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0 Rounding out the Tuesday Trilogy from developer Perfectly Paranormal is The Holy Gosh Darn. This time-travelling, puzzle adventure game about saving Heaven from destruction joins previous trilogy titles Manual Samuel and Helheim Hassle. Though there are references to the other games, there’s no hard requirement to have had to play them before this, so feel free to jump in here and then go back to enjoy the others.
I have previously reviewed Helheim Hassle here at Thumb Culture so if you’re interested in playing that, you can bookmark that article here for later reading.
Tuesday After Next
We join the main character Cassiel of Celerity on Tuesday afternoon in Heaven. After a few conversations and a quick game of Guess That Dog with her friend Puriel, all Hell breaks loose. Oh faeces! A bunch of Phantoms arrive at Peter’s Gate, causing a paradox that leads to the destruction of Heaven. Cassiel meets Death in The Void who tells her that everything is his fault, but she will need to fix it. Death lends Cassiel his trusty Time-Space-Logic piece (or is that Logic-Time-Space piece?) so she can travel in time and hopefully rectify this whole mess.
Gameplay
The central mechanic in The Holy Gosh Darn is Cassiel’s ability to travel backwards and forwards in time. At first, this can be achieved at 15-minute intervals meaning if it’s after 12:15 you can go backwards to 12:00 or 12:15, or forwards to 12:30, 12:45, 13:00, etc. You also have the option to set a single checkpoint at any time you’d like. This allows you to travel back to a very specific point. Mainly this proves useful for the start of conversations or before making a choice you might want to change. As the story progresses you can upgrade the clock in various ways like refining the travel intervals to 5 minutes or adding a second checkpoint.
I enjoyed this gameplay loop a lot a found it to be intuitive and engaging. The puzzles designed around this premise are inventive and plentiful. I found myself making notes during my playthrough to remember the locations and times of certain things. I recommend you do the same as there’s lots of back-and-forth and quite a few optional interactions to keep track of. Not only will you be jumping between different times, but also locations including Hell, Helheim and Earth. Solving puzzles will require you to overcome obstacles based on events happening at a certain time/place or there being a limited time to achieve a goal.
One of my favourite puzzles is a tabletop game in the coffee/arcade club in Hell. I went through the scenario a few times before I somewhat stumbled onto the solution. It was a moment that made me feel silly for not realising it earlier, but also made me appreciate the humour and brilliance of the writers. This sums up my experience of The Holy Gosh Darn succinctly.
A Little Bit Of Point And Click
Another element of the puzzles comes in the form of items. Cassiel will find useful stuff as she travels through the various locales and some of these will provide vital solutions to her problems. At first, you’ll only be able to keep an item for the time after you’ve picked it up. If you travel back in time to before the item was collected, it will be removed from your inventory. Eventually, you’ll unlock the ability to time-travel with an item or two. This new power opens up a couple of opportunities for cunning ways to be more resourceful with less. The Holy Gosh Darn also hilariously includes what could be the latest tutorial of any game, ever.
Disrespecting Your Elders Has Rarely Been More Fun
Cassiel is on a tight schedule, but people love to talk too much. Sometimes, you’ll need to abruptly end a conversation or forcefully steer it in the correct direction. Be careful though, as some characters won’t take too kindly to your rude behaviour and will refuse to talk to you again. You can of course go back to before you upset them, but that might cost you some progress. There’s also a side-quest where you have to find all the relatives of Elder 7, who are also numbered Elders, and insult them for him. Harsh as it is to say, I loved their disappointed sighs every time I found one and told them they sucked.
Along the way to saving Heaven, Cassiel will encounter many colourful characters. As always with this series of games, the interactions are a main source of joy. Characters from earlier games show up throughout the adventure including previous protagonists Samuel and Bjorn. As mentioned earlier, no prior knowledge of Perfectly Paranormal‘s other games is required. Instead, these are simply fun callbacks for fans of the series.
Graphics & Audio
There’s a signature look to the Tuesday trilogy art and animation. It has great individuality and fits the tone the games aim for perfectly. The Holy Gosh Darn continues this trend.
A stand-out element of the game is the voice acting. There’s so much personality injected into the characters through their voices and vocal mannerisms. I also appreciated the changes to conversations based on how many times they’ve been witnessed, and Cassiel’s rushed annoyance at having to engage with characters again and again. Having different vocal takes for some conversation snippets helps a lot to avoid things feeling repetitive.
From the very start of the game you’ll encounter lots of dogs, after all, all dogs go to heaven. Lots of these dog designs are based on the pets of Perfectly Paranormal Discord members’ pets. This is a charming touch from the developers and a cool way to include fans in the game.
One possible area that may need a tweak for accessibility is a puzzle that relies on using colours to determine the solution. Not being colour-blind myself means I’m not sure if this is an issue, but if it is, a unique pattern on each puzzle element would help alleviate it.
Longevity
I spent 10 hours on my playthrough of The Holy Gosh Darn and feel that was a good amount of time for the game. I believe I saw a majority of the content, but I missed some things and I didn’t manage to find all the Elders. There’s an option for New Game Plus in the menu so I can see myself coming back to see what’s different and what carries over on a second playthrough.
Looking at the achievements, there’s one for completing the game only rewinding 13 times. Curious as to how many rewinds I’d used, I loaded up my save file, thinking maybe I’d not be a million miles away from that number. I was wrong. I rewound 165 times! This one is going to take some thorough planning and execution to achieve.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, The Holy Gosh Darn is a great addition to the Tuesday trilogy. If you’ve played the previous games you’re going to be content with this when you pick it up. For newcomers, nothing is stopping you from jumping in here and then moving on to the other titles. If the trailer below entices you to check out the game, you can expect more of the same absurdity and comedy throughout.
I applaud the twists and turns of the story which kept me on my toes. There’s a clever re-use of locations as the story progresses which rewards a keen eye and good memory. The humour was also consistently good, managing to be entertaining even when the game is trying to frustrate you by delaying you in extended conversations and scenarios.
I’ve been going back and forth on what award to give this. If you’re a fan of the previous games, this is an essential buy. If you’re new, and the trailer appeals, I’d say you should absolutely give it a go.
Ultimately I’m going to hand The Holy Gosh Darn a Thumb Culture Platinum Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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