I forget how I first heard of this series, probably just searching for digital board/card games one night. But I'm glad I did find it.
The best description is Monopoly meets Magic: The Gathering. Don't let the Monopoly thing turn you off, though. Its much more interesting.
The game has you being some powerful sorcerer called a "Cepter" wandering the land fighting other Cepters, collecting cards, blah blah. Not important. You walk around and kick peoples asses to earn more cards to kick more ass.
So when a fight starts you are placed on a board which is basically a "ring" of squares (think Monopoly board). Sections of the board are colored (red, green, blue, yellow), and its usually a set of 4-5 squares called a territory. You roll the dice and start walking around the board and stop on an empty space, lets say a red one. You can claim this space (like Monopoly) by playing a card and summoning a creature (like Magic). If the creatures color matches the spaces color it gets a bonus to HP and such. The more spaces you control in a territory the more bonuses your creatures in that territory get and the more each space is "worth". You can also level up the land to make each space worth more.
Why?
Because when your opponent lands on that space he has to pay the toll, which is magic points. If he doesn't want to pay the toll he can fight your creature with one of his own. If he loses he's lost the creature AND has to pay the toll, but if he wins theres no toll and his creature takes over the space (if its a draw I think he keeps the card and pays the toll). There are item cards like weapons and armor that can help your creatures in battle that you get to play before the actual fighting starts which makes it a bit more interesting.
The board layouts can vary a lot with branching paths and loops. The home square is the Castle and around the map will be Forts. If you visit all the Forts and then pass the Castle, you earn magic points depending on how much territory you control and how much they are worth. The win conditions seem to be being worth a certain number of magic points and then returning to the Castle.
It sounds complicated but when you're actually playing it makes more sense. I just started and I'm sure Im missing some details on it but thats the general idea.
So for English speakers your options are kind of limited to getting your hands on one of these games. The original was released in Japan on Saturn and PSX so good luck with that. The sequel was released on the Dreamcast and PS2, with the PS2 version getting an English release (Just titled "Culdcept", no hints that its the second one). I lucked out and found a copy in great shape at Gamestop just 2 weeks ago for $7. There was also a current gen release called Culdcept Saga released on the 360 thats in English. Might be worth tracking down. And finally there was a DS game that was only released in Japan, but there is a well done
translation patch available for those with a flash cart. It might even work in an emulator so its the easiest option to see what the series is like.
Just thought I'd share since I don't think too many people will have even heard of this let alone play it. Its pretty groovy.
