I’m more of a modern art appreciator. People being good at, like, depicting nature and stuff is cool and all, but it’s the weird stuff that speaks to my soul. I’m sorry if you thought I was sophisticated and that shatters the illusion.

So, someone hacking up some renaissance paintings and gluing them back together like a ransom note is boffo to me. That’s kind of what Four Last Things is. It’s like if Terry Gilliam from Monty Python was a game developer instead of an old dick.

It maybe also makes fun of Christianity. Or Catholicism. It might do that from an insider’s perspective. I don’t know. I’m agnostic. Or maybe just a skeptic. I don’t want to think about it too hard, I’d rather just enjoy sinning, which is what we’re all here for.

SINFUL

Four Last Things is a point-and-click adventure about a dude who is overcome with religious panic. Worshipping a dude who is constantly judging you can do that. He decides he needs to confess his sins and ask for forgiveness, because he’s done a lot of sinning. However, the bureaucracy at the church says that he sinned outside their jurisdiction, so if he wants forgiveness at that particular church, he’s going to have to do all those sins again.

I didn’t have much trouble with this game, because I know a thing or two about sinning, ladies. It’s the Seven Deadly Sins we’re talking about, not the jillion other ones that are in the lore. It’s easy-peasy. Unfortunately, you can’t just stab somebody, eat their flesh, sit down, and masturbate to a picture of yourself while wishing you were the one who had been murdered by a cannibalistic pervert. Hold on, I think I’m missing one…

Wrath, gluttony, sloth, lust, pride, envy… I’m missing greed. But in my case, I can count keeping me all to myself as being greedy, ladies.

Instead, you have to do some Monkey Island mental gymnastics to get in your daily recommended intake of sin. Thankfully, most of it is pretty juicy sin, so it’s worthwhile.

SIN A TO SIN B

I’ve already mentioned the twist to this: the art is all collaged together from various classical paintings. Paintings that were often already weird to begin with, but are made weirder in this new context. Sometimes, it’s worth it just to see the bizarre images get deconstructed, revealing even weirder details. It’s good stuff, and it’s cut together in a way that is intriguingly legible from a gameplay perspective. Not perfect, since there were instances where I missed something important in all the detail, but it’s impressive I was even able to get from sin A to sin B.

It’s also impressive that I didn’t need to use any sort of guide and was still done in an hour-and-a-half. Like I said: I’m real good at sinning. But the puzzles were just cryptic enough that I felt really smart for figuring them out without getting stuck.

Actually, I did get stuck once, but I’m fairly sure it was a glitch. My dude just stopped moving in one particular scene, and nothing I did got him unstuck. Eventually, I closed the game down, and when I opened it back up, everything was right in the world again.

I’m not calling the game glitchy or anything, but I couldn’t force it to go full screen regardless of what I did. There were no graphical options, so I just had to make do, even though the window wouldn’t lock my cursor, so I kept clicking out of the window and my desktop would change resolutions, and I’d have to click back into it. That’s why one of these screenshots are in a different resolution. This one was Joe Richardson’s second game (I think), and I don’t believe “game designer” is his primary vocation. Or was, because I think it might be his primary vocation now.

My point is that it wasn’t so uncomfortably glitchy that it ruined my experience. Just added, uh, “character.”

ARE WE NOT WRETCHED?

Not that it needed any additional character. The dialogue is packed with fun observations and clever wordplay. It really focuses on “are we not wretched?” humour, which is among my favourite kinds. I can’t say I laughed out loud at any point, but I had my headphones on, so I kept it all in my head. Is anyone else like that?

I was laughing in my brain, though. There’s a great deal of deft misdirection, and some of the puzzles twist in satisfying ways. It’s great. Highly enjoyable.

And that’s it. At an hour-and-a-half (in my sinful experience), Four Last Things hits hard and dances off over the horizon. It pokes fun at dead artists, the Catholic Church, and God. Plus, you get to sin, which is always a pleasure. It’s a great way to pass the time until your final judgment. Amen.

7/10

This review was conducted using a digital Steam version of the game. It was paid for by the author.