Culdcept The First is an interesting piece of strategy-game history, not least because its original 1997 Sega Saturn release never received an official Western release. Nearly three decades later, City Connection has brought the game to PlayStation 5 as part of its Saturn Tribute line, adding a selection of conveniences without attempting to modernise the underlying experience too heavily. That makes this a rather unusual re-release: it is clearly an old game, complete with its 4:3 presentation and deliberate pacing, but the underlying combination of board-game economics, deck building and creature battles remains distinctive enough to stand on its own. The result is less a full renovation than an opportunity to discover the foundations of a series that has developed considerably since its debut.
The premise is suitably eccentric. In the fantasy world of Bablashca, fragments of the mythical Culdcept have thrown the world into conflict, with Cepters battling for control of its power. The protagonist is deliberately something of a blank slate, while the journey is punctuated by colorful characters and the ever-present talking cane Goligan. The narrative is not particularly ambitious by modern standards, but that is arguably to its benefit. Rather than burying the player beneath lengthy exposition, the story primarily exists to introduce the setting, opponents and progression between matches. There is some freedom in the order in which different Cepters can be challenged, which gives the otherwise linear adventure a welcome degree of flexibility. Players looking for a substantial RPG narrative will find the storytelling rather thin, but as a framework for a strategy game it does the job without getting in the way.
The real reason to play Culdcept The First is its remarkably unusual gameplay formula. At its simplest, it resembles a mixture of Monopoly and a collectible card game, but that comparison only gets the basic idea across. Players construct a 50-card Book, roll dice to travel around a board and summon creatures onto elemental spaces to establish territory. Rivals who land there have to pay a toll, unless they attempt to defeat the occupying creature and take the territory for themselves. Magic Power is therefore both currency and the measure of progress, while levelling territory, managing resources and deciding when to engage in combat constantly force difficult choices. The system remains impressively coherent because the board and card mechanics genuinely interact rather than feeling like two separate games awkwardly pushed together.
There is considerable depth hidden beneath that straightforward structure. More than 300 cards provide creatures, spells and items with different abilities, while elemental affinities, land bonuses, equipment and status effects can turn apparently predictable battles around. A strong creature is not necessarily a safe creature, and attacking is not always about immediately capturing territory; weakening a defender or manipulating the board can pay off several turns later. Different maps also encourage different deck-building approaches, while movement and resource-management cards can radically change the pace of a match. That flexibility is one of the game’s greatest strengths, although it comes with the downside that newcomers have a lot to absorb. The tutorial does a respectable job of introducing the fundamentals, but understanding all of the interactions between the card pool, board layout, economy and combat takes considerably longer. Unlucky dice rolls and card draws can also undermine a carefully constructed plan, making the occasional loss feel more like bad fortune than bad strategy.
That strategic richness does, however, come with a considerable commitment of time. Matches can easily run for an hour or considerably longer, particularly on larger maps or with multiple opponents, and Culdcept The First is noticeably more economical and slower-paced than later entries in the series. There are moments when a run of poor dice results or expensive territories leaves a player effectively waiting for the next influx of resources. The longer battles and extended combat animations also reinforce the game’s late-1990s character, for better and worse. On the other hand, the smaller boards can make those slow stretches less punishing than they might otherwise be, while the game’s strong comeback potential means that an apparently dominant position is not necessarily secure. The best moments come when a carefully prepared attack succeeds against a heavily fortified territory, or when an opponent’s seemingly inevitable victory suddenly collapses because of one well-timed card.
The controls are functional rather than particularly modern. Culdcept was designed around a console interface, and the PlayStation 5 version translates that structure cleanly enough, but the experience is still very much tied to its original design. One welcome addition is the ability to reveal the hands of the players continuously, which makes the sometimes opaque strategic possibilities easier to understand and is particularly useful when learning how the game’s card interactions work. Quick Save and Quick Load are arguably even more important, given the length of individual matches, while the Rewind feature provides a safety net when a costly decision goes wrong. It is worth stressing that Rewind works around checkpoints rather than providing unlimited turn-by-turn undo functionality, so it does not completely remove the consequences of poor decisions. Still, these additions make the original design substantially easier to live with today.
Visually, this is unmistakably a Saturn-era game, and anyone expecting a remaster with modern presentation will need to adjust their expectations. The 4:3 display, pixelated graphics and old-fashioned interface are preserved rather than rebuilt, although the detailed card illustrations remain an especially attractive part of the presentation. The creature artwork has a darker fantasy character that gives the game an identity of its own, while the battle animations add just enough movement to keep encounters from feeling completely static. Unfortunately, the board can become increasingly cluttered as territories fill up, making ownership and Magic Power values harder to read at a glance. That is a genuine interface problem rather than simply an issue of graphical age. The soundtrack fares better, complementing the fantasy setting and giving the lengthy matches some much-needed atmosphere.
The biggest problem with Culdcept The First in 2026 is therefore not its underlying game design, but how faithfully that design has been preserved. The absence of online multiplayer is a significant omission for a strategy game that is particularly well suited to playing against human opponents, leaving local multiplayer as the only multiplayer option. The lack of a widescreen presentation and modernised interface also makes the game feel more dated than it perhaps needs to be. Some of those shortcomings are less relevant on PlayStation 5 than they may be on PC, but the broader point remains: City Connection has made the original more convenient rather than truly reinventing it.
Even so, Culdcept The First remains surprisingly compelling once its age is accepted. Its blend of deck construction, territorial control, resource management and tactical combat still feels distinct from the many digital card games that followed it, and the new quality-of-life features remove some of the most obvious barriers to enjoying such a deliberately old-fashioned game. The lack of online play, dated presentation and lengthy matches prevent it from feeling like the definitive way to experience Culdcept today, particularly when compared with later entries, but that is not really the purpose of this release. As a preserved piece of strategy-game history, Culdcept The First is much more than a curiosity. Its unusual formula has survived because the underlying ideas were strong in the first place, and almost thirty years later, there is still considerable satisfaction in building the right Book, controlling the right territory and watching a supposedly safe opponent suddenly discover that the board has turned against them.
Scoer: 7.0/10