OK, wait a minute. Didn't I already do this game long ago? Just give me a m-AHA! I knew it! This is Breath of Death VII all over again. Same battle system, same sense of humor, same art style, same name, s-Oh, right. This was made by the same people. In fact, it's the sequel to Breath of Death VII. That explains everything. Sadly, you haven't seen that "everything", yet, so allow me to explain the everything that's already been explained.

Our story begins with Cthulhu getting his power sucked away. To get it back, he must save the world. But there's more to this game than just the title! So much more that I'm not going to spoil for you! This is largely because the game is all over the place with its scenarios. One minute, you're....never mind. The only constant in this game seems to be Lovecraft references, like a Dagon fight in Innsmouth. Makes sense, I guess. As I've said before, New England is such a terrifying place on Earth that I'm certain Chickenhead is hiding out in Vermont as a lumberjack, completely unnoticed by the other monstrosities. The rest of the time, if it thinks of an idea, it'll go with it if it thinks it's funny. It doesn't matter if the transition makes no sense. Then again, it's not like this is entirely a bad thing. After all, the game's decently funny, so as long as that holds true, the game can do whatever the hell it wants.

This is where it doesn't hold true, though: cultural references. Why, Cthulhu Saves the World? Why did you think these would be funny? Not everybody has played Super Metroid or watched Little Barbershop of Horrors. Do you even care about them, good sirs? But let's assume that everybody has watched and played all this stuff. Maybe Clayton Cornelius, Evil Dictator of Earth, ordered everybody to play and watch these things. That still doesn't excuse how poorly the jokes are worked into the narrative. I know that I said you can do whatever you want as long as it's funny, game, but here's the thing: these jokes aren't funny. Simply referencing the fact that Moby Dick exists isn't a joke. It doesn't make me laugh. (Of course, that's assuming the impossible, but just imagine I can laugh.) The amount of snark with which you tell these jokes certainly doesn't help. If anything, it just gives the game's personality a sandpaper-y quality. You were doing so well with all non-cultural stuff, like cow butt and dungeon cookies. Why ruin it with dumb Family Guy-esque jokes?

It's just like that time when I talked about the battle system in Cthulhu Saves the World. Now. That time was now. So what are battles like? Well, prepare to mash enter A LOT, because that's pretty much the entire experience. Of course, the game doesn't want you knowing this. It throws things like combo meters and insanity and text at you every couple of seconds, but don't let that distract you from the reality. In typing this blog, I've hit keys fewer times than I did the Enter key in Cthulhu Saves the World. However, I fail to see anything wrong with that. I mean, I need this room to express my ideas and o-I mean, the game's actually decently challenging, oddly enough. Somehow, no matter where you are in the game, you're always underleveled, the enemies are always super powerful, and you're going to die mid-dungeon. (It wasn't just because of the Enter mashing, as you'll see shortly.) Not that I have a problem with that. It's a transparent difficulty, so the battles are less constant chances to die and more something you can triumph over victorious.

Besides, it's not like all of the battles involve pounding a hole in your keyboard that prevents you from quoting people ever again. I'd start with bosses if they weren't somehow easier than a lot of the encounters. Apparently, spamming spells like Dark Strike and Rain of Fire will destroy any boss. You can't pull that shit on the later enemies in the game. They're not gonna let you get away with something like that. Instead, you have to be careful with your buffs and where you aim your more powerful techs, like there's an element of strategy that I utterly neglected a short moment ago. And after all that, you'll have to do it again after five minutes of wandering through poorly designed dungeons. You'll like every second of it, though, unless that second involves a Brandish reference simply because the writer heard of it that one time.

Somehow, I got through this entire blog without getting drunk. Let's fix that before I end it.

M...much...*passes out in vomit*

Review Synopsis

• ....uuu....Why am I covered in puke?
• And could somebody tell Lilly to stop nudging me? I'm already awake.
• Did I mention that the music is all kinds of awesome? I probably should have mentioned that, somewhere.

Just to prove to you that Cthulhu Saves the World has a sick sense of humor (sometimes), here's the Nyarlathotep fight in all its crude glory.

Well, that certainly puts an end to the string of thematic blogs I've been pulling for the past month or so. Don't try to convince me of anything terrifying in Alice in Wonderland, either. I've already read it, you know. Now what does any of that have to do with Fushigi no Yume no Alice? In fact, what is Fushigi no Yume no Alice? (Besides simply the Japanese name for Alice in Wonderland.) Oddly enough, both questions have the same answer: nothing. This game is nothing!

Being nothing, this means the game has nothing, which means it has nothing to do with Alice in Wonderland. (Man, what a wordy fucking blog.) Remember how the book was about a little girl listening to an oddly whiny turtle reminisce about doing his school's laundry? Or at least how I told you about it in the last link? Well, none of that is in here. Instead, the White Rabbit's a furry bear and the Big Bad Wolf is in here, for some reason. But really, none of that matters as long as the game maintains some level of strangeness, right? And it at least looks like it does, given the ending and all. Don't get excited about any of this, though. Aside from what I've mentioned, very little of the game is especially fushigi. All the levels look exactly the same: a dull blend of grass green and brown, usually arranged in a horizontal then vertical then horizontal arrangement, sometimes ending with one of two bosses repeated over the course of the game. I've boiled this game down to a formula; that's the exact opposite of what the title promises me. The final boss is a chicken-puking Gorgon, though, so the jury's still out.

On the atmosphere, of course. Gameplay? The jury decided that rather quickly: it's not that good. Remember what I said about the levels feeling kinda same-y? Obviously, that applies to the actual game, too, since you don't have a lot of options for tackling the levels. Either you don't do the next thing, or you move forward and jump on enemies, sometimes shouting them to death with your pro-active rape whistle. These details don't exactly titilate, do they? Unfortunately, things continue not to titilate from here, what with the sluggish controls and all. You can change directions with all the speed of a Resident Evil character and one less dimension to justify it. This is especially worrying in boss battles, since they kinda require you to turn around quickly. Oh, and charging up your rape whistle tires you out. Hope you weren't planning on using especially powerful attacks in this game.

The only really positive things I can say about the game are things I can't really give it credit for on any level. For instance, blasting through the levels. It's the only thing I did. Can you blame me? I can't turn around or attack, so my only other option was turning this game into Sonic the Hedgehog. In fact, that's kind of what my experience with this game was like. The only real difference was the level of challenge, because I doubt the developers wanted me going through this so quickly. That would explain the enemies that would regenerate as soon as I turned my back (assuming I could, of course) and the high density of projectiles about 40% of the time. Actually, now that I think about it, that last sentence explains everything wrong with this game: it's criminally lazy. If the developers' idea of challenging is "MORE STUFF ON SCREEN NOW", what hope do the other parts of the game have?

Review Synopsis

• This game is whimsical and fantastic in the same way a raven is like a writing desk.
• What is the use of a video game without tight controls or engaging level design?
• This game has only one trick for making situations harder: more enemies.
• Before I close things out, I leave you with this question: would Funk Nagachan or Guitar Vader get more ass? (I'm not wasting this opportunity.)