PixlBit

"The snooty anti-weeb police will tell you this occurs when visual artists from the west try too hard to be like Japan. However, this reminds me a lot more of RARE. I get a certain "Killer Instinct" and "Kameo" vibe from this box art!" 

Rumor has it there was a Y’s game done by “those other people”. X-seed as such had no part in this unknown creation. Said game focused on Adol’s nephew Tal who is also a red-headed warrior! Tal gets himself into trouble and soon finds himself helping a beautiful scantily clad blue haired sorceress named Ailish who sounds more like a Cockney English woman than the usual meek Disney princess. (Though incidentally she IS a princess) Together these two set off to get into more misadventures and are soon joined by a voluptuous hawt furry and a nerdy yet snarky gun-slinger!

Truth be told, Sudeki isn’t a Y’s game but I swear to God it looks like one. Climax studios were either fans of Y’s or they somehow channeled Adol Cristin’s spirit indirectly in some sort of weird office party séance! Either way, the game comes off as a love child between RARE and X-seed. (The character designs remind me a lot of Kameo too.)

When I first started Sudeki I hated it. Combat is actually difficult in Sudeki. If you don’t master your block, strong attack, weak attack, and your round-house sweep attack you are going to die often. By the way, long-distance archers and casters are a real threat. Though weaker than warriors they can potentially do a lot more damage. Trust me, you want to take those bastards out quickly!

However, once you figure everything out this game becomes the best beat-em-up/rpg hybrid ever! Seriously, it felt like I was playing Double Dragon again only this time there were spells and swords! (Ailish actually goes into a cool first person spell-caster-mode that made my memories of playing Heretic and Hexen come flooding back all at once.)

"Beat em or blast em....your choice!"

Probably the coolest thing about Sudeki is each character brings a whole unique play-style. Want the game to be akin to a brawler? Play as Tal or the curvy tiger furry babe. Want the game to play like a first person shooter? Play as Ailish or the gun-slinger dude.

"Some will call this "pandering". I call it pleasant porn-fantasy fuel! What's wrong with that?"

Sudeki is a love-letter to not giving a fuck. It is like playing a really good game from the 90’s
when developers were not afraid to make female characters super sexy or include a fishnet shirt adorned gay trader with an obsession for animal furs. Though its' story is rather ordinary and plain I do appreciate it embodies all the freaky awesomeness you only find from games that were made during my youth and adolescence. Political correctness? Sudeki has no idea what those words even mean and it is a much better game because of that very fact!

Did I mentioned the game’s story is narrated by Tom Baker? Yeah, the 4th doctor! I loved Tom so much as a kid I got my gracious adult friend Elaine to make me a scarf I wore constantly! (During the summer too. I was hardcore. Heat stroke? Ha, whatever, man! I was Doctor f^cking Who!) How the hell does this game know me so well?!

"Wow,this got very "H.P. Lovecraft" all of a sudden...where did the cute furry village-folk go?! Maybe this monster ate em!"

My only problem with Sudeki is the conflicts in design. It’s whimsical in appearance and has anthromorphic npcs which tend to lend themselves to a certain kind of story-telling. Yet the game tries to be “edgy” with bloody ultra attacks and even presents a portion of the beginning battle where you see villagers impaled on pikes and pitchforks after an enemy raid. You really do not expect that kind of brutality in a game that for all intents and purposes could be Zelda’s immediate relative. Brutal Legend proved to me something could look cartoonish yet still be dark and even sad in places. Unfortunately, Sudeki does not pull that motif off with the same professionalism and the same gusto. It’s jarring to play what essentially could be a Y’s game with mangled broken corpses laying about. (Yes, the violent imagery bothers me more than the boobies in this particular case simply because it seems so out of place amongst everything else!) Is Sudeki supposed to be a lighthearted romp with cheeky humor poking fun of the usual rpg clichés? Is it supposed to woo us with how “graphic” “serious” and “mature” it is? We are never quite sure and therein lays Sudeki’s biggest weakness.

Ironically THIS was the X-box’s first rpg. Something that might be fun to rub in the faces of all those uber fan-boys who believe microsoft has always been about brown and orange space marine shooters and uber-serious Bio-ware choose-your-own-adventure games! Sudeki is like your unconventional super attractive 3rd cousin who became a stripper or your big gay uncle. This person may not fit in with the rest of your family but they are a blast to have around!

Right now you can get Sudeki on Steam for 4.99. Assuming you can get passed the game’s harsh learning curve and clashing ideologies there really is a lot to love here!