Every once in a while, it is good to play a game so far removed from your genre of choice. It is a really good palette cleanser for me to play a strictly narrative game. I was on the fence about the game, but before I knew it, I was laughing pretty consistently when I passed by Biblical Eagle Creature and his talk about how he cleans shit now.

This week is The Holy Gosh Darn.

The Holy Gosh Darn is a narrative game from Perfectly Paranormal and Yogcast Games. The game was released in October 2023 for modern consoles and released in September 2024 for the PC. The game retails for $20. I want to thank Yogcast Games for the key!

The player controls Cassiel of Celerity, an extremely foul-mouthed angel, and their journey to stop Heaven from getting nuked by an onslaught of phantoms. These phantoms were a product of a mishap that involves Azreal, who begs you to save his ass by taking up his time-traveling necklace and saving Heaven.

The thing here is that The Holy Gosh Darn’s characters are all really enjoyable to have around, except for Azreal. Cassiel is the polar opposite of her mate Puriel. Cassiel is loud, abrasive, and takes no one’s shit, whereas Puriel is laid-back and soft-spoken.

Then comes everyone else. Azreal is literally a teenager who says “yo” all the time. He’s got that lazy, charismatic attitude that you hate to love. His character is an acquired taste, but you’ll have a lot of time to love him because he is with Cassiel the whole God damn video game.

Throughout the six-hour journey, you will meet the whole gang: God, Satan, Biblical Eagle Creature, Adam & Eve, Josh, and Peter. All genuinely funny and well-structured characters that keep the story and the game, for that matter, engaging.

We all miss Gabe, but that’s only because we want free money.

The gameplay is part walky, talky and a lot of rewinding time. The day starts at 12 pm, and you have six hours to stop the end of the world. Cassiel can talk to pretty much everyone, learning about Heaven, Hell, Earth, and even Hel. Once you talk to someone, you can skip the conversation In some of the most hilarious ways possible. If you treat people shitty the first time, then they won’t want to tell you anything. As long as you talk to them the first time, you can then be shitty later.

Cassiel can fast forward through time and rewind in fifteen-minute increments. There are time-based puzzles, some of which require you to be on time to get items and talk to specific characters. In no time, you will be zipping around time, completing a bunch of shit, and then zipping back to noon with a critical item that pushes the hilariously chaotic story forward.

The Mini-games are really fun, and the stipulations sometimes make the time-based minigames a blast.

The game looks like a mix between Saturday morning cartoons and Rick and Morty. Heaven is colorful and magnificent, while Hell is different shades of red and has DnD and coffee. I really like the look of The Holy Gosh Darn, and it’s easy to recommend.

The sound design is good. When Cassiel does the “Lord’s work,” horns blast, and women sing in chorus. All the fanfare is great, but the credits song is actually way too good.

The Holy Gosh Darn tricked me into thinking that it was a true time loop game, where the player is truly attempting to create a line in which Heaven does not explode; this is not how it goes. The “loop” is just catching the hint in the conversation and time-traveling to get that hinted moment. There are times when the strand goes through a few people, making a notebook pretty handy, but it’s never anything incredibly complicated.

It still gets me that a side quest is to tell 24 older people that they suck.

The Holy Gosh Darn is an extremely enjoyable experience. I was laughing pretty consistently throughout the four-hour playthrough. The time-traveling gameplay is fun and doesn’t ever really get frustrating. The characters are fun to talk to and be around, and the game looks great. Cannot really ask for more.

8/10