Cardinal Sync covets the power contained in the book of secret wisdom first brought to the Blood Lands by the mysterious Wanderer. You'll fight with weapons and fists to keep the Wanderer's knowledge from giving Cardinal Sync the power to rule the once-peaceful fantasy realm. This dark medieval fantasy fighting contest puts no-holds-barred combat in marvelously detailed settings.
Review
Cardinal Syn is the product of Kronos, the same company responsible for the abysmal PlayStation fighter Criticom and the mediocre Dark Rift for the N64. Cardinal Syn sticks to the Kronos model as a good-looking 3D fighter that offers nothing in the vein of innovative gameplay.
The game starts out with eight playable characters, but every time you beat the tournament mode the game unlocks a new playable character. It's got the usual modes of play we've come to expect from fighting games: tournament, vs., team battle, survival, and training mode. Cardinal Syn, as far as gameplay features go, is fairly standard. The only crazy things outside the norm are the in-game hazards and treasure chests. The hazards include things such as a mining car that rumbles down the tracks, which you and your opponent happen to be fighting on, or a giant snowball that crashes down a nearby mountain. The levels also have various treasure chests lying about that contain health, added strength, and bombs that damage your character.
Visually, Cardinal Syn is quite appealing. The characters and the 3D arenas that they fight in are incredibly detailed. The motion of the characters is a little fast but looks fairly fluid. That mixed with snazzy lighting effects gives Cardinal Syn a very clean look. All of this is seen from a camera angle that for most of the time is a side view, although sometimes the view is obscured for a frustrating second or two when a piece of the background gets in the way. The music and sound effects fit the medieval theme of the game quite well. With the clashing of swords and over-the-top modern gothic music, the game sounds noticeably rich.
The AI of the computer-controlled fighters is just plain poor. They run through preset patterns that you can see even after only a short time playing, and once you've learned the patterns, you simply create a pattern that counters theirs. Needless to say, this becomes incredibly boring. Even on the hardest setting the gameplay is composed of knocking your opponent down and trying to keep him there. Otherwise he gets up and starts this seemingly endless barrage of high and low attacks.
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The game was new still wrapped in the original factory wrap and works perfectly, amazing for how old it is. Brought back memories when my brothers and I played this back when the Ps1 was still popular. Now I got to share it with my girlfriend. Awesome Ps1 fighting mortal kombat-like game.
Kronos, although didn't bring us a lot of great titles, did bring us a very controversial title, in the form of a fighting game with blood, fatalities, combos, and some very interesting character. Cardinal Syn is one of those titles that, to me, has a lot of replay value, in the sense that there's 18 characters to choose from (8 to start, 10 to unlock) and a very unique fighting system that, at the time, was at it's prime idea for other fighting games to follow.
Cardinal Syn is a fighting game for Playstation (PS One) that uses a lot of different ideas on fighting games. Instead of moving left and right like most normal 2D or 3D fighters, you moved in a completely open environment, as if you were moving in an action game. Most fighting games required you to press up to jump. This game changed that mechanic in that you pressed an action button to jump. This was the main thing that separated this game from other fighting games. Essentially, this used tactical combat fighting rather than your basic side fighting games, such as Tekken, Soul Calibur, and Virtual Fighter. Because of the fluid movement used in this game, you could easily create your own strategies and come up with really nasty ideas on how to attack and counter your opponent.
Another thing about this fighting game was it's environments. Some stages you fight on had hazardous areas where either characters took damage from. For example, there is in fact a stage where you can be poisoned, and your life bar is slowly drained while you fight, forcing you to be very suicidal so you have to fight to stay alive and win. Some stages had hazards in the form of projectiles firing from a certain point, other stages have sharp objects which did some serious damage if you came too close to the objects. Most of the stages forced you to be careful where you fight because of objects in the way, such as a pillar or pole, forcing you to be more careful where you move to, or you could be caught in what's called a "Corner Trap".
Of course, like a lot of fighting games, this game had blood. Even back during this time, blood was an issue that kept coming up because of the constant violence in the gaming industry. The biggest thing about this game was it's fatality system. Most games allowed fatalities to be done when you have won 2 out of 3 matches and then killing them off. This game, you could perform this fatality anytime during gameplay, especially when you are on the second fight. The Fatality system is based on the combo system, when you perform the right combo, you will then perform a fatality on your opponent, splattering them into pieces all over the place.
The biggest part of this game is the collection of characters. This was one of the few games that had a variety of characters to choose from. A whopping total of 18 characters, all in 3D. (Okay, not a LOT compared to the fighting games character list we have now) Each character was different from each other, ranging from small fast moving characters to big powerhouse monsters. A lot of the characters are very well developed and each had their own background story. Types of characters ranged form elves, warlords, barbarians, lizard men, thieves, even fairies are in this game. The final battle are 2 characters, Syn and Kron. Syn is a female magic user who's trying to become the ultimate form, and Kron is the ultimate form. I will not give away the final form, but lets just say you will have a tough battle ahead of you with BIG problems.
The most I, myself, like is that each character has their own intro and ending, including the boss characters. So there's more than just the 8 characters that you will learn about.
Overall, I have enjoyed this game ever since it came out. Personally, I like this game for it's gameplay, character selection, and the background stories of each character. This game will always be a huge part of the classic Playstation collection. If you want to find a fighting game with a different learning curve, I would say give this game a try. If you like blood, fatalities, and a good selection of characters, I think you will enjoy this game to the fullest.
I was able to find a super cheap price for it, BRAND NEW. I only paid about $3 (Plus shipping) for this game, so I was very pleased with the price. I also got it in about 5 days using standard postal service. (Also, if you need a moves list, I am the author of a strategy guide on gamefaqs.com, just look for my name)
I bought this because I enjoy 3d fighters and as far as they go this game is alright. I enjoyed the variety in the roster and I found two characters to be similar to each other which was the trickster and thief character. In terms of music I really liked the soundtrack, I also liked the backgrounds on the levels but for a ps1 game it's looks pretty decent to me. Other than that if you want a 3d fighter this one might not be for you, unless if you want every 3d fighter on the ps1 in your collection.
I grew up with this game. When I was 11-years-old we bought this game and I was just blown away by the characters and story. I'm not a fan of fighting games, wasn't one then either, but this game I was addicted to. I'm going to buy it again because my original copy went missing several years back. Probably lost through moving and such. I consider myself a gamer, I have the Xbox 360, 2 PS3s (original version and slim), the wii, and we still have working super nintendo, game cube, and Nintendo 64; and with all the awesome games I've played this one still sticks out in my mind. I miss it. For me, it's nostalgic and I love it as much I love Mass Effect or Skyrim. Of course today, however, the gameplay mechanics will seem archaic (which they are, this is the Play Station we're talking about which is 3 generations old) but it's a solid game and chances are that if you're looking for this game you are probably the type of person who will appreciate it's fantasy, gore, and characters.
Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2001
this no Solid Gear or Zone Of Enders, but it is one hell of a FUN game. you can get codes to dress down the female fighters in very revealing outfits, great blood graphics and very good fighting moves. ALmost prefer it to Tekken Tag on the PS2.
