Cardinal Syn

The Good
Cardinal Syn is a medieval-themed, one-on-one fighting game that has an excellent sense of presentation! For its time, the graphics of this PS1 title are high quality, with fluid movements, wonderfully imaginative and detailed environments, and eye-catching particle effects. The sound and music of this game are also very good, with sharp, realistic sound effects and an atmospheric, symphonic soundtrack. The game comes with an interesting variety of playable fighters, including an armored knight, a knife-wielding fairy, a half man/half woman hybrid warrior, a demented court jester, and a poison-spewing, undead witch doctor. Each character has his or her own arena, and some of the arenas come outfitted with traps like poisonous slime pools, rolling mine carts, and flaming lava streams (although the traps can be disabled if the player wishes). Pick-up items like health vials can also be added to the arena.

Regarding the fighting aspect of the game, Cardinal Syn features a combo system that enables players to use preset combos to cause extra damage to the opponent, throw projectiles and perform magic attacks with combos unique to each fighter, and even execute match-ending fatality combos that a player can execute at any time during a match that he or she is one round away from winning.

The Bad
The actual fighting aspect of Cardinal Syn almost feels like it was an afterthought. The blocking system especially feels weak, as blocking almost seems to occur at random, actually working only about a third of the time. Players can occasionally get hung up on traps, like the rolling mine carts on McKrieg's stage, and since a player stuns himself/herself when their blows hit a solid object, if the opponent is positioned near a wall at an angle or if the wall has an odd shape to it, it's unnecessarily difficult at times to hit your opponent without stunning yourself and leaving yourself open for attack.

Another BIG problem with the game is its AI. In beginning stages, the computer can give you a good fight, but as you progress into the game, the AI begins to feel like it's too hard and scoring too many cheap hits. This problem is drastically accentuated by the hit-or-miss blocking mechanic. Two-player contests are much more fun... as long as one player does not select the unlockable character, Kron. Should this occur, the fight becomes horribly imbalanced, with the player using Kron devastating his/her opponent almost every time.

The Bottom Line
Cardinal Syn feels like a game full of wasted potential. With imaginative characters and environments, an inviting medieval theme, and fantastic graphics and sound, this game has all the makings of an excellent fighter... except for good gameplay. The game can be fun in short bursts, but the poor blocking mechanics and unbalanced AI make playing the game feel like a chore very quickly.