Hi, I’m Kris, and I’m here today to tell you that you should really play Cthulhu Saves the World.
I first heard about the game when I stumbled upon the trailer on Youtube one day, along with the information that it would soon be getting ported to the PC. I vowed to keep an eye on it just because it looked pretty amusing, and then about a fortnight back I saw it pop up in the New Releases section of Steam. It was bundled with another RPG just like it by the same developers called Breath of Death VII (also really good) for the humble price of three measly bucks. Since I’m the king of impulse buys as far as Steam goes, I would have picked it up anyway, but that’s seriously good value.
Thing is, I probably would have paid twenty. I just finished the game now, and while it was only about six to seven hours long on a single Normal difficulty playthrough, it was easily one of the most fun JRPGs I’ve played in some time. The graphics and style is set up to be very retro, looking and playing a lot like the early NES/SNES era games of yore like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, but it’s incredibly bright and colourful and takes to the design well. Additionally, it incorporates a lot of the H.P. Lovecraft mythos into it as well – you’ll encounter numerous locations, bad guys, references, and so on all dating back to the original stories.
What really surprised me is that they seemed to have streamlined the whole genre better than any other game I’ve seen. Rather than having an inventory full of useless items, there are now only two healing items – Potions, which fully heal, revive, and cleanse a single character, and 1-Ups, which let you try a battle again if you happen to die miserably. Everything else you find is either equipment, gold to purchase more equipment, or something that gives a character(s) permanent stat increases. That means that it’s almost always worth hunting down the treasure chests in a dungeon. Additionally, the movement speed is incredibly fast, the battles zoom by if you keep tapping the buttons and get impatient, you fully heal after every battle but only gain a small amount of MP (which means that the every fight has the freedom to be challenging), and you can save ANYWHERE (instant purchase for me on that point alone). It’s just an incredibly smooth experience to play. You also have full control over your character development – every time they level up, you choose between two options, which is usually a spell, a passive ability, a special technique, or a stat increase of some kind. That means if you want to make Cthulhu a powerful sorceror, you can. Want your healer to be an absolute tank in battle? Can do. The customisation is really welcome.
The absolute highlight of the game, however, has to be the plot and the writing. The plot is simple enough – Cthulhu woke up intent on destroying the world, but was immediately beaten down by a mysterious sorceror who sealed his powers away completely. There’s a catch, however: if Cthulhu becomes a TRUE HERO, he’ll get his awesome and terrible powers back and can resume eating the whole world. So that’s what he sets out to do, accompanied by a weird and wonderful cast of groupies. The writing is absolutely hilarious, though. There are puns galore, making fun of both the story, the lack of fourth wall, the characters, genre tropes in general, and anything they can possibly think of. Every enemy in the game has a brief description which is usually worth reading just to get a laugh at. Seriously, the whole experience had me grinning like an idiot.
Seems like there’s a bunch of extra things to do after you beat the game, as well. There are four difficulty levels, a secret boss to take down, and a few special game modes such as Highlander (higher experience but only one character can fight per battle). But if none of that interests you, the main story is still good enough.
So yeah, that’s my Cthulhu Saves the World review. Seriously, people, three bucks. Totally worth it. I enjoyed the hell out of it and I’m quite sure most of you will too.
Why are you still here? Support the starving indie developers, dammit!
Hi, I’m Hinoa, and I approve of this message. GO PLAY THE FUCKING GAME, IT’S ONLY US$3 ON STEAM FOR IT AND BREATH OF DEATH VII.
Same people as Breath of Death VII, eh? I played a bit of that on my 360 way back when I actively used my 360 like every day, was pretty darn fun. So probably gonna look into this when I get my new comp.
Once I was done with Cthulhu, I played through Breath of Death. It was also just as good, though Cthulhu was better in most regards… graphical quality improved, more diversity in the level up choices, more characters, better and more numerous instances of writing and wit. It’s also a lot more original in its jokes, as opposed to the largely referential humour of BoD7. Still excellent, regardless, so buy the damn things.
Well if I remember correctly, Breath of Death was their first game, so I’m not surprised they’ve improved since then.