Sexy female slayer.
The battles in Koudelka are where the strange mixing of themes seem the strangest. When you encounter a gigantic betentacled creature straight out of an H.P. Lovecraft novel while exploring the large creepy building, tactical turn based combat would seem to kill the mood. To a certain degree it does, and the normal battle music doesn't help much either. However, combat still maintains a basic horror feel in it's own way. You have complete control over how your stats increase when you go up a level, but combat for the first few hours is so easy that one can easily leave glaring flaws in their characters' stats which become quite appearent as the difficulty shoots upward roughly halfway through the game. Also, every weapon has a durability rating which decreases with use until they eventually break. However, unlike other games with similar systems, there is no way to tell how long it will be before you suddenly find yourself unarmed in the middle of combat. Finally, while all fights take place on a simple small flat grid, Koudelka has a unique variant on traditional combat which causes all fights to center around gaining or losing ground, charging forward attempting to either cut off your opponents' mobility, or falling back to protect weak characters. While it's not frightening enough to please horror fans, or strategic enough to please tactical fans, it is unique and interesting enough to hold your attention for the game's short length, and can lead to some interesting strategies.