The Procession to Calvary (Xbox Series X)
The heroine of The Procession to Calvary is exceptionally good at one thing: killing. Luckily for her, her talent was needed during a Holy War, but the worst thing for someone with her kind of skill and passion in the violent arts happened… peace time. Told she can no longer cavort around the countryside carving people apart on her crusade, she finds solace that there is still one person left she is allowed to kill, the still living leader of the opposition, Heavenly Peter. With renewed vigor, she sets off into her world crafted from Renaissance paintings eager to put her sword to good use, but getting to her single approved target will require much more work than she’s used to.
The Procession to Calvary is structured like a point and click adventure, the backbone of the experience being the interactions you have with characters and items and how you use knowledge and items to acquire what you want and gain access to new locations. The lady knight you play as is willing to put up with these obstacles in her path with the juicy regicide waiting at the end to entice her to keep figuring out such puzzles, but if the player does start to get a bit antsy about an item being tantalizingly close but requiring some string of proper actions to acquire, you can just whip out your sword and start killing people. Despite the protagonist’s love for violence, she does seem to recognize it’s not the best fit for normal societal interactions and has some lines she won’t cross, refusing to kill quite a large amount of the people you encounter because they’re harmless, friendly, or not worth the trouble, but if you do push on through even after she warns that killing unapproved targets might go awry, you can get the item you so coveted but with the price of societal rejection. There is a path forward even if you do brandish your sword, but it is quite a different one from the more substantial and amusing story you’d otherwise experience if you just play along and do all the puzzles properly.
The Procession to Calvary doesn’t quite seem to be our world even though it is constructed in its totality from art from the Renaissance period. This setting’s Holy War is not a specific crusade, and the game decides to recontextualize some recognizable faces as new characters. The abundant amount of art of Jesus Christ from that time period is used to make a street magician character whose miracles are simply tricks he’s using to achieve fame, everyone in this seemingly proper medieval world actually a bit askew and unusual once you start speaking with them. Dark comedy is abundant as the sometimes macabre art of the time is viewed through a less reverent lens, and the characters you encounter are rather casual about some of the strange imagery that came into their world due to this art direction. Rather than respecting some sort of specific metaphor found in the imagery, when you come across something that would otherwise demand closer consideration to find its artistic meaning, the text refers to it bluntly or as something you and other characters are meant to be perturbed by. Be it a holy man seemingly emerging from a wall or a pair of naked men fighting by the river for no clear reason, there are plenty of sights that made for rich detail-filled works of art that now are being lightly jabbed for how strange they seem with the context shifted to something more comedic.
The type of humor present definitely leans into its silliness and absurdity, even the playable heroine whose name is never given running to places with a goofy gait. There are plenty of unexpected scenarios that subvert your expectations for comedy or are subversive in their subject matter, moments of good wordplay and strange characters making interactions with the people often in the path of your progress amusing enough that you don’t begrudge their presence. Some jokes do feel a bit strained, a hill with a bunch of crucified people howling an odd break from the usual somber depiction of the execution method, but you’ll often be retreading ground to solve puzzles and returning to that mountain of shrieking people does get a little tiresome. A nicer touch that isn’t really tied to the humor though is that each area, no matter where it might be, has its background music provided diegetically. Musicians brandishing a wide range of instruments will always be found somewhere in the current landscape playing the classical music you’re hearing, and while even the game sometimes mutters about the difficulty of turning specific real world paintings into navigable video game spaces, this touch was an extra mile that wasn’t required but adds a lovely through line as it’s neat to look around for where in a new space those musicians might be practicing their art.
When it comes to the puzzle solving, The Procession to Calvary can rope in its humor quite well. You might approach an anguished man in need of medical attention to offer your aid, the rich art making it truly look like this man is suffering immensely… only to learn the source of his woe is that his unkempt hair keeps pricking his eyes. Things that can at first seem like some detail present for the game to crack jokes about can turn into an unexpected source of a useful item once you know a problem that needs solving, and while some puzzles more explicitly tell you exactly what they require for solving, the process of getting them becomes the test itself. Some very clever ones can involve ideas like the room full of paintings that just so happen to feature most of the art used across the game (albeit with unusual summaries when you hover your cursor over them) but others can feel like they expect some odd connections to be made. Those at least usually involve objects or situations that you know are important and just need to find out how, so for the most part the problem solving is a good comrade to the comedy and the items you pick up to use elsewhere can sometimes be funny to even consider having as part of a point and click game’s inventory.
The Procession to Calvary is rather short as long as you don’t get stumped, its art style perhaps limiting the adventure to a scant few hours due to the work needed to excise, animate, and integrate the characters from paintings into other paintings, but your activities do progress at a good rate so you’re exposed to new jokes and odd situations fairly regularly even though much of the game does use a set of interconnected areas for a hub you’ll be retreading often. The bizarre sights don’t grow stale and some changes do occur to add some fresh content to those well-trodden spaces, but it’s hard not to be hungry with the tantalizing thought of the game going on longer and getting to be even more creative and kooky with paintings it could parody.
THE VERDICT: The Procession to Calvary brings Renaissance paintings to life and promptly twists them into wonderfully goofy directions. Irreverent and well-written to elicit actual laughs with writing that works even when it’s not going for its usual bread and butter of acknowledging how absurd old art can look from a modern perspective, this point and click adventure is wonderfully amusing even when it is at its most macabre. The puzzles in your path can be quite creative but do sometimes stray into less logical territory, but it does a good job at constructing problems that are delightful in concept and how you solve them while still slipping in some that are proper challenges instead of excuses for a bit more silliness.
And so, I give The Procession to Calvary for Xbox Series X…
A GOOD rating. The Procession to Calvary is a one-two punch of its impressive work with the animated art and how the magnificently painted scenes can be turned into a wonderful source of bizarre comedy. It doesn’t get so lost in its joke-telling that it forgets to make puzzles that require some thought though, and if some of its odder leaps in logic were reined in some, this brisk quest to murder Heavenly Peter would flow beautifully from one humorous situation to the next. Admittedly, what might be an imaginative puzzle concept to some could be a roadblock to others it doesn’t click with and only one puzzle involving a skunk feels a bit out of place for requiring a whole new mechanic not featured elsewhere, but the game’s delightful goofiness means it’s hard to stay upset during those few fumbles. The process of creating the game’s world seems quite laborious for a one man team and its willingness to give a wink and a nudge at times smooths over some elements that could have been prodded at otherwise, but mostly it’s just a whimsical little murder quest that makes for an amusing and quick playthrough but one that you wish could have gone on much longer. The puzzles are a good impediment to progress without feeling unjustified or like some break away from the nonsense that contrasts so well with the artistry, so The Procession to Calvary feels like a case where it has just done its concept well rather than having some clear issues to dig into.
The Procession to Calvary is a sequel to Joe Richardson’s game Four Last Things and can stand on its own without the context of its predecessor, but it does mean you can get another taste of this delightful artistic concept and hilarious writing style by playing them both. It’s not quite a full length adventure through that method, but it could curb some cravings for more content that is both fascinating in execution and funny to read. Comedy can wear thin when it’s too abundant or drawn out though and The Procession to Calvary mostly avoids that, so it might be best to drink in this unusual cocktail of Renaissance Art and modernist humor and let it ask its delightful questions rather than asking why you couldn’t have more of it.