I’m finding it a bit ironic that despite being unemployed, I still don’t have enough time to play games regularly. I read Cthulhu Saves the World (CStW) takes about 8-9 hours to finish and I figured if I can put in an hour a day, I should get close. Nope. Not even an hour a day. I’d get lucky if I could even play. That said, CStW is a throwback to the old SNES RPGs I grew up with, 16-bit graphics included, although with a lot more witty banter and punny lines. From my one week time with the game, I can already see myself finishing the game … if I didn’t have a backlog of other games to play for one week.

CStW is reminiscent of a 16-bit [J]RPG. There’s the general overworld that you wander around and each movement triggers a random roll to see if you get attacked. There are the caves and towns to explore. In battle, it is turn-based with the order determined by how high the Agility stat is. There are little cutscenes for dialogue and each character has his/her own set of portraits that shows off the character’s emotions. It brings back memories of when I’d spend hours playing Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy (III/IV) on the SNES as a kid.

For a seemingly short game, compared to the 90s JRPGs, I would really enjoy finishing the game if I had the time to do so. At first, I was not so interested simply because of post-holiday depression, but as the days have gone on, I found myself more and more interested in what kind of random witty banter the game would present me with. I’m also wondering if Cthulhu ever actually becomes the hero he attempts to become in order to regain his powers.

The graphics, as mentioned previously, are very simple. It is the sort of proof that a good game doesn’t have to rely solely on great graphics, even in today’s technology. Maybe I have a bit of a bias because I grew up with this limited set of pixelated assets, but I was never bothered by it’s “oldness” while playing. It almost adds a certain charm to the game, requiring the player to engage in his/her imagination when a NPC comments on Cthulhu’s “hideous” and “tentacled” face. (Then again, Umi’s, the first playable character who joins the party, infatuation with him adds a bit of humor and then you are really wondering just how bad ..or good.. Cthulhu looks.)

I found the sounds to be well done. The background music doesn’t loop seamlessly, but it is easy to get caught up in the action and miss the break between the end and beginning. The individual levels of the caves and villages you explore are also not too big (although they may feel that way), so unless you are multitasking, it is possible the break may not be encountered. The sound effects felt like stock clips to me, which is fine. It’s an RPG and a normal attack sounds very similar among multiple games.

One of the more interesting design choices I found with this game that I have not encountered in past RPGs is the option to “chat” with your teammates. Sometimes, it is just witty banter, like Cthulhu asking Umi if she’s wearing a real starfish in her hair. Other times, it is advice on where to go and what to do next like Umi saying there must be something cool at the top of a hill that will help Cthulhu become a hero.

The combat system is also worth mentioning because it is not just the simple, stock, turn-based RPG model. I was interested in the Unite feature, which reminded me of Chrono Trigger’s battle system involving multiple player characters combining their magic techs to make new and more powerful techs. The only drawback to CStW’s Unite is the two characters who are uniting don’t have the same Unite skills. So, while Cthulhu has a Summon Kraken spell with Umi, Umi does not have that same spell. It is possible, due to the turn-base following the order of the party rather than agility (or a countdown/up timer as with Chrono Trigger), that it doesn’t make sense for the two characters to share the spells. I think Unite uses up the turn of the second party member as well, but I don’t recall and may be wrong.

Also, at the end of each round, the monsters become increasingly more powerful. Cthulhu and some party members have skills or spells that will make monsters Insane. It was not clear what the effect of this was, but I felt the monsters became more powerful. Stack Insanity with successive rounds and priority in combat is really to take down monsters as fast as possible before they become too powerful to handle. I ran into this problem only once, when I was fighting with Sharpe, the second character to join the party after you defeat him.

Another interesting combat mechanic is the idea of resource management. After each successful battle, health is restored to all party members, but MP is not. MP is used for both skills and magic and the faster you finish a fight, the more MP you receive back. So, it’s a little bit of a numbers game. You want to choose the skill that will deal the most damage, but not if the cost of using that skill outweighs the MP return when you finish the fight. The max return I’ve gotten so far is 7, but I average around 3 to 4. There are “save points” (you can save anywhere in the world) that will restore MP to max and strategic points like before a boss battle, so it’s not too bad. The hard part, on initial play through, is you don’t know where the points will be so erring on the side of caution goes a long way (as I found out).

Together, the graphics, audio, story, “personality” of the game with witty banter and puns (even Cthulhu breaking the fourth wall and engaging with the narrator) mesh very well together. I haven’t encountered any balance problems in terms of combat. I have died a couple of times, but it was more of a need to experiment with other tactics rather than being at a clear disadvantage to the game’s AI. The ability to save where and when you want makes it easy to put down and pick up.

One concern I had was in certain parts of the game, it would become very laggy with animations going much slower than normal. Stopping for a few seconds allowed whatever background processing to catch up and animation would resume its normal speed. I haven’t encountered it too much, but I was usually inside a cave or dungeon when it occurred. Another concern was the odd choice of keys – spacebar brings up the main menu (e.g., chat, equip, save) but the option to quit the game was not on that menu. Rather, escape is the button of choice to leave the game, which makes sense, but why separate the option to quit from the rest of the options or even Save? One last concern is split into two parts. The first being how many screens I had to go through just to get to the main menu. One of the screens is humorous, but after loading the game multiple times, becomes boring. Having a system like World of Goo’s random lines of loading messages would make it a little more enjoyable. Also, I ended up starting a new game by accident the first few times I was starting up the game because I wasn’t used to the controls yet. Unfortunately, that meant I had to click through the whole opening sequence before I could quit the game and load a saved one. That brings up the second part – there’s no way to skip over things you’ve already seen. I will periodically use the Chat option to see if there is a new set of dialogue. Sometimes I get a repeat of what I’ve seen before and I have to sit there and hit the enter key until it’s done. A minor concern, certainly, but one that can quickly becoming irritating over time.

I will try to finish the game. I’m not sure how successful I’ll be. I may just end up loading YouTube video playthroughs for closure. CStW is a game I’ve enjoyed this past week. I just wish I had time to spend on it.