Cthulhu Saves the World Review

Cthulhu Saves the World. The very title of this game is about as plausible as Mephistopheles and Me: A Trip to Disneyworld or Chupacabra’s First Birthday Party. The notion that the fabled, evil, cosmic being would go out on a limb to save the planet is crazy, and yet there I was at 2 AM on a Saturday evening: hacking away at a zombie cheerleader with my octopus-faced hero.

Yeah, I killed a zombie cheerleader. And then I killed a harpoon-wielding dolphin, a mutant snow cone and a couple dozen other hodgepodge random creatures. You see, Cthulhu has been stripped of those mystical cosmic powers, and now he must play nice and save the world (so that he can inevitably destroy it, logically). It’s an absurd story wrapped into a retro RPG that never takes itself too seriously, and in doing so never forgets how to have fun.

Cthulhu’s abundance of charisma and its colorful, detailed world are what make it so darned enjoyable. You’re a narcissistic, squid-faced villain whose only desire is to reacquire his lost power. Your motley crew of characters is charming, and they look absolutely adorable when marching in tandem through dungeons, like little kids dressed up in Halloween costumes. The subject matter is like a middle school student’s notebook brought to life. Zombies, plagues, dragons, aliens: just about everything is fair game.

Its humor doesn’t rely on constant references to other games like its predecessor’s did. The constant nods to classic games were a major part of Breath of Death VII’s allure, so I was initially taken aback at how scarce they are this time around. I’m not sure they could have completely rekindled the magic again, and I realize that relying on pop culture references might get a bit stale (just look at Family Guy), but I can’t say I don’t miss them. Even without the gags, Cthulhu is still extremely humorous, with frequent jokes in its narration, monsters, and dialogue that constantly break the fourth wall as Cthulhu bickers with the narrator.

Peering beneath the glossy coating, Cthulhu is a fast-paced RPG mirrored after the Phantasy Star series. Visit a town, discover a problem, locate a dungeon, kill everything that moves, collect treasure, learn new spells, repeat, credits. Sure it’s formulaic, but nearly every aspect of the formula has been tweaked to make it as pleasing as possible for the modern day (impatient) player.

For example, the random combat, ever the bane of my role-playing experience, is super snappy with most battles lasting less than a minute. It’s frequent, but succinct: no drawn-out animations or ridiculous cut scenes stand between you and those precious experience points. There’s an impressive array of spells, techniques, combo attacks and buffs, and leveling up often results in a choice between spells or limited options to allocate skill points. I really liked feeling as if I had some control over my characters; development, such as choosing between a spell that targets one enemy or an entire group.

One of my favorite aspects of Cthulhu is that it eliminates so many tedious tasks and allows you to spend your time doing the fun stuff. Why do I want to cycle through menus after every battle to heal, cure, revive and restore my crippled party? That’s not fun; that’s work. So, the game fully heals your party at the end of combat and even restores a few magic points based on how quickly you dispatched your foes. Die in the middle of combat? No problem, just use a 1UP and replay the battle. Feel like chowing down on dinner right in the middle of a dungeon? No worries. Save the game anywhere and continue later. As a result, I felt myself completely sucked into the game and loving nearly every minute of it.

Yes, I said nearly every minute. As much as Zeboyd Games has done to make the combat palatable even to my scrutinizing tastes, it still occurs way too frequently. The problem is really magnified by some of the devilish dungeons that go beyond circuitous and are downright convoluted. The game mercifully caps the random encounters per area, which means that at some point the frequent interruptions do end. Sometimes it’s best to just ride the wave of experience points.

Cthulhu Saves the World expands on its predecessor’s solid foundation, and succeeds in actually telling a memorable story, or at least a memorable sequence of ridiculous events. Cthulhu changes ever-so slowly throughout the game, but struggles to cope with the adjustments, such as the loss of intimidation that previously accompanied his once-iniquitous attitude. His rather daft groupie Umi summed up his struggles best when she remarked, “I don’t know, you’re a pretty swell guy. Do swell guys get cultists?” It’s absurd, it’s charming, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun. If you grew up playing RPGs, you really owe it to yourself to play Cthulhu Saves the World.

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Visit the Xbox Marketplace to download a free demo of Cthulhu Saves the World for Xbox 360.

Cthulhu Saves the World was provided for review by Zeboyd Games. It is available for 240 MS points ($3).

By Mike Wall at July 31, 2011.

About Mike Wall

Mike grew up and lives near Philadelphia and has been intrigued with games ever since his parents preached that they rotted his brain. He studied journalism at Penn State and got his master's degree in secondary education before realizing that not even summers off would make that job palatable. He now works in marketing and is trying to find time to continue writing a book about zombies, aliens, vampires, the end of the world, and a talking cat.