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The only thing this title omits is that this version is also "(Without Avatars!)"
It is said to come to this Earth from beyond the Heavens...
For aeons, Cthulhu ruled from atop the Great City R'lyeh...
While the legends are silent as to the fall of Great R'lyeh...
And welcome to the title screen of Cthulhu Saves The World.
I'll go over the bonuses when they become relevant. For now, though, we're just interested in the new game part of this screen.
And since I'm what some would refer to as a coward, I'll be playing this game on Normal difficulty. Higher difficulties affect monster difficulty and MP regeneration and MP regeneration is fairly crucial to survival.
I'll also have the Director's Commentary on, as it provides some neato information about the game. However, if the commentary is going to spoil something coming up, I'll post it after the update.
And now, let's get this show on the road. Keep your hands to the side and enjoy the ride, folks.
Cthulhu sleeps while the world above goes on, oblivious to his presence.
Until tonight...
Awaken, great Cthulhu!
Aww, hell. This isn't going to end well.
[img]http://lpix.org/518228/capture_07022012_023332.jpg
...I have been wrong in the past, though.
Gaaah! After waiting all this time, to have victory snatched from my grasp by a mere mysterious man is highly frustrating! I must get my powers back! But how?
But how, indeed.
Oh. I guess we'll be fine, then.
And that occasional tendency I have to be wrong comes back to bite me again.
I, Cthulhu, do hereby vow to devote my life to becoming a true hero. But only so I can summon R'lyeh to the surface, and destroy the world, of course.
And with all of that opening exposition out of the way, let's get started on turning Cthluhu into a true hero, shall we?
The bit that's missing here just tells you that you can teleport back to cities you've already visited. It can be a pretty handy feature, and the chat feature offers up a few amusing conversations.
I can save at anytime? What is this, a first-person shooter?
There's a few other things, but I'd rather cover them as they come up. I'd hate to bore you guys with the details now, and I'm itching to actually get to the gameplay.
Cosmic monstrosities don't need luck! We forge our own destinies no matter what the cost to humanity!
And for our first bit of actual bit of gameplay, we open the chest just to the north and receive three 1-Ups. As it says, these will let you restore a battle to the beginning if you get your ass kicked.[/img]
Heading just to the left, we find our first bit of commentary. The missing bit just says, "about the game's development!" I swear, it gets more interesting soon.
And soon happens to be right about now.
Aha! A helpless maiden beset by vicious monsters. I shall rescue her thus becoming a true hero!
Fhtagn! Then I will kill the monsters anyway, just for the sake of violence!
I like the cut of his jib. Let's do this.
Alright, there's a lot here to look at. Attack, tech and magic are pretty much what you think they'd be. Techs and magic can provide buffs and debuffs that regular attacks don't, such as blinding, stun, insanity, etc. Cthulhu's two current techs are are Insane Strike, which hits twice and adds insanity to an enemy, and Deathblow; the higher you have the combo counter (located in the upper right corner), the more damage Deathblow will deal. By letting the combo counter build, you can do some truly insane amounts of damage.
Potion does exactly what you think it does; it uses a potion. Potions in this game, however, restore HP to full and cure all status ailments, making them vastly more useful than they are in most other games. Unite allows two or more characters to band together to deliver extra-powerful attacks. Protect, which is explained in the textbox, has Cthulhu taunt the enemies, which will focus more of their attacks on him, while raising his defense.
Attacking one of the enemies, Cthulhu hits for nearly two-thirds of its health. In this game, you can see an enemies health at all times and even the power of your own attacks. Generally, the power is a good indicator as to how much damage you'll be dealing. Tech and magic attack powers differ wildly from regular attack power and attacks affected by the combo meter will have their power raised accordingly, just so you can see just how much of an ass-whipping you'll be laying down.
After killing one of the Gooez', you see another interesting feature of CSTW; at the end of each round, monsters get 10% stronger. Initially, this doesn't seem too bad, until you realize that if you take too long, monsters are going to be a hell of a lot stronger than they started as and this can end your game if you spend too much time dicking around.
But, let's finish this fight with a bit of flair. Seeing as how our combo meter is at two, Deathblow has a 42 power. Cthulhu's regular attack power is 19, while Insanity Strike is 14x2.
Deathblow deals 42 damage, which is 12 more health than the Gooez has. Using Deathblow also resets the combo meter to 0, which doesn't matter, as this fight is over.
And this screen, as if the blank field wasn't enough of an indicator, lets us know that we have, indeed, won this fight. At the end of battle, all HP is restored and some MP is restored. The longer you take to win, the less MP you regenerate.
Cthulhu gained barely just enough XP to level up. At a level up, you gain more HP and MP, and even get to choose a level up bonus, which can vary as to whether it's new skills, magic, improved stats, or even more HP and MP. This lets you build your characters as you see fit; would you like a sword slinging Cthulhu, or a fireball launching squid-man of doom? You decide!
For this level up, though, I choose to give Cthulhu a boost to strength when there are insanity-stricken enemies on the field.
This feels like an awkward place to end an update, but it really does work well. I've dumped enough 
to bore you, but not every post is going to be so text heavy. Next time we continue, we'll discover more about the fair maiden Cthulhu rescued and maybe even get to some actual hero-ing.