dunham of IGN called it "bizarrely unique". Stating it was "incredibly fun, deceptively deep, and always entertaining", he praised the gameplay, but criticized the lack of online features or downloadable maps. He also called the game's graphics "dated", but praised the game's card art. Mike David of GameZone called it "incredibly addictive" and a "good solid game", but criticized its lack of voice acting and music that "just seems to fade into the background". He called the graphics "straight off of the Sega Saturn playlist", but "classic looking", and commended the "sweet looking character models". Greg Kasavin of GameSpot called it "easily recommendable to fans of strategy games and even to fans of role-playing games", as well as "surprisingly fun and addictive". However, he also stated that "the luck-based matches will cause you some frustration from time to time".