Is this narrative adventure any holy gosh darn good?
The Holy Gosh Darn is a narrative adventure with a time-travelling twist. You play the angel Cassiel, who must prevent an army of Phantoms from overrunning Heaven, which is really annoying because that’s where you live. Discovering the existence of the Holy Gosh Darn, a mysterious artefact created by God thousands of years ago, you must strap on your time- travelling watch and set about hopping between the past, present and future meeting a cast of ridiculous characters across dynamically changing locations in a bid to uncover the secret to life, universe and… well, everything.
The Holy Gosh Darn is not your typical narrative/point and click type of game. It focuses on a loop of 6 hours in which you have to save Heaven from effectively blowing up. You can fast-forward and rewind time in 15 minute segments or place a single checkpoint at a time to return to, all while trying to find out key information on how to save Heaven. You can then return to previous moments with certain info to speed through sections, as well as accessing new areas or getting more info if you have the right knowledge.
Obtaining these tidbits of info can come from hilarious moments, but you can also lose the opportunity to nab them if you keep pushing for a character to get to the point too much, they’ll lose their patience and will stop talking to you. The same applies if you are rude to them, so you’ll be rewinding a bit to find the balance…although it is priceless to see them lose their temper with you.
I’ve played a past Perfectly Paranormal game back in 2016, Manual Samuel, which is set in the same series, though I missed out on the follow-up Helheim Hassle. I have to say that this is far better than their first entry though, it’s more focused on delivering the humour while not being overly frustrating with it’s game design. You may get annoyed trying to work out the order of events for you to move forward, but the game does keep a nice journal of sorts that adds specific information to help you, once it’s acquired.
The visuals have the same art style as the past entries from the series. The framerate is solid throughout, load times are short and most importantly, the voice-acting is superb with brilliant dialogue throughout.
The Verdict
The Holy Gosh Darn may confuse some with its time-travel antics, but it’s a superb narrative adventure that will have you laughing from start to finish. It’s brilliantly written and well designed throughout. Definitely the best from Perfectly Paranormal to date.