Zeboyd Games has produced some of the most unique and engaging indie RPGs, such as Cthulhu Saves The World, Cthulhu Saves Christmas, Breath of Death VII and Cosmic Star Heroine. These games have established Zeboyd as an excellent developer of RPGs with relaxed pacing and light-hearted tones that play with the usual RPG concepts. And this brings us to This Way Madness Lies, an RPG that mixes Shakespeare, Lovecraft, and the magical girl genre in a truly unique way.
The game’s premise sees you play as a group of theatre students able to transform into magical girls and travel to worlds based on the works of Shakespeare. The premise alone has enough to hook you, but there is more. These worlds are under attack by an eldritch force known as Nightmare, and our heroines must stop the evil before their home is threatened.
As you might expect, This Way Madness Lies is a game that does not take itself seriously and when not undertaking their heroics, our protagonists will go ice-skating, put on various plays for their community, and get into various hijinks. The game really does feel like a cross between Zeboy’s earlier titles and an anime series, especially with the episodic nature of the game which is separated into acts. In one act, the heroines will try and save the romance of Romeo and Juliet, but in this instance, they are trying to save them from invading monsters.
Given its nature, this is an RPG for fans of Shakespeare’s work and some amazing tributes are here. Among them is the Ye Olde English to New English translator feature, which translated the Shakespearian dialogue into more modern lingo at the touch of a button and produces some funny interactions. There is also a trivia section between dungeons, but there is not really a benefit to it in-game, it is just there for fun. Besides these Shakespeare shoutouts though, there is also a neat feature reminiscent of Dragon Quest’s Party Talk feature, where the girls will talk about their situations and offer up insight and have some clever writing within.
In terms of gameplay, This Way Madness Lies is very similar to previous Zeboyd RPGs, but there are some neat innovations. You will have a party of four magical girls at any time, albeit there are instances where you need to have a specific combination, and combat has a neat twist here. The game emphasizes status ailments and elemental weaknesses but will also have enemies build up a resistance to these attacks, requiring you to attack a separate HP for ailments just to make them vulnerable again, which opens up the gameplay to ideas of how to play.
The rest of the combat should be very familiar to those who play Zeboyd RPGs, with skills being the main method of attack and needing to recharge after a single use. This was present in Cosmic Star Heroine as well and functions mostly the same here. What is a bit different is Hyper Mode, where the girls’ skills will change and take on new attacks and will boost your unite attack effectiveness more than was possible in previous games.
As for presentation, Zeboyd Games projects are always well down visually. The pixel art style is excellently handled here and there is no slowdown or stutter. The music is also top-notch and is probably the best of any Zeboyd Games RPG yet, and really gets you pumped for adventure.
Bottom line, if you like RPGs, magical girl anime, the work of William Shakespeare, or any combination of the above, then you need to play this game. It truly manages to do something incredible and create a blend that should not work otherwise. Zeboyd Games has another hit here and their streak of excellence remains unbroken
Disclaimer: A review key was provided