ACHTUNG! Reseña de las tácticas de Cthulhu

Basado en el exitoso juego de rol de mesa del mismo nombre, ACHTUNG! Cthulhu Tactics busca traer las tensas historias de aventura y heroísmo de los aliados de la Segunda Guerra Mundial contra los (aún más) malvados cultos secretos de The Black Sun y Nachtwolfe ubicados dentro de las filas nazis. Tomas el papel y el mando del Escuadrón Charlie, un grupo de élite de soldados y miembros de la resistencia enviados al bosque de las Ardenas para investigar y detener a estos malvados (er) grupos de tentáculos que abrazan desagradables. Una lástima rotunda entonces que en lugar de luchar contra números emocionantes (sí, me atengo a ese adjetivo) de tentáculos a cada paso, termines con solo platos de calamares masticables y recocidos, es decir, una decepción constante. amorío.

Este personaje hizo que el resto de Charlie Squad se sintiera rutinariamente redundante.

Ahora, he tenido la fortuna de jugar el RPG de mesa, pero aprecio completamente que el éxito de tales juegos se basa en jugar con el tipo adecuado de personas que invierten completamente en los temas y personajes que juegan. Mi experiencia fue alegre, pero también recuerdo haber pensado que el escenario fue elaborado con evidente amor y cuidado. En algún momento de la transición al mundo de los videojuegos, esa narración entusiasta y cautivadora se ha perdido. No es que la configuración no se traduzca bien en el mundo de los videojuegos, es solo que Auroch Digital de alguna manera ha logrado absorber toda la personalidad. Entiendo perfectamente que se trata de un juego de tácticas, pero todo se mueve a un ritmo tan lento como el de un caracol con un encanto absolutamente nulo que rápidamente pierdes todo interés en lo que realmente está sucediendo en la pantalla.

Agáchate, cúbrete, fuego. Agáchate, cúbrete, fuego. Y repetir.

El hecho de que Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics es tan monótono y sin vida que casi me hizo abandonar el juego por completo con apenas una mirada hacia atrás en varias ocasiones. Demasiados niveles se basan en la misma paleta de mapas de bosques insípidos y almacenes sin vida que, sinceramente, me preguntaba si estaba jugando los mismos mapas desde un ángulo diferente. Cuando confirmé que no era así y me di cuenta de que los desarrolladores habían usado el mismo escenario una y otra vez, mi corazón se hundió aún más. Más adelante en el juego, el escenario cambió a una tarifa mucho más entretenida y adecuada a Lovecraft, pero en realidad era demasiado poco y demasiado tarde.

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics doesn’t even have the decency to hide its gameplay influences within its own mechanics — this is a straight copy of XCOM, even down to the way the character action menus appear and behave during a level (and I could swear they use the same audio cues as well). Each character has a series of action points (AP) from which to shoot, move, throw grenades and so on. As a squad there are also bonus momentum points, too (MP) — where you can do some far more interesting things like trick shots, draining life Force and charging at the enemy with reckless abandon. It’s a good system that allows you to experiment and flavour your squad with whatever playstyle you prefer; that on its own merits, is deserving of praise — but as a straight rip-off, it garners no favours here.

You have no idea how much this speaks to me as a player after playing this game

So dull is the gameplay that I actually began to dread hearing the music cue for an enemy encounter. Everything just plods along at such a slow pace that, more often than not, I found myself on my phone while the enemy was taking its moves. Achtung! Cthulu Tactics just utterly failed to engage me as a player. There is some variety of enemies, from standard Nazi soldiers to the more monstrous shoggoths, but really the only variety that affects your game is just how much health they have. Because of this mechanic, combat can last an almost inappropriate length of time — which again, wouldn’t be a problem if the game had some excitement and character. Instead it just becomes a slogging match between your four squaddies versus a giant pool of enemy hit points.

There’s no sense of consequence or permanence either. Unlike XCOM, if you fail a mission, you simply restart it. One of your squad can be captured and you do have to play a rescue mission to get him or her back, but it’s not a permanent loss. If you fail that, you try again until you succeed. Without this level of danger you lose any sense of connection you may feel with a character that you’re levelling up and loading up to be the ultimate Nazi killer. It feels strange to state that the threat of permanent death is what keeps you on your toes in a game, but it really is applicable here.

The lack of level variety is criminal

You can also play side-missions that reward you with some extra gear and XP to level up your team, but they’re just more of the same. Wander round in the dark, bump into some uglies, shoot them, go home, level up. There really is no variety within the game as a whole.

There’s also no getting around how clunky and buggy the game feels under the hood either. Frequently throughout my playthrough I experienced screen tears, jumps in gameplay and broken objective markers that required a level restart to resolve. I also experienced more than a couple of levels where the same voice lines would be repeated over and over — I certainly hope this is a bug, because there are only so much campy, scenery chewing, German accents a man can take of the same line (“Zey Gott Me!”).

The scariest part of this picture is the number of HP that chap has. Gonna be here for hours.

You can forgive a buggy or slightly broken game if its overall passion and mechanics (see: anything that Bethesda has ever made prior to Fallout 76) grabs you by the hair and pulls you along for the ride, warts and all. ACHTUNG! Cthulhu Tactics commits the most cardinal sin of gaming, however — it’s utterly boring. Instead I would just recommend you grab some friends, sit round the table, use the Nazis from Indiana Jones as reference material for over-the-top accents and just go play the tabletop game.