Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn. In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

If you’re a horror fan, you know who H.P. Lovecraft was. Even if you’ve never read any of his stuff, you know that he was a master of the horror genre. Many horror writers/artists/etc have taken inspiration from Lovecraft. So it should come as no surprise when horror video games borrow from the writer.

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu stories. The game’s story is set in an alternate World War 2 world where the Nazi’s are calling upon dark supernatural forces (aka creatures inspired by Lovecraft stories) to help them in the war. A special unit, Charlie Company, is sent out to combat the Nazis and their creatures.

I like the story setup, though unfortunately the execution isn’t that great. Voiced dialogue introduces each mission and sends you out to combat Nazis and creatures. The voice acting in this game ranges from “its alright” to “thats so corny”. I get that the game is going for a supernatural pulp feel but I think they went a little overboard.

As for its gameplay, Clthulhu Tactics is a strategy rpg and it reminds me of a Falling Skies video game I played once. Its also got a bit of an X-Com feel to it. Sadly, Clthulhu Tactics is not as good as either of those games.

The player does some exploration in very bland, uninteresting environments and then the battles begin. At first the game is pretty easy but as you progress, it gets much harder. If you want a challenge, then Achtung! Clthulhu Tactics definitely has that. However, the battles are too straight forward and get boring after awhile. Leveling up out of battle adds more abilities for your soldiers to use but nothing that’ll help you from dying of boredom. If you want a challenge, you may like this game, but if you want an interesting game, well, you won’t find much of this interesting.

The best part of the game is its controls. If you’ve ever played a tactical game before, you’ll easily pick up and play this game. I think even if you haven’t played one before, you should be able to get a handle on the controls fast.

I do wish Clthulhu had better camera angles. I also wish it was just a better game overall. The graphics look very late PS1 or early PS2 era, the gameplay is dull and uninspired, and the story could’ve been a lot better.

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics isn’t the worst tactical rpg on the Switch. It presents a challenge that some fans will love. I would have much rather had a fun game though.

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics gets a 6.5 out of 10.

Thanks to Plan of Attack for providing a digital code for this game. Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics is available now on the Nintendo Switch eshop.