So I even after I finished with Paradise Blue, I've still got the Let's Play bug. Rather than wring the last ounce of life from it, though, I've decided to use it as an excuse to play a game I've really been meaning to try for ages. That game is none other than-
Better known to most people as just Cthulhu Saves The World.
CSTW is the second comedy RPG by Zeboyd Games. The first, Breath of Death VII, was a play on the traditional JRPG in a world entirely made up of the undead. (Might LP that somewhere down the line if I'm in the mood.)
This is...well, the title sort of gives it all away, I suppose. We start with a tense opening sequence:
"It is said to have come to this Earth from beyond the Heavens..."
"While the legends are silent as to the fall of R'lyeh, they all foretell the same prophecy-
Cthulhu will rise again."
Mind warping? Who needs that when you have a goddamn sword?
Let's get right into the game, shall we?
Legendary proportions? And I only paid ?1.99 for it?! Sweet!
Unusually for an RPG, CStW has a variety of difficulty levels. Easy makes monsters easier and increases MP recovery; Hard does the opposite. I don't know what Insane does, because it only says 'You would have to be insane to try this difficulty'. For now, I'll stick with Normal.
And there's commentary options too? Wow. We'll leave them off, for now - might be more fitting in a second playthrough.
I spent a summer in R'lyeh once. Not enough dolphins for my liking. Would not recommend it to a friend. Also, eldritch abominations.
"Cthulhu sleeps while the world moves above him, unaware of his presence.
Until tonight."
Five more minutes, mom...
The world looks set to cower under Cthulhu's might, until-
fux
THE DARK SORCEROR LOVECRAFT?!
Dammit, Jesus. Why you gotta spoil my fun? :<
All I wanted to do was destroy all civilisation. ;_;
A long and arduous quest of heroism?
Eat just one Tootsie Pop?
And then I can HEROICALLY destroy the world!
Well, good thing Cthulhu doesn't know this, or we'd all be fucked.
OH FUCK
"If I were a lawyer, I'm pretty sure I'd find some way for that to be defined as heroic."
Rule 1: NO EATING INNOCENT HUMANS. I understand some of you may need to be reminded of this.
First thing it tells you is that you can dash by holding Shift. Like Touhou, in reverse. (X also works.)
I think not. DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION, BITCH.
It also carries across the Combo system from BoD7, which I'll explain when we enter battle.
Interesting little ability. I'm hoping I won't need it, though.
Here's the opening stattage of everyone's favourite monstrosity. Where'd he find the sword and tunic? No idea.
Walking down the beach, we quickly find the first thing every hero needs - a damsel in distress!
well this is going to be a short game
DAMMIT NARRATOR
Anyway, time to get into our first fight.
As a side note,
holy shit this battle theme is fucking awesome.
The Zeboyd RPGs don't approve of you sitting around. Every turn, your enemies get stronger, with a 10% rise per round. So fight fast.
Cthulhu is basically a fighter. A rundown of the possible battle options:
Fight - A basic physical attack.
Tech - Special character-specific moves. Consume MP. Cthulhu has two - Insane Strike which adds the Insanity stat, and Deathblow which is a Combo Ender (more on that later.)
Magic - Spells. Consume MP. Cthulhu has no spells at this point. :<
Potion - There's one mainstay healing item in this game, and that's the Potion. Heals all ailments and restores HP to the max, but they're rare.
Unite - Besides solo attacks, there are also team combos you can perform with other party members. Since Cthulhu's all on his own, he doesn't have any of these.
Protect - Raises defense temporarily, and also draws enemy aggro for a turn.
Well, it's about to get a little more endangered.
An exhange of blows later, and round 2 begins.
See how we're at a x1 combo now? Keep that in mind. Cthulhu finishes off the first enemy with another basic attack.
After that round, we take a look at Cthulhu's Tech window. Deathblow normally does 30 damage, but with the combo at 2 it does an extra 12. This is enough to drop the second Gooez in one shot.
Using a Combo Ender, unsurprisingly, resets your combo to 0.
HP recovers automatically after battle, but you only get a small amount of MP back. It's best to play conservative here, because moves like Deathblow cost a ton of MP.
For a game as supposedly simplistic as this, there's a nice bit of character customisation available. Every time you level up there'll be two options for the level up bonus. In this case, the options are Insane Strength and Insane Magic, which boost the relevant stat for Cthulhu by 10% for every Insane enemy on the field. Since he's looking pretty Tanky, I'll opt for Insane Strength.
Why do I feel like Questing with Dragons so much right now?
So, let's see our fair damsel and win her hand.
That was much easier than expected.
Oh god, I've fallen into Saya no Uta.
Thanks for the warning, game. Wouldn't have known otherwise.
Well, a free party member is a free party member. What can you do?
Explains why you were so useless on shore, I guess.
THAT'S MORE LIKE IT.
oh lord cthulhu has already penetrated my mind
One nice thing the Zeboyd games do is that there's always a chat for your party to have based on the latest thing to happen in the story. Like the rest of the writing, it's pretty damn funny.
An interesting anti-frustration option the games offer is a limit on the number of random battles you face, but with an option for grinding afterwards if you so desire. More games should do this, honestly.
Umi seems like much more of an all-rounder than Cthulhu.
So let's see what today's chat is.
Umi:
"Yes! Her name is Penta. Isn't she cute?"
"I mean all
I do is induce incurable madness in everyone who observes me. At least I have some goddamn fashion sense."
Let's take Umi into battle and see what she's capable of.
Her first technique is Siren's Call, which has a 100% chance of inflicting Insanity and Stun on an enemy, but only works once per battle. Her spells are Heal (basic HP recovery) and Flood (party-wide Water damage).
But now we have two party members, we can perform our first Unity attack. And when Cthulhu and Umi work together, they can summon a mighty creature of the abyss-
The Kraken! It hits for constant damage every round, and hits hard enough to drop everything here in 3 rounds at most. The MP cost is rough, though, and both characters taking part in the Unity attack have to pay it.
Umi levels up quickly, and has her own set of abilities to choose from. They're Hide (less likely to be attacked) and Insane Agi (10% speed bonus per Insane enemy on the field). Insane Agi is probably better in the long run, because Insanity is a key theme.
On that note, I should really try that out.
The gull on the left is insane, and the one on the right isn't. So now there's 2 insane enemies, giving out 20% bonuses. An interesting system I'll have to play with a little.
Cthulhu levels up again, and this is the other sort of Level Up Bonus you're likely to get. The options here are bonus strength+vitality, and bonus MP+Intelligence. I'm gonna build Chtulhu up as a fighter and Umi as a mage, so it's Strength for him.
"I forget. Is eating babies heroic?""No.""Dammit."
These pillars of light will restore your MP, so they make great grinding spots.
Some level up choices are much more particular than others. In this case Umi has to choose between an attack that does good damage and causes Blind, or an attack with the same odds of blind against the entire enemy party that does no damage. I opt for the latter, eventually.
Noooooo gaaaaaaaaaame why would you make me do thiiiiiiiis ;_;
I'm pretty sure dictionaries would disagree with that definiohgodwhyareyoustabbingme
Yes, every enemy has a little description like this. It's those little attentions to detail I like the most.
The Mawfish hits damn hard, but Siren's Call leaves it stunned and Insane. Insane enemies, among other things, take more damage from attacks, so it goes down faster. However, it also increase the enemy's attack, so if you give it time to recover you will get demolished. Insanity's something of a double-edged sword in that regard.
Besides combo enders like Deathblow, a variety of other skills benefit from the combo counter. For example, Umi's Blind spell will now have a better hit chance with a higher combo.
Also, rather than Protect, Umi has Hide - which is the same except that it draws aggro AWAY from her. Given that she's not much of a fighter, this is fair.
Even at this early level the fights aren't exactly a pushover. Neither of your characters have much in the way of defense. You're expected to spend a good bit of MP to stay alive.
25MP for a 100% escape chance, or 10MP for a 60% escape chance. Hard choice, but I eventually cheap out. 60% is good enough.
After training the pair of them to level 8, we move on into the caves. By this point I've exhausted all the random battles, but I'm still not strong enough to say confidently that I can survive without my MP supply. This game is hard like that sometimes, but when you get more party members it tends to get easier.
"I've always wondered how it would feel to wear a sheep."
Wearing a fleece fills Cthulhu with conviction! For some reason.
We emerge out onto the cliffs, where we find-
Aw, shit.
So, in the name of the earth, you will punish me?
Switchblade is the least heroic name that comes to mind right now.
Dash the Daring: Will Die Slowly And Painfully As A Result Of That Claim.
Not just Justice, but GOODLY Justice. This could be tough.
Oh god, it's like she's one of those Harry Potter fangirls who ships DracoXEveryone.
Surely acting in good taste qualifies as heroic?
"Fhtagn."
The first boss fight approaches, and this is perhaps where the first brilliancy strikes me. In order to win this fight, I play it like an annoying RPG boss and start by
driving the Cleric insane so she can't cast. She starts using a terrible physical attack and goes down quickly. Likewise with the thief, and on his own the Dash the Daring can't hold a candle to Cthulhu's might.
Score one for tentacled abominations everywhere!
Sadly, they're probably not dead. Cthulhu notes that since they're adventurers, they've probably respawned at the nearest church. As you've probably noticed, the game pays a lot of homage to Dragon Quest in particular.
"Vastly superior to my Sword of Non-Specific Material."At last we reach the peak of the cliffs, and begin our journey eastward.
"Look at the ocean!"
what
Cthulhu. Abomination. Enemy of all that lives. Space tourist.
This fight's tough. You have a lot of HP to burn through, and remember that every round makes your enemies stronger. Time to use some of the skills I picked up.
Flame Strike does really nice damage (I picked it over Fireball, which was the same except a magic attack). Umi manages to hit her Blind spell on the first try, and-
Oh.
On one hand, this means he won't stay blind. On the other hand, this means
he can be locked down with repeated casts of Blind. A one-off hit of Siren's Call also works, as he spends time curing himself of Insanity. That gives Cthulhu plenty of time to beat the thing to a pulp.
"Yay, I'm not useless! ...Hey, wait a second!"
You didn't seem to care about all the creatures we beat up on the way here. WHAT ABOUT THE DOLPHINS? DO YOU FEEL BAD FOR THEM?! ;_;
We finally emerge onto the World Map, with Miskatonia just to the east. What sort of heroism can we accomplish? What evil fiends will we defeat, what innocents will we save?
"OK, so what if it's a baby that nobody loves? Am I allowed to eat that?"NO.
"Fhtagn."NEXT TIME: CREATURES OF UNSPEAKABLE HORROR ARE PEOPLE TOO
