Super Army of Tentacles 3: The Search for Army of Tentacles 2

I have a soft spot for the kind of game that skips a number in its own sequel count and somehow makes that part of the joke. Super Army of Tentacles 3: The Search for Army of Tentacles 2 is that exact thing: a Ren'Py-built visual novel-RPG hybrid where the apocalypse has started ahead of schedule, the Old Gods are squabbling like feuding coworkers, and your silent protagonist Perry Hollycraft has been yanked out of the Dreamlands to sort the whole mess out before some other eldritch force ends the world without proper authorization. That premise alone has more personality than a dozen polished indie pitches, and Stegalosaurus Game Development commits to the bit with a disarming sincerity. The core gameplay loop revolves around what the developers call the Argument System, a conversation-combat mechanic where you pick the best verbal comeback from a list of three options to defeat enemies and progress. The catch is that the "correct" answer requires you to genuinely sync with how the writer characterized Perry, and that alignment is not always obvious. Some battles demand you look up obscure trivia, others lean heavily on American cultural touchstones that will leave non-US players at a particular disadvantage. Perry can die in two hits in these exchanges, which makes save-scumming not just recommended but essentially mandatory. Alongside this, you manage a roster of up to fifteen party members drawn from Deep Ones, Night Gaunts, returning cast from the first game, and assorted newcomers, each with their own abilities, though reviewers have noted that a fair portion of those party skills feel underpowered in practice. Hub areas let you explore between main quest beats, and side quests pad the runtime in a way that feels generous rather than hollow, even if the game never quite resolves its ambitions as cleanly as it sets them up. Presentation is a mixed picture in the most literal sense. The character art is noticeably more consistent here than in the predecessor, with detailed backgrounds and a range of expressions for major characters that gives scenes real visual life. What the game trades away is the fully voiced cast of the original. The first Army of Tentacles had a scrappy, amateur-hour energy to its voice acting that somehow worked. Here, complete silence replaces it, and the more minimal soundtrack does not fully compensate for the absent energy. The writing itself remains the main draw: the humor is dry, self-aware, genre-literate, and occasionally very funny, though its density of Lovecraftian references can genuinely alienate players who come in cold on Cthulhu lore. The game does attempt brief mythos primers throughout, but there is a lot of ground to cover. Bugs were a real problem at launch, with some branching paths triggering Ren'Py error screens and forcing players into blind re-routing. Developer notes on the Steam page indicate patches addressed the worst of these, and the community has confirmed the critical-path bugs were fixed. Five endings are available, which is trimmed down from twelve in the planning stages, and player opinion is divided on how meaningfully distinct those endings actually are. The game knows this and admits it, which is either charming honesty or a small warning, depending on your tolerance for self-deprecating indie humor. This one is for players who already have some affection for the first Army of Tentacles and want more of its wavelength, or for curious newcomers who find Lovecraftian comedy-RPGs genuinely underserved as a category (they are). If you have zero familiarity with H.P. Lovecraft's pantheon and low patience for argument systems that reward guesswork, this will feel opaque. But for the right audience, there is a hand-crafted oddness here that no budget could replicate and no algorithm would greenlight.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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