Culdcept BEGINS review: Cepters, creatures, and cards

Card battlers and board games are a dime a dozen in the gaming world; whether you’re interested in horror games, fantasy epics, or engaging multiplayer titles, your game library is bound to be bursting at the seams with digital cards, dice, and colorful boards.

A game that’s putting a unique spin on board games and card battlers is Culdcept BEGINS, the 2026 addition to the classic Culdcept franchise. It’s a blast to play through as a card game geek, and well worth your time. Here’s Kyusai’s full Culdcept BEGINS review, completed on Nintendo Switch 2. 

A fantastical world

Culdcept is a classic series of turn-based fantasy games that got its start back in 1997, and it’s still going strong to this day, thanks to Culdcept BEGINS, with a passionate online community surrounding the series.

As someone who’d never dipped into the series before reviewing Culdcept BEGINS, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

I’m a big fan of turn-based RPGs, indie card battlers, and board games, but the franchise was brand new to me. While I’m sure fans of the series will get more out of it, I still had a great time as a new player. 

In Culdcept BEGINS, you’re thrown into a magical training school called the Royal Cept Academy.

At the Academy, characters train as Cepters – magical fighters – tasked with harnessing the power of Culds. Culds are stone tablets, which are fragments of the titular Culdcept, a source of immense power.

The story itself is fairly typical fantasy fare – a magical school, a continent carved out by the gods, and a chosen one, along with a fantastical system to explain the core gameplay loop – but it was still good fun getting to know the characters.

The main character is Kamru, a transfer student who’s being observed closely by the higher-ups in the Royal Cept Academy as he finds his feet with the role of a Cepter. 

While I did enjoy the world-building and selection of characters in Culdcept BEGINS, I got the most enjoyment out of each chapter’s combat or battle sequence. This is a game that sparkled somewhat with its narrative but shone like a diamond with its mechanics. 

Engaging battles, with plenty of strategy

The combat sequences in Culdcept BEGINS are intriguing; think Monopoly and dice games, with a little Magic: The Gathering thrown in via the creature-summoning mechanics, along with more traditional RPG systems, like resource gathering.

To win a battle in Culdcept BEGINS, you have to rack up a certain number of resources while racing around the board and completing laps, stopping in at castles and forts along the way. You’ll move as dictated by dice rolls along elemental paths.

As you move along the board, you’ll be able to place down creatures and cast spells, while also being able to upgrade your land and develop your territory. It’s similar to placing a hotel in Monopoly and will impact your eventual score.

It took me a minute to get the hang of the combat mechanics, but I did enjoy playing through each battle once I’d figured out how to maximize my offensive capabilities, particularly when landing on an opponent’s tile. 

Landing on an opponent’s tile triggers a battle of sorts, where your creature card will face off against theirs, and vice versa if the opponent lands on your tile. This means paying attention to support cards that enhance your creature’s attack or defense stats, and not burning through them in the early stages of the game. 

Alongside the combat mechanics, I was impressed with the aesthetic in Culdcept BEGINS. Each character sprite felt unique and had its own charm, and the world had a gorgeously painterly aesthetic.

I did spend a few chapters wishing I could explore more of the world thanks to the beautiful artwork, though. Culdcept BEGINS is relatively linear – which is fine, it makes sense for the game’s genre – but I would’ve loved a few more opportunities to roam around and get a better feel for the world.

The visuals were a highlight, though. Aside from a few little quirks where characters seemed to stand in front of their chairs instead of sitting on them, or books clipping through banisters as characters ran, there were no major bugs, glitches, or flaws to address with Culdcept BEGINS.

If you’re brand new to the world of Culdcept – like I was at the beginning of the review – there’s lots for you to uncover with Culdcept BEGINS. 

While devoted series fans may find more to love than new players, I found the experience to be enchanting, and was surprised by how moreish the fantastical style of board game-based combat felt during my play sessions. If you enjoy board games and card battlers, this is a game for you.

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