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chuckroYou’re a grade-school-age child in a world where horrifying monstrosities lurk in the tall grass and adults go mad from seeing them. You catch them in magic balls and train them to fight other kids’ monsters.
For the record, the instruction book is a delightful read and John Kovalic (of Dork Tower fame) did the art. That said, this is a mixed bag as a game:
Your Pokemon’s attacks when you battle are limited by your character’s “Pokethulhu Lore” stat, which is in turn limited by your sanity (per standard Call of Cthulhu). Which feels like they were going for a “you need to be a better trainer to use your best moves” sort of feel, but advancement is very limited and in practice it means you need to max that particular stat if you want to win Pokemon battles.
That said, if there are penalties associated to low sanity, we didn’t encounter them. It’s really unclear what sanity is used for, actually.
There’s also a huge penalty to losing initiative, which is based on the character’s “Talking Trash” stat. Which again, feels very much like the Pokemon games, where going first in a match can determine if you win effortlessly or by the skin of your teeth. The combat system is weirdly complex but does feel like Pokemon (you can win with a knockout in one turn, you can have a long back-and-forth, there’s a switching mechanic we didn’t explore, etc.). The Dodge attack (…yeah) isn’t quite clear on how it works on anything other than an attack to cause injury; and Trap attacks seem overpowered because they pretty much always succeed if you build for them and there’s no effective defense.
And, of course, there aren’t any rules for group combat because this is a game about one-on-one duels, which is really boring if you’re playing with a group of players. (The manual even notes that this is a joke game, do what you want.)
There’s also a mechanic based on quoting episodes of the (nonexistent) TV show for benefits. We didn’t try it, but that sounds like it could be hilarious.
Overall: It’s not entirely clear if this was actually intended to be played. Kinda like Hol, it’s playable, but not fantastic for anything other than parody goofiness. I had considered stripping out the Cthulhu elements to play with ARR as a Pokemon game, but it’s not worth the time.
For the record, the instruction book is a delightful read and John Kovalic (of Dork Tower fame) did the art. That said, this is a mixed bag as a game:
Your Pokemon’s attacks when you battle are limited by your character’s “Pokethulhu Lore” stat, which is in turn limited by your sanity (per standard Call of Cthulhu). Which feels like they were going for a “you need to be a better trainer to use your best moves” sort of feel, but advancement is very limited and in practice it means you need to max that particular stat if you want to win Pokemon battles.
That said, if there are penalties associated to low sanity, we didn’t encounter them. It’s really unclear what sanity is used for, actually.
There’s also a huge penalty to losing initiative, which is based on the character’s “Talking Trash” stat. Which again, feels very much like the Pokemon games, where going first in a match can determine if you win effortlessly or by the skin of your teeth. The combat system is weirdly complex but does feel like Pokemon (you can win with a knockout in one turn, you can have a long back-and-forth, there’s a switching mechanic we didn’t explore, etc.). The Dodge attack (…yeah) isn’t quite clear on how it works on anything other than an attack to cause injury; and Trap attacks seem overpowered because they pretty much always succeed if you build for them and there’s no effective defense.
And, of course, there aren’t any rules for group combat because this is a game about one-on-one duels, which is really boring if you’re playing with a group of players. (The manual even notes that this is a joke game, do what you want.)
There’s also a mechanic based on quoting episodes of the (nonexistent) TV show for benefits. We didn’t try it, but that sounds like it could be hilarious.
Overall: It’s not entirely clear if this was actually intended to be played. Kinda like Hol, it’s playable, but not fantastic for anything other than parody goofiness. I had considered stripping out the Cthulhu elements to play with ARR as a Pokemon game, but it’s not worth the time.
