Cthulhu Saves Christmas

Genre: Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Cthulhu Saves Christmas is a JRPG first released on PC in 2019, ported to Stadia and Nintendo Switch in 2020, and then brought to PlayStation 5 in 2021. This game is a sequel to 2010’s Cthulhu Saves the World, and while this game makes tongue-in-cheek references to its predecessor, players don’t need to have played the original game to understand the story in this one.

As one might gather from the silly title, this game’s story doesn’t take itself all that seriously, telling an absurd tale about an evil Christmas league ousting the jolly Saint Nick from his celebrated spot at the center of the December holiday, and Cthulhu setting out for revenge after getting an anti-gift from the league that steals his powers, only to shortly afterward take up the quest to rescue Santa with the promise of getting his Christmas wish fulfilled – the destruction of the world.

This silly premise makes for some hilarious exchanges as Cthulhu’s heroic comrades aren’t exactly enamored with their ally’s desire to sow destruction and unleash insanity on the world, and even the narrator finds himself squabbling with Cthulhu, with virtually every character in the game constantly breaking the fourth wall, making terrible puns, and just in general never wasting an opportunity to crack a joke. And most of these will at least elicit a smile, if not a laugh. Yet all of this absurdity doesn’t get tiresome at all, with some absolutely fantastic writing that keeps everything fairly brisk and light-hearted (yes, even the talk of omnicidal death, destruction, torture, and insanity).

The rest of the presentation here feels straight out of a 16-bit JRPG, doing a great job of reaching straight for the nostalgia, with graphics that feel like they would have been at home on the Super Nintendo. This is paired with a more modern synthesized soundtrack that actually kinda’ rocks. I don’t have direct links, but you can check out the soundtrack here. Be sure to check out the songs Save Christmas, Sleighing Enemies, Carol of the Bels But Louder. As the generic battle theme, I was particularly enamored with Sleighing Enemies, which always made battles just a little more awesome.

While this game could have easily gotten away with simply being “JRPG, but with Cthulhu and jokes”, Cthulhu Saves Christmas actually plays with a lot of inventive and experimental game systems that really shake up the genre. Firstly, the game has Insanity Abilities, which are abilities each party member has that are randomly drawn from the pool of abilities that party member doesn’t currently have equipped. This makes sure that not only is every battle somewhat different, but that abilities players may not normally use get an extra chance at being tried out in battle.

To further ensure that players shake up the abilities they use in combat, most of these abilities can only be used once, and must then be recharged by using a defensive ability. This makes players weigh the use of an ability they’re not super-enamored with against “wasting” a turn on a defensive ability in order to refresh used abilities.

There’s the “Hyper Mode”, which charges over time and powers up a character’s abilities, giving players a reason to save their best abilities for later so they can make use of its powered-up state. There are Unite abilities that can be used only once per battle, and only start at 10% power and charge up 10% per turn, making players weigh its early use against the potential for a stronger use of the power later. The item system is also fairly unique here, with items not expended in battle, but limited to only one use, and requiring players to equip them much like weapons or armor. There’s the Insanity debuff, which in addition to other effects reverses an enemy’s elemental weaknesses. There’s the R’lyehtionship levels (like I said, tons of puns!), which have players using their limited time in towns to increase various bonuses relating to members of the party.

Yeah, wow, there are a lot of really inventive and original systems here, and that’s not even all of them (I didn’t mention the chicken buff, for example…). Sometimes it can get a bit confusing keeping track of all of the different game systems at work here, and it’s not really necessary to do so, but players who choose to will find there to be plenty of depth to dig into.

However, the problem with that is, Cthulhu Saves Christmas is both an extremely linear game, and an extremely short one. After completing a dungeon, you will be whisked back to town, given a limited number of days to participate in the aforementioned R’lyehtionship activities, and then automatically shuttled to the next dungeon. And as for game length, this game can be completed in 6-7 hours. Oh, and if you want to make this experience last, do not pick the “sane” difficulty, as that is exceedingly easy and will provide no challenge at all.

It’s an absolute shame that Cthulhu Saves Christmas is as short and linear as it is, because everything else about this game is such an absolute joy that I want it to be ten times longer and more expansive than it is. The writing here is so excellent, the characters so enjoyable, and the various gameplay systems so inventive that I want to spend much, much longer in this world. I suppose, for the low price of $10, I can’t really complain. While I can complain about this game’s length, make no mistake – if you enjoy JRPGs, you need to play Cthulhu Saves Christmas. Yes, it’s far too short for its own good, but it is an absolute joy while it lasts. Do not miss it.

tl;dr – Cthulhu Saves Christmas is an absolutely fantastic JRPG full of fourth wall-breaking jokes, puns, lovable characters, great writing, tons of 16-bit nostalgia, and a whole slew of creative game systems. My biggest complaint here is that this game is a criminally short and linear experience. Still, at $10 for 6-7 hours of gameplay, this is a budget-priced RPG that fans of the genre should absolutely play, because it is truly brilliant while it lasts.

Grade: B+

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