While departing the village with his new owner, the two encounter a mysterious woman carrying a deck of magical cards which respond powerfully to the young man's presence.

As the woman, Princess Faustina, pleads with the slaver to release the boy (whom she refers to as "the savior"), all three are set upon by Rilara, a traveling bandit.

Too weak to resist the High Priest, the protagonist is forced to undergo the Trials, an ancient proving grounds for Cepters overseen by Diarna, a former Imperial knight who became a hermit.

There, aided by Rilara, who has now become a true Cepter herself, the protagonist convinces Faustina, who had joined the High Priest, to rejoin him, and fights Sapphius.

As in Monopoly, players in Culdcept Saga roll dice and move around a game board, attempting to claim spaces and assess fees against other Cepters who land there.

Other cards in these decks bestow items to temporarily enhance creature abilities, or represent spells which can influence players or locations on the game board.

The standard gameplay options fix the size of each deck at 50 cards, although this is customizable during multiplayer matches.

There are nearly 500 different cards in total, but players must earn the majority of these through skillful play and story mode progression before they can be used.

[3] New features include support for online multiplayer play against up to three other players via Xbox Live, complete with leaderboards and rankings.

The story for Culdcept Saga was written by Tow Ubukata, a science fiction and anime author.

[3] The main composer for the game's music was Kenji Ito, who worked previously on titles such as those in the SaGa series, as well as earlier Culdcept installments.

[13] Both reviews expressed dismay and confusion over the way the game routinely shows what cards are in player's hands, observing that this limits elements of strategic surprise.