There’s a sardonic witty edge to the comedy, and surprisingly nasty violence, but done up in a way where it never feels the least bit real, but more like something from an over the top B-movie. The game really sets a tone early with a laid back, standard fantasy town walkabout and then juxtaposing it with raiding monster people coming from nowhere and stabbing a man through the gut. The style also extends to dialog and details like strong blows making enemies gib into red chunks.

It still looks colorful and inviting in the modern era, even with the limited lighting and shadow effects. Shogo is about the only game that comes close to a similar vibe, but the superior graphics of Sudeki lets it make that style properly shine in full, and quite nicely. It’s sort of like if you took Fable and gave it a slight “Tales of” face lift, and while it does make some slight awkwardness in the character models, it gave the game a style nobody else had or has had quite like this to this day. It was a cool idea, giving the game a unique look compared to everyone else. The look was Climax’s idea, trying to take inspiration from Japanese RPGs to make their studio’s first RPG. This actually started as a Dreamcast project in 1999, despite the smell of Microsoft desperately trying to make something anime-ish. That goes double for one of Microsoft’s attempts to crack the Japanese market, the extremely Japanese-influenced Sudeki. From Silent Hill to Serious Sam, they have a habit of appearing where you’d least expect them. Somehow, Climax has managed to survive, even as a subsidiary, and have had their hands in surprising places. You see them crop up all the time, but outside of the Japanese market where these studios can carve out a place for themselves, a lot of western ones tend to be bought up and tossed away. Climax Studios is one of those studios that kind of does everything.

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