Ehm, Cthulhu Saves the World? Ano, Cthulhu Saves the World!

Na koleně naprogramované parodické RPGčko o hrdinném prastarém Cthulhu? No ano; a jaké! Cthulhu vystupuje z R´lyehu, aby zničil svět. Před plným nabitím sil je o ně ovšem připraven a není tedy ničím více než... No, malým zeleným cosi. Jediná možnost jak získat své síly zpět a zničit svět (Muhehe! Muhehehe!! Muhehehehe!!!) je stát se neohroženým hrdinou bez bázně a hany, který zabrání zničení světa. Ehm, cože?

Většina her nezávislé scény co chce být odlehčená a vtipná neumí odhadnout, co je vtipné pouze pro ně a jejich přátele a co i pro ostatní. Duo skrývající se za názvem Zebyod Gamesmá oproti nim jednu výhodu. Je vtipné (čímž samozřejmě neříkám, že i jim to tu a tam neujede směrem k trapnosti). A to hned ve dvou rovinách. Za prvé skvěle parodují klišé a postupy klasických hrdinných RPGček a za druhé dělají to samé i s celým Cthulhu (aneb jak se to vlastně vyslovuje?) universem. Jak z RPG tak z "tématické nadstavby" je vidět, že jsou především velkými fanoušky obou.

To vše by sice bylo hezké, ale bylo by to zcela na nic, kdyby to zároveň (a především) nebyla i výtečná hra. Což je. Klasické izometrické "japonské RPG" se vším všudy, které funguje samo o sobě i bez znalosti tohoto typu RPGček či Lovecraftova (a jeho nesčetných pohůnků) odkazu. Bohatý děj, charaktery co vám nebudou jedno (v čele s ironickým a vždy s uštěpačnou poznámkou na rtech Cthulhu), bohaté možnosti questování. Herní doba delší většiny dnešních rychlokvašek i propracovaný tahový bojový systém a "management" týmu. Hlavně je však zábava to hrát, takřka ihned se dostavuje starý dobrý známý; dnes však již takřka se nevyskytující; syndrom "ještě jeden souboj/dungeon/rozhovor a jdu spát"... No, nejdete. Když k tomu přičtete věci jako skvělý oldschool soundtrack, highlander mód či "director´s cut" verzi po dohrání, tak není co řešit. Cthulhu fhtagn!

Fun little adventure game with quite a bit of comedy. Can't really say much more to it but there is a lot of re-playable things to it too.

Edit: Really, much of the game there's not too much to say about it as in gameplay it's your standard JRPG kind of setting, but with some interesting characters, fun art and even an ability to drive people insane and putting them into a kind of rage-like effect to make them unable to use abilities...I think. I really don't remember what kind of benefit it had tbh...

Cthulhu Saves the World é um jrpg com gráficos retro que faz parodias de outros jrpg e do universo lovecraftiano, com foco na criação mais popular do mesmo, o Cthulhu. É um rpg bem linear e sem profundidade, o que é uma pena, pois sua gameplay é divertida, as batalhas são bem elaboradas e as vezes você precisa pensar bem no que fazer ou qual char colocar na party para não morrer.

Os diálogos bem humorados e como eu disse, sua gameplay, compensam a falta de profundidade e sua linearidade. O que pode irritar um pouco são as dungeons, elas são confusas, geralmente todas as salas são parecidas, há uma variedade de corredores extensos e isso aborrece mais do que te intriga, afinal o que geralmente te espera no final desses corredores são baús com poções.

É um jogo bacana e curto, é divertido ir de cidade em cidade (todas elas com nomes tirados das obras do H.P Lovecraft), resolvendo os problemas que a população esta enfrentando e ajudando o Cthulhu a se tornar um herói.

(Updated review after completing 'Cthulhu's Angels' mode)

Even if you can get past the slightly amateurish graphics (and I can), there are a couple of significant flaws with the game. Firstly, the dungeon design is annoying, being convoluted and labyrinthe for the sake of being convoluted and labyrinthe. Secondly, the humor is a bit hit and miss. There are some truly witty touches and some great little references and shoutouts to other media, but there's plenty of dross as well. The humor smacks a bit of throwing whatever at the wall and seeing what sticks - there's plenty to smile at on the wall, but a heap of stuff on the floor around it.

What elevates this game for me is the fact that the devs made a love letter to old-school RPGs but also included plenty of well-considered tweaks to the traditional formula to improve the core experience. The ability to save anywhere and control the random encounter rate after clearing a certain number of battles in a dungeon are welcome, but it's the combat mechanics that really shine. The fact that HP is always fully restored after every battle lightens the resource management aspect, freeing players from the 'disease' of hoarding MP exclusively for cure spells, and the fact that the enemies get stronger with each successive round in battle incentivizes assertive and efficient play in order to win as quickly as possible.

I know it's not for everyone, but anybody looking for an RPG made by RPG gamers for RPG gamers should definitely give this a spin. It's the best $1 game I've ever played, and Rl'yeh great fun. I'll see myself out.

After beating and completing the game, I have mixed feelings about it, and while being my opinion mostly on the negative side, I have to give credit at the love that the creators of the game have given, since it seemed to me that this game was a passion project, but sadly, it was also a flawed project.

The thing that irks me the most is the gameplay balance, and I'm not joking, but I think this is the most untested game I've ever played. I played the game on Insane, which is the highest difficulty, and the name is perfect, because you need to be insane to program it. In the first area of the game, I needed to rely on RNG to even survive combats, since almost all enemy groups you face would kill you before you were able to attack. This just shows me the game wasn't even tested for that difficulty, since there was nothing I could do to improve on my situation.

I like a challenging difficult where I have to optimize my resources to beat the game, but on this one, that wasn't the case, there wasn't much thinking behind the strategy you have to follow, only pray to the RNG gods to be lucky all the time.

Insane Mode has also a really stupid addition, which is that to not face random encounters, you have to participate on 9.999 encounters on an area. On other difficulties, it is always around 25, but here, you are assigned an impossible to reach number, I imagine that they wanted to make things harder, but at least they could have made it that once you defeat the area boss, encounters were disabled, because random encounters appearing every few seconds makes exploring the maps harder.

The difficulty spikes were weird, one area was almost impossible and the next one could be a breeze, so after completing the game I can't really tell where I've been overleveled or underleveled.

I thought that maybe those were complains for playing the highest difficulty, but the next one is present on all of them, and it's the dungeon design. Almost all dungeons are claustrophobic: They are big, look the same on all parts, and are mainly composed of different paths that connect into each other, being really hard to know where you have to go next, there's also no map so it's even harder to know where to go. In the end, I found that the easiest way to find the next room was to use the old trick of sticking your left hand to the wall and keep walking forward.

And those were my main concerns with the game, now, the positive ones:

The PC version has a new mode once you beat the game called "Cthulhu's Angels", which changes the characters you use, the story and some bosses. This mode is slightly better balanced in terms of difficulty, there's still random difficulty spikes but at least I was able to defeat the monsters I faced in the first dungeon without problems, so it seems to be slightly more tested. It also helps that this time, there's a fixed party instead of being able to pick from several characters.

This mode also adds a new final dungeon, and this one is actually good. This time, it seems that the developers learnt from their mistakes and actually made a dungeon that consists on several rooms connected in a linear way, instead of just random corridors that could be a labyrinth.

Another detail I liked was the addition of the characters of Breath of Death VII as superbosses which you could recruit if you win, an extra optional character to use is a cool reward for exploring, specially when it's a cameo character and it's what makes me feel like the developers actually care for the games they create, even if the product doesn't fulfill their expectations.

The game is very reminiscent of early FF games and Earthbound in terms of general gameplay feel, graphics and design.
Luckily, the game decides to remove a lot of the more punishing features of those games. Winning a battle will restore your party to max HP and revive all your downed characters, coupled with the fact that if you roam and fight in a dungeon for long enough, you'll stop getting random encounters being the two most prominent examples.

The story is good for what it is. It's meant to be a parody and I enjoyed a large part of the dialogue and self-awareness the game had. It also isn't long and can be beaten in 6-7 hours.

The gameplay is classical turn-based with the twist that enemies become stronger every turn, so stalling is not recommended as it will make any battle unnecessarily difficult.

Being able to branch your characters out further and further with each level-up was a nice addition, which adds some replay value.

The one thing that really hurts this game is how they deal with MP regen. You need MP if you're gonna deal a lot of damage, but the only way to regen it outside of save points is to battle by only using normal attacks and finishing a battle quickly on top of that. That's not easy to do in later stages because enemies get tougher and tougher. It would be fine if you could run away from these encounters, but here the only way to run away from battle is to have a character from your party who has a skill that costs 25 MP to use. Not to mention if the enemies kill her, you're screwed. This made the last two dungeons in the game annoying to go through.

Overall, if you're a fan of early 80s JRPGs and are looking for a game that is far more forgiving in its design while still retaining that 80s feel, this is a decent choice.

The Cthulhu series from H.P. Lovecraft hasn’t seen much love in the form of games, but indie developers Zeboyd picked it up and turned it into a whimsical/parody 8 bit RPG and it’s done very well. You play as Cthulhu and pick up many party members along the way, but the whole point of the game is the great dungeon crawling that harkens back to the 80’s. You can attack like any RPG, but you have Tech attacks which are more powerful, magic, and then you can Unite with other members to combine devastating attacks. There are a ton of different attacks you learn when you level up, and you get a choice between two different things to level up with either stats or an attack, so by the end of the game, each member has a huge arsenal to use.


The game is very close to the mythology with bosses that are from the story, towns named after the exact towns from the stories, plus the art style matches. The music is amazing with sweeping orchestral scores (in 8-bit midi audio mind you) that really moves you and sounds great. The story is hilarious with Cthulhu trying to redeem himself and become a true hero to raise his city of R’lyeh, but his interaction with characters in the world is really funny. Of course, the game wouldn’t be complete without a huge over map to explore that has some secret dungeons, plus the environments and dungeons vary with lots of loot and chests to find.

However, the game’s biggest flaw is the extreme difficulty later on in the game, as well as the constant random battles which really drag the experience down. The devs tried toning this down by disabling random battles after you do 25 of them, but you will probably go through a dungeon before you hit that number. I also didn’t like how if you don’t level up high enough the end boss is impossible to beat, but each dungeon just really racks up the difficulty and requires you to grind a bit to get through the dungeon. I also didn’t like how you don’t really need a strategy to beat the enemies because you can just use the same one over and over through several dungeons. This causes the feeling of repetition to set in and makes you want the game just to end a little faster.


While the visuals are nice and give you a feeling of nostalgia they don’t look good in HD and the lack of battle animations, and everything that goes along with 8-bit graphics grates on your eyes after awhile. However, the Cthulhu license is rarely explored so any game to do so is welcomed, but this game is probably for hardcore RPG fans.

This is a very fun game with good dialogue, you don't often see parody games. The pixel art is also beautiful, in my opinion. However, I must say the random encounter mechanic quickly becomes tiring after an hour or two. I wish it had enemies in fixed places rather than fighting them in every two steps. Still, this was a blast. I'd recommend it for those interested in a comedic adventure with the Lord of Insanity who tries to become a hero.

Later Edit- I forgot to tell perhaps the best part of the game: soundtrack! It's really good, search it on youtube and you'll see (or hear,idk).