It's a short game, but The Procession to Calvary is one of the most stylistically unique games in the point and click adventure genre. It has just as many complex and convoluted puzzles as its other point and click peers, for better or for worse, but they're all done with a visual flair and tinge of absurdist humor that you'd struggle to compare with any other game out there.
The console port is quite lazy. Instead of adapting the gameplay to allow controller-bound players to cycle through interactable elements and control the protagonist with the, y'know, control stick, the game instead binds a cursor to the control stick and calls it a day. It's an annoyance that doesn't leave you until the game is finished. There's even a meta joke in-game that references Steam, which more than loses its impact when playing on an Xbox. If you have the choice, play this on PC.
The walking speed is also frustratingly slow. Perhaps it was to allow players to soak in the visual detail in the environments better, but for how many times you have to backtrack through the same fields and courtyards, it could add an extra hour to your playtime as you desperately try to deduce where you're headed next. It starts to feel like the game is actively punishing you for not knowing exactly where to go. Combine this with the aforementioned convolution and you'll find that the best way to experience The Procession to Calvary is with a walkthrough.
That being said, allowing a walkthrough to remove those hurdles in turn allows you to appreciate the game's art and animation even better. You can simply indulge in the music and humor without getting numb to it through repetition. Stopping to appreciate that the naked man on a spit is actually 3 or 4 different paintings animated together is one of the best things about the game, reminding you how laborious it must have been for the dev to actually put such a unique renaissance fever dream together. There's even a gallery room you can access that showcases many of the original paintings that were used to craft the game's interactive collages.
The Procession to Calvary is a reminder that Amanita Design aren't the only ones putting a particularly creative visual spin on point and click games. If I have to spend an obnoxiously long time going through the same screens again and again, then at least I can pretend like I've been perusing museum galleries in Florence for the last few hours.
The console port is quite lazy. Instead of adapting the gameplay to allow controller-bound players to cycle through interactable elements and control the protagonist with the, y'know, control stick, the game instead binds a cursor to the control stick and calls it a day. It's an annoyance that doesn't leave you until the game is finished. There's even a meta joke in-game that references Steam, which more than loses its impact when playing on an Xbox. If you have the choice, play this on PC.
The walking speed is also frustratingly slow. Perhaps it was to allow players to soak in the visual detail in the environments better, but for how many times you have to backtrack through the same fields and courtyards, it could add an extra hour to your playtime as you desperately try to deduce where you're headed next. It starts to feel like the game is actively punishing you for not knowing exactly where to go. Combine this with the aforementioned convolution and you'll find that the best way to experience The Procession to Calvary is with a walkthrough.
That being said, allowing a walkthrough to remove those hurdles in turn allows you to appreciate the game's art and animation even better. You can simply indulge in the music and humor without getting numb to it through repetition. Stopping to appreciate that the naked man on a spit is actually 3 or 4 different paintings animated together is one of the best things about the game, reminding you how laborious it must have been for the dev to actually put such a unique renaissance fever dream together. There's even a gallery room you can access that showcases many of the original paintings that were used to craft the game's interactive collages.
The Procession to Calvary is a reminder that Amanita Design aren't the only ones putting a particularly creative visual spin on point and click games. If I have to spend an obnoxiously long time going through the same screens again and again, then at least I can pretend like I've been perusing museum galleries in Florence for the last few hours.