Cthulhu Saves Christmas: New Year behind the Veil of Reality

You won’t believe it, but I didn’t think I would be writing a review of this game. But for some reason, everyone really wants a New Year’s or Christmas article, while I personally feel about this holiday about the way Chekhov described it in “Nights At the Cemetery.” So this game is a kind of compromise: one of the few things related to Christmas that gives me pleasure, and which at the same time can be pushed onto our cozy website. Because we have absolute chaos in the video game reviews section, so bringing in some of Lovecraft’s indescribable madness and stuff won’t make it any worse.

Features of national madness

Let’s start with the obvious: as the name may make clear, there really won’t be any Lovecraftian horror here. But this does not mean that the creators are unfamiliar with the material. On the contrary, we know each other, and we know each other very well. And so they understand perfectly well that the whole point of the word “unimaginable” is precisely that it cannot be imagined, and therefore any attempt to make a film, a game, a comic book, or a series of still lifes out of Lovecraft’s books is doomed to failure innumerable times out of ten. You have to be an extremely talented person to imagine the unimaginable. Unfortunately or fortunately, there are few such people, and therefore the word “Lovecraftian” in the description usually reads not “I have done something great,” but “I have no talent, and I want to stick to the legend.”

In general, the comrades from Zeboyd Digital Entertainment are not trying to do anything Lovecraftian. At the same time, it’s not that they don’t have talent – they just understand perfectly well that their talent lies in the direction of thrash and comedy, so it’s to these two endpoints that everything aspires. In the very first cutscene, Cthulhu is promptly stripped of all his powers, leaving only Cthulhu as a sample of demotivators from the two thousandth, who can only zohave mosk, and even then every other time. Most of all, Cthulhu himself is outraged about what is happening, which is very appropriate, because what kind of unimaginable horror was suddenly taken and presented in such an obscene way? And yes, in the same first screensaver, the fourth wall breaks down with a light hand, and Cthulhu begins to argue directly with the offscreen narrator. Which, in general, sets you up for the right mood.

During the game, our ancient green friend decorates Christmas trees with unpronounceable horrors and non-Euclidean spaces, sings carols in the language of R’lyeh, visits the Society of Anonymous Cultists, rescues alien cats from pet stores – and in general, a complete ph’ nglui nafh takes place on the screen. It is worth noting that with all this, “Cthulhu Saves Christmas” is significantly filled with such love for the original works of Howard L., which even the most serious followers of Lovecraft are not always able to convey. The Robert Boyd Studio really knows how and can.

The whole truth about vg’nagl

As they say, all the best is learned in comparison, so it’s time to note that Cthulhu Saves Christmas is the second game in the series. In fact, this work is a prequel to the video game “Cthulhu Saves the World.” How important is it to play the first game? Well, basically… It doesn’t really matter. Of course, some of the jokes were written with an eye on the first game, but they will work quite well – albeit in a slightly different way – even if you save Christmas first, and then the world. Even the fact that you won’t know the characters from the first game can only be a plus. Of course, I cannot confirm these words for sure, since I still played these games in the order in which they were released, and this cannot be changed. But judging by the way the lyrics in “Cthulhu Saves Christmas” are written, yes, I personally think that everything fits together quite well if you go through the prequel first, and then the original.

Only one thing is worth noting right away: “Cthulhu Saves Christmas” is still fully felt only when bundled with the first game. It may not be important in which order to go through them, but it’s still worth going through both, otherwise a lot will remain unclear. But don’t worry: both of these games are extremely short. They are so short that I even went through each of them twice, and this is even more rare, since I have always treated games like books. If you reread it, then only the best, and only after five or ten years, or even more. But the Cthulhu dilogy has ways of presenting a replay as something that can be enjoyable.

First of all, it’s worth saying that both games are, well, they’re just really good-looking, and even a picky and grumpy gamer like me really wants to play them. And secondly, the developers still bothered to make certain changes to the replay – and I mean just solid changes like that, and not just an additional boss at the very end or something else lazy, like, “fuck off.” In particular, “Cthulhu Saves the World” offers a choice of several modes to replay at once, the most interesting of which is called… ah… The Angels of Cthulhu. This mode radically changes the story, giving us new characters, new bosses, new music, and more. It still doesn’t reach the level of an independent game, but it’s the most suitable for repeated play. So I highly recommend it.

The second game offers a New Game Plus. But don’t jump to conclusions: there’s actually a Plus in the New Game… Aah, spoilers, spoilers! In short, this is not a New Plus Game. The developers blatantly lie and giggle nastily, the game itself doesn’t give itself away either, and as a result, I myself was very close to never finding out about the true state of things. I repeat: I really don’t like repeated playthroughs. But “Cthulhu Saves Christmas” is such a short and such a good game that I still clicked on this Newest Plus Game. I probably should have realized that in this video game, even a replay is not what it seems, because throughout the history of Zeboyd, they’ve been making fun of everything, including all possible stereotypes and themselves into the bargain… However, I did not guess. But I still haven’t passed it by, so now I can definitely say that if you play Cthulhu Saves Christmas, don’t ignore the New Plus Game. It must also be passed. And you’ll probably want to, too, even if I wanted to.

The unthinkable bold headline

As already mentioned, both games are extremely short.More specifically, “Cthulhu Saves the World” can be stretched over two or three evenings, while “Cthulhu Saves Christmas” takes place in an evening. With a New Game Plus – in two evenings. And if you play both games, then in total for the average player it will be entertainment for a maximum of a week or so. Or even less if you play not only in the evenings, but devote several New Year’s holidays to your leisure time. The gameplay itself is extremely easy, despite the fact that the mechanics in front of us are nothing more than JRPGs. And if in the first game you can still find a couple of secrets, wander around the map, grab mobs and, just in case, look into the passage several times, then in the Christmas prequel everything is simply indescribably linear and the number of battles per level is strictly limited.

It’s also very difficult to miss anything in the second game – well, except for the aforementioned New Game Plus, of course… In general, everything is very balanced and stress-free, at least on medium difficulties. For very casual players, there are lower than average difficulties, for fans of JRPG-tinplate and grind – higher difficulties. I won’t say that I’ve tried them all, but everything looks in place and no one should leave offended. The Christmas game allows you to change the difficulty during the passage, and you can easily start at maximum difficulty, and then go lower if it suddenly turns out to be too difficult. Personally, on the contrary, at some point it seemed too easy for me, and I pushed everything to the maximum.

I think by this point, my dear fellow reader has probably already realized that Cthulhu Saves Christmas is several times smaller than the first game. Yes, there is no open card, the game itself is several times shorter, and so on, but all this is offset by the incredible beauty of the Christmas edition. If “Cthulhu Saves the World” was extremely minimalistic, resembling a JRPG on a Sega from the 90s, and in some places completely garish, then in “Cthulhu Saves Christmas” almost everything is done from a fir needle. The character portraits are amazing. Backdrops – smack you in the tentacles. The music is almost a one hundred percent hit. The atmosphere is all New Year madness and Christmas Lovecraft. In short, it’s just a beauty. And if it’s pretty easy to part with the first game after two playthroughs, then after the double play of the prequel it even gets kind of sad: all this splendor ends very quickly, and I want more. The thought does not leave me: is this really all? Maybe there’s A New Plus-Plus Game? But no, the curtain falls, the audience disperses… Probably, at least from this point of view, it’s better to go through Cthulhu Saves Christmas first, and only then Cthulhu Saves the World – maybe it will be a little less sad to part with your favorite characters.

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Christmas is devouring the world

Speaking of characters. Our party members are – suddenly – such familiar girls as the Snow Maiden and Baba Yaga. Moreover, Baba Yaga directly falls under the definition of the word “girls”, since in this work she is quite a young magical girl. And she’s a fan of chickens, one of which, apparently, nests right on her head. However, Yaga is also somehow well aware of who she is going to become in the popular consciousness, which, of course, is just another source for interesting and funny dialogues with Cthulhu. No, seriously, here Baba Yaga and Cthulhu are doing indescribable good on the same screen – what else do you need?

Belsnickel completes the list of party members, already from German folklore. And these are just our heroes. The list of bosses includes the Yule Boys and the Yule Cat from the Icelandic Christmas stories, the Grey Horse from Wales, Krampus (for where to go without him) and many others. It’s a long way from the world, and I bet this is the first time you’ll hear about many of these characters. It’s a great opportunity to learn a little more about them using your favorite search engine, and not only play an interesting video game, but also expand your horizons by reading a little about the Christmas traditions of different peoples of the world! It’s just a pity that the game didn’t feature Zeboyd’s signature character named Molly, a student, Komsomol member, and simply beautiful, whose luck parameter tends to such unfathomable values that she was simultaneously torn apart by a vampire, a zombie, and a werewolf. This accident turned Molly into a legendary werewolf creature… No, the one who came up with all this has a real talent. But yes, Molly the Werewolf Vampire only appears in the first Cthulhu game.

The absolute improbability of the translation

And now about the sad part. On GOG, there is one and only one language in the list of languages supported by the game: Russian English. I don’t know if there is a fan translation into Russian for the game. But even if there is one, I, to be honest, strongly doubt its quality. It’s just that in “Cthulhu Saves Christmas” there is a considerable amount of all sorts of funny nonsense, which is quite difficult to translate qualitatively. Which is only worth the introductory poem, parodying the famous Visit of St. Nicholas by Comrade Clement Moore. Or, for example, a parody of the “relationship” popular for anime games, which in this game turned into R’lyehtionship. Well, okay, while I was writing the article, I still figured out how to translate the last word. Attention… The goods are yours! Not bad, right? But here’s the opening verse… Yes, I wanted to attach screenshots of the entire introductory screensaver so that you immediately understand the level of thrash and frenzy that descends on the player like an unimaginable snowstorm from the very first frames. But after looking at the verse… I decided that you could still do with one screenshot of Cthulhu sleeping in a cozy crib. So yes, the transfer is most likely a pipe.

If you want to check how well the game fits your language skills, you can poke into the video showing all the R’lyehtionship dialogues and see how funny and readable it is. Careful, spoilers. Especially towards the end of the video.

The inhuman code

And, if you’ve read my previous article, then you might want to ask me about the technical stuff of the game. And yes, I did some digging into it, because at some point it seemed to me that I had missed a chest. I don’t remember if I really missed it or not, but the bottom line is that I looked into the saves. They can be edited in notepad, but they are a very low-level piece: a bare set of variables like 2XP0, 2XP1, 1Battle617, 3Chest18, 3Equip96, 0Day, 1Day, and so on, plus the values of the variables in numerical form. If you make a backup save, log in to the game, open the chest, and then immediately save, exit the game, and compare the file before and after opening the chest, you can understand which variables are responsible for which chests, and which values are responsible for certain states, but… Honestly, I don’t think it’s necessary to do this. If you can really just practice reading and changing some basic code on West Of The Dead, then the system presented in this Christmas video game is too specific and unlikely to bring you any useful skills.And, again, “Cthulhu Saves Christmas” is a very small and extremely linear piece, so it’s unlikely that you will get confused in it. But if you suddenly feel like you’ve missed a chest or something, well… The saves are located at C:UsersUser_nameAppDataLocalLowZeboydCthulhu Saves Christmas – a notebook in your hands and good luck. In all other respects, “Cthulhu Saves Christmas” is a Unity game, so it’s a standard set of programs. If you are interested in learning more, write in the comments or somewhere to me personally. I’ll be happy to tell you how to dig your head into Unity games and which shovels to use, but there’s probably enough information in this article.

A perfectly imaginable conclusion

Summing up, I think that the article does not hide my delight. Yes, I personally really liked the game, and I consider its main drawback to be the fact that it is too short, even taking into account the repeated passage. Of course, I can find fault and find some minor flaws… For example, character portraits are still anime, which, of course, is not very rock’n’roll. Or I still can’t understand why, when the maximum product is reached, such disturbing and threatening music suddenly starts playing, which seems to be completely out of place… But against the background of the overall splendor of this game, all this criticism of mine is a mere trifle. And everyone knows that if you really want to, you can find fault with anything. But is it necessary? Anyway, how many Christmas games can you name specifically? Yes, there are separate Christmas levels and mods with a New Year theme – but so that the whole Christmas game? That’s it. Cthulhu has already won. So you can keep hiding behind the pleasant veil of reality, but beyond that, the truth is-and the truth is that Christmas is in danger, and it’s waiting for a hero who will travel to R’lyeh and awaken ancient Cthulhu.