Koudelka Disc 1 Walkthrough
The game begins with a cinematic followed by our first random battle. It's difficult to lose this battle if you keep shooting at the enemy, so do that. When the battle is over walk over to Edward and talk with him for some scenes and to make him join you. Before doing anything else hop into your menu and equip Edward with the knife you had and put him in front of Koudelka in the formation.
Unlike most other RPGs of this era, this game is difficult and you can easily lose battles if you aren't setup properly or are under leveled. I recommend you read my guide about How to Play Koudelka for more information about the game if this is your first time. There will be a little bit of information from that guide on this page but if you want more verbose details you have to go there.
Go through the door Edward was slumped against and grab the Potion from the ground. I am going to list all of the items you can pick up (that I found) for this first part of the guide because we don't have many resources at all. Battles start to give you a bunch of items though, many of which we'll be using often.
My advice is to run around in this first room for a little and get into a few battles. If you want to save your game enter a room where the [S] pops up before the name of the area you're in. When this happens press circle to open the save menu and create a Temporary Save. More about saving for real later, you can also get rewards in this game for saving at the right time with the right number of items in your inventory.
Before we get to that though, let's talk about building your characters. You can level up your weapons, magic and your characters themselves in Koudelka. It's actually pretty important for you to spend your points on the right stats when you level up and to level the right skills. For example, focusing too much on weapons will result in you breaking them often so it's best to use some magic along with them.
When you level up in Koudelka you're going to get points to spend. It's important you spend these in the right place on all of your characters otherwise you'll fall behind in strength. Below is some information from my How to Play Koudelka guide about how you should build your two current characters.
Koudelka: Offensive magic user. INT, VIT and AGI are the three stats I raised most on her. I got PIE into the 30s and MND into the 40s and that seemed to work for me with no issue for the whole game. By the end of the game my INT was in the 80s and AGI/VIT were in the 50s.
Edward: Physical damage dealer, he's your front line fighter. VIT/STR are your two primary stats. By the end of the game my STR was in the 90s with VIT in the 50s and DEX/AGI in the mid 40s. I raised DEX every so often even though I never had any trouble hitting my opponents... Mostly tried to keep it in line with AGI.
This is a lot of information to give you so early in the game but you'll see why after a couple of random battles. When you're ready to continue with the game, exit south out of the room where you found the Potion. You'll find yourself in a new area, there's some Pistol Rounds on the left side of the screen which you'll want to pick up. Koudelka's gun only has 6 bullets to fire after which you need to reload it... Yea, it's that kind of game.
In order to reload Koudelka's weapon you need to go into the Menu then into Items and Tools - select your ammo type (in this case Pistol Rounds) and Use then select the person who is using them. When you're done with learning all of that head up the ladder nearby where you found the rounds. At the top of the ladder search the barrels nearby with the thing that looks like a piece of cloth or paper hanging off (pictured below). This is the Monastery Map which is our only form of navigation in the game.
Make sure to get the Monastery Map Key Item
You can find some Bread up here by searching the table, that's all I managed to find though. If you get any weapon or armor upgrades from your random encounters equip them onto Edward as soon as possible. To advance the story we need to go through the other door in the room where we found the Pistol Rounds. It's the door on the right hand side of the screen.
Before you go down the stairs search the painting on the wall nearby to find a Dirk behind it. For now this is the last item I will mention, I will let you explore the next few areas and grab whatever you find. As you beat enemies make sure you check what they drop, sometimes you'll get an item that sounds useless like Rags but it turns out that it's actually a piece of armor!
You should also get used to your map too, check it often to see where you are and what rooms you've been to or haven't been to. I'll be using the map a lot in this guide to navigate you around the game since it's the best tool available to us. For now the best indicator that you're somewhere that you're not supposed to be is you will encounter enemies in groups of three and they'll be harder. Don't forget you can flee from encounters pretty easily by pressing Circle while in combat.
To advance the story we need to go down the stairs nearby where we got the Dirk, you'll find the Caretakers in a room down here (pictured below).
The Caretakers will give you some ammo and you'll have some dialogue with them before being sent on your way. Exit the room and go into the door further down the hall from them, here you'll find the Kitchen. You'll have another scene in this room of Edward getting sick, grab the Knife on the table after the scene and pick up the Cheese two screens to the right on the table.
Behind where you found the Cheese there is a door that leads to the Workshop, but before we go there we want to visit the Well. The door to the Well is in a confusing place, from where you got the Cheese go one screen left to the wide shot of the Kitchen. The door in the back behind the table is where you will find the entrance to the Well. Grab the Panacea in here, it's an item we can use to cure any status effect.
Exit the Well area and head over to the Workshop next. Grab the Listel from the table near the door and the Hammer from the table at the bottom of the screen. There is a Pipe on the ground in the middle of the room too, for right now I would recommend you avoid the door on the far side of the room. This will lead to our first 'real' boss fight of the game and we probably want to save before we do that... In order to save we have to backtrack upstairs to the previous Temporary Save point nearby the start of the game.
Honestly, the backtrack helps you earn some more EXP. You should be at least level 4 on both Koudelka and Edward for this boss, make sure to equip the Hammer or Pipe from the previous room on Edward too. When you feel that you're ready, enter the Herb Garden (pictured below) and run into the center of the room to trigger the boss fight.
We'll be fighting a Giant Plant boss, the best strategy is to use the Hammer or Pipe on Edward and use Flare on Koudelka. At level 4 Edward should be hitting for 200-250 a swing so it'll only take 5 or so rounds to beat the boss with him alone. A pretty easy first boss.
Return to the guy lying on the ground and talk with him for a scene, this is James - our third party member. Once the scene is finished you'll get a notification about the fountain being filled with holy water. This marks our first permanent save location and the first spot we can fully restore our HP/MP. Now is a good time to mention the Timed Items that you can get in this game.
If you save your game at a specific time and with a specific number of items in your inventory you will get a unique item when you load that save file. It's a unique little quirk that not many games have so it's worth mentioning. Honestly though in my opinion it's not really worth the time.
Before we continue with the game, you'll want to spend a bit of time grinding around the Herb Garden to level up James. The only enemies that spawn in the garden are bugs so you may want to grind elsewhere then return to the garden when you want to restore HP/MP.
James: Healing, buffing, caster damage and physical damage. James is a bit of an enigma because you can make him into almost anything you want. He has well rounded stats for being a frontline fighter or can be made into a caster like Koudelka. I made him into an offensive caster like Koudelka, by the end of the game he had 80 INT, 50 VIT and AGI along with 30 PIE and MND.
For more verbose information about where to put points for skills on James head over to my How To Play Guide. As I said earlier, that guide goes into much more detail than my Walkthrough about why we're spending stats where we do and how to properly build your characters.
Once you're ready to continue with the game return to the painting where we got the Dirk and go into the room at the opposite end. Go through the door at the top of the screen in this room and in the next room you'll want to go through the door at the far side of the screen. This will lead you to an area called Corridor, 2nd Floor. You can create a Temporary Save in this room, there will also be a scene in here with James and Edward arguing and you all being shot at.
Continue down the hall and into the next room, be prepared for a boss fight before you interact with the door in this room though. When you touch the door you will start a fight with 3 jewel enemies (pictured below).
Each of the floating jewels has a different element attached to it. Blue is water, Green is wind and Red is fire. The best strategy is to use elemental spells that they are weak to - so start with using Flare against blue. Geyser is what you'll want to use against red and for green use melee attacks or whatever else you have available.
After beating the boss head through the door to find another Temporary Save spot, this area is called Dungeon, 2nd Floor. Walk down the hallway for a cutscene; when you regain control of Koudelka you'll be at a dead end so turn around and head into the door we passed. There will be a Listel on the floor here and a chest which requires a four digit combination (Combination is 7038), when you input this open the chest to find Guard's Diary. Getting this item now saves some backtracking later, it's just flavor text though and not required for story progression.
Go through the door next to the chest for another scene, this time with Koudelka using her powers to speak for the spirits. When it is finished and you're prepared for the next boss inspect the wardrobe (the game calls it a closet) in this room to fight Mummy Bride. Since this boss is undead the fan favorite trick of using Heal spells on her works best for taking her out. This also gives you an opportunity to raise Heal on everyone.
Once the boss has been defeated inspect the closet again for a Rope Ladder. Return to the hallway where you got the scene with the ghost girl before and walk over to the dead end. Inspect the edge to use the Rope Ladder and then climb down.
There is a little bit of exploring to do in this area, the main room we need for story progression is the Priest's Quarters (the door on your left). You'll get a text pop up when you enter this room letting you know that it's an important area. Grab the Red Glass Part on the ground and then inspect the altar for our next boss fight (and the final boss fight of Disc 1).
You'll be fighting 3 doppelgangers, they will mirror your party members in terms of the skills and abilities that they use. Considering that this is the final boss fight of Disc 1, you should expect it to be the hardest fight too. Use items to restore your HP/MP before the fight and make sure you're level 6 or higher on Koudelka and Edward.
When you're good to go inspect the altar in this room to begin the boss fight. Honestly, my advice is to just blow everything up. If you've been spending your points correctly both Koudelka and Edward hit like trucks and take out opponents very quickly.
After defeating the boss you can save your game and restore HP/MP at the altar. If you want to use the Red Glass Part we just found, from the altar step up yet again to the window on the wall then interact with it for a scene where it gives you the 7038 Combination. You can interact with the altar in between the save point and the door for a scene with Edward and James too.
If you didn't already open the chest in the Jail Cell above us you can go do that now, otherwise head through the door in this room and search around in the next room for a cutscene. You'll get another FMV sequence after which it asks you to put in Disc 2.
Continue to Koudelka Disc 2 Walkthrough