These days we had the opportunity to play one of the more creative indie games that recently became available on consoles and PC. It is a very fun title from the Norwegian studio Perfectly Paranormal and publisher Yogscast. The studio has two other titles in a similar style, such as Hellheim Hassle and Manual Samuel.
The Holy Gosh Darn is an adventure game with puzzle and RPG elements that uses time travel as its main mechanic. Filled with humor, the game belongs to the same universe as the previously mentioned two games. This time you play as the archangel Cassiel, who, according to mythology, is characterized by speed and endurance. Cassiel just wants to lead a normal and boring life in Heaven, counting with a friend the endless dogs that end up there every day and waiting for the day when perhaps someone from Earth will come to Heaven. The character of our archangel is interpreted here in the female gender. One day, Heaven is attacked at dusk by hundreds of phantoms, which ultimately destroy it unless the ultimate defense weapon – The Holy Gosh Darn – prevents the catastrophe. The problem is that Cassiel doesn’t know exactly what this weapon is or what it looks like, and Heaven is destroyed at 6:00 PM.
Our protagonist wakes up in a white void, where she is greeted by the character of Death, Azrael. He explains to her that one of his incidents likely caused the appearance of phantoms and the destruction of Heaven. It is a group of orphans who died at a time when their time had not yet come, thus causing a paradox when they rushed into Heaven. Azrael gives her a time travel device, allowing her to travel back and forth through the day leading up to the destruction of Heaven. This gives Cassiel/player enough time to find and use The Holy Gosh Darn, which needs to prevent the death of the orphans themselves, and thus the paradox. You have only 6 hours to prevent the destruction, as Cassiel's workday started at noon, and she had been sleeping until then. Heaven is the ideal workplace to perform duties fresh and rested!
The game is visually designed in a 2D art style that somewhat resembles Flash games, and the voice acting is excellent and fits the characters in the story. Each character is uniquely visually represented, making them easy to distinguish. Additionally, each of them has a distinctive personality. Your quest and adventure will require you to travel to different locations. One part of the game takes place in Heaven, another in Hell, a third on Earth, and a fourth in the Nordic mythological Hellheim. Just like the characters, each of these worlds is visually different and often satirically depicts the everyday work life of their inhabitants. In Heaven, everything is beautiful and sunny, dogs run joyfully, and above the meadows and streets is a pyramidal throne of God, where we never see God sitting.
In Hell, we see the unfortunate souls of people standing in line to enter. The surroundings are dominated by red tones (who would have thought). Considering that there are t-shirt shops and souvenir stores, cafes, and a casino, this place doesn't seem so bad. Hellheim is portrayed in a modern guise of Norse mythology where there is even a comedy house for dragons.
The land is depicted as we usually perceive it, but with a sci-fi element, where at one of the main locations there is a company that produces glasses that allow you to see paranormal and incomprehensible phenomena (don't worry, you'll have the chance to try them out). It is worth noting that the game's action takes place in 2016, which is also the time when the story of Manual Samuel unfolds.
As you explore the story, Cassiel and Azrael are the only characters aware that Heaven will be destroyed that day. As you progress through the game, you have the opportunity to upgrade your character's abilities and time travel. The game requires a lot of thinking, as some items and dialogues become available after a certain amount of time has passed in the game, so it's up to you to figure out when things happen. When you travel through time, you also return to the location where you were at that time. You can shift time in 15-minute intervals. If you want to return to a specific moment using the time travel, you can set a checkpoint. One more thing to keep in mind - if you picked up an item at 2:00 PM and rewind time to 1:00 PM, you will lose that item. When you later upgrade the time travel, you have the option to carry one item with you through time.
[modula id="1974"]The Holy Gosh Darn has simple controls – you can control the character with a gamepad or keyboard. I tested the game on a keyboard, so the basic movement was on the WASD keys, sprint on shift, jumping on space, R for skipping dialogues, interaction with items on F, and a special move on ctrl. In certain situations, this can complicate things, especially when you need to quickly grab an item and do something with it, and you can't move your hand with the mouse, only with the keyboard. Because of this, I experienced failure a couple of times and had to rewind time and try again. In short, the controls on the keyboard can sometimes be clumsy and sluggish in situations where you are time-limited to do something. Luckily, you have a mini time travel at your disposal.
The Holy Gosh Darn is an indie game that impressed and pleasantly surprised me. The humor and characters are hilariously good and memorable, as is the richly colored art style. The game mechanics are very well developed and thought out, and it shows that this is not the first game from the Perfectly Paranormal studio. This is a game where the ultimate goal is not to finish it, but to experience the journey through dialogues with a rich gallery of characters available. Definitely one of the works worth our time. The Holy Gosh Darn is available for PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox X/S series consoles.
A copy of the game for review purposes was provided by the publisher Yogscast Games.
