My 2022 Christmas game is a little on the nose: this small seasonal offering where you beat up Christmas-themed monsters for fun and profit, from Zeboyd Games - who thanks to Cthulhu Saves the World and Cosmic Star Heroine, have become one of my favorite indie dev teams.
CSC runs on Cosmic Star's stellar battle system with a few added tweaks to fit the Cthulhu mythos - there is the 'madness' status effect which makes monsters stronger but less durable, and switches their elemental and status resistances. As a further development of the 'madness' theme, half of your ability slots are randomized every battle which forces you to think on your feet a bit instead of using the same approach every time. The game also does more to streamline the usual JRPG formula, allowing you to skip random encounters at will. In addition, there are no free-roaming town segments; instead, you get four "Rl'yehtionship" episodes between each dungeon where you choose a party member to hang out with or a place to go to, watch a short scene, and get a reward at the end.
These tweaks all sound good on paper, but the end result isn't quite as compelling as Zeboyd's previous titles. The dungeons are weaker than in previous games, having little to set them apart besides cosmetic differences. Thanks to having a lot of branching paths that lead nowhere, and nothing in the the way of secrets to discover, the dungeons feel both linear and convoluted - somehow confusing and unsatisfying to explore at the same time. In many ways this game is like FFXIII, eschewing dungeon exploration and town segments in order to go all-in on its excellent battle system. However, like I discovered with FFXIII, focusing on combat at the expense of other RPG elements turns the game into a linear extended cutscene with some combat, and thus shines an inadvertent spotlight on its story and writing too! Here I found that the offbeat humor and fourth-wall-breaking that was a charming distraction in Cthulhu Saves the World was not enough to carry Cthulhu Saves Christmas on its own.
In the end I can't give a negative score to any game that runs on Cosmic Star Heroine's combat engine, but this is the first Zeboyd game I've played that feels like less than the sum of its parts.
CSC runs on Cosmic Star's stellar battle system with a few added tweaks to fit the Cthulhu mythos - there is the 'madness' status effect which makes monsters stronger but less durable, and switches their elemental and status resistances. As a further development of the 'madness' theme, half of your ability slots are randomized every battle which forces you to think on your feet a bit instead of using the same approach every time. The game also does more to streamline the usual JRPG formula, allowing you to skip random encounters at will. In addition, there are no free-roaming town segments; instead, you get four "Rl'yehtionship" episodes between each dungeon where you choose a party member to hang out with or a place to go to, watch a short scene, and get a reward at the end.
These tweaks all sound good on paper, but the end result isn't quite as compelling as Zeboyd's previous titles. The dungeons are weaker than in previous games, having little to set them apart besides cosmetic differences. Thanks to having a lot of branching paths that lead nowhere, and nothing in the the way of secrets to discover, the dungeons feel both linear and convoluted - somehow confusing and unsatisfying to explore at the same time. In many ways this game is like FFXIII, eschewing dungeon exploration and town segments in order to go all-in on its excellent battle system. However, like I discovered with FFXIII, focusing on combat at the expense of other RPG elements turns the game into a linear extended cutscene with some combat, and thus shines an inadvertent spotlight on its story and writing too! Here I found that the offbeat humor and fourth-wall-breaking that was a charming distraction in Cthulhu Saves the World was not enough to carry Cthulhu Saves Christmas on its own.
In the end I can't give a negative score to any game that runs on Cosmic Star Heroine's combat engine, but this is the first Zeboyd game I've played that feels like less than the sum of its parts.