The Unholy Society

Recently we played Cat-astrophe Games' The Unholy Society, an eye-catching 2D adventure game with a gorgeous 80s/90s aesthetic. You play as Bonaventura Horowitz - BonBon - a priest/exorcist with the Pope on speed dial, who is the only one that can stop what evil is about to spring forth and wreak complete and utter havoc on the world.

Filled with lots of mystery, you’ll be clamouring to uncover the truth as you progress through the story’s twists and turns. Inspired by comic books such as Constantine or Preacher, you have this total bad boy attitude with plenty of sarcasm to boot, as you progress through an increasingly zany world. There’s not a whole lot of groundbreaking stuff here, as it’s mostly the typical adventure-style tropes, but it works.

Right off the bat, I loved the vibes this game was giving me. The creepy feeling and imperfectly perfect art style just ticked all the right boxes for me. The writing style of this game further adds to the whole aesthetic with witty and sarcastic humour sprinkled throughout. Dialogue options allow you to choose just how much of a d*ck you want BonBon to be to others, and seeing their reactions is oftentimes hilarious. Ultimately, the story has a certain path to follow, you're just adding a little flavour along the way.

Using a turn-based combat system with a twist, you’ll have to race against the clock to find hidden runes around the screen in order to attack. It’s a bit challenging at times, as enemies deal a heck of a lot of damage compared to you - and it’s very easy to mess up your chance.

There’s more to The Unholy Society than we see here, which is clear from all the nods towards future events for another time, so who knows where the story will lead next. There’s not really anything to get you to give the game multiple playthroughs, but I’d love to see the events pan out further. As it stands right now, it’s only around an hour long, and at £9.00 on the Switch eShop, that’s quite expensive - it was originally supposed to be the first chapter in a multi-part story, so further elements should be added down the line, and this will really help to add value to that price point (as long as they are free!). Overall, I enjoyed my time with The Unholy Society, and hope to see more from Cat-astrophe Games in the future.

In the end, we decided to give The Unholy Society the Collecting Asylum rating of 6/10.

Have you played The Unholy Society yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!

- V x

Thank you to Cat-astrophe Games for The Unholy Society Nintendo Switch review code!