Thank you R.L. Roberts for providing us with a review copy!

Kingdom's Calling: The Final Gospel is a game that surprised me. This was definitely a case of "don't judge a book by its cover", and that phrase ended up applying more accurately by the end of my time with it than I foresaw. Even the title begs you to ask questions. Like, what is the "final gospel"? Maybe it's the good news that it's time to take on Satan's army in the battle of Armageddon with the full might of the Lord of hosts.

From the moment you boot it up, you're met with this arcade-style music that seems very upbeat for what the intro screen makes look like will be a standard Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) experience. Nope. Kingdom's Calling: The Final Gospel is a action roguelike that is similar in playstyle to the game Vampire Survivors, where your job is to last a certain amount of time against endless waves of enemies. The controls are dead simple: move with left stick and aim with right stick. As long as you're aiming, your character will auto-attack in that direction. You also have a "Faith" meter (essentially a mana bar) that allows you to unleash one of three increasingly-powerful Area of Effect (AoE) explosions depending on how full your meter is. You unleash these three attacks with X, Y, and B (on an Xbox-style controller).

Who is your character? You actually get to pick two: your "primary hero" (the one you directly control) and your "helper" (who follows close by and automatically attacks as they see fit). The roster includes such Biblical titans as Adam and Eve, Moses, Joshua, David, and Elijah. You start with just Adam and Eve and only a single level available. As you complete each level, you unlock a new character and a new level. Each character has different stats and attacks. For example, Adam has a medium-range attack which he performs with a spear, while Elijah has a much shorter-ranged staff for attacking. For helpers, David has a slingshot, while Moses calls down hail from heaven.

There are multiple interesting things going on during each level. First off, as you defeat enemies, you gain experience and level up. The game gives you four options of what to level up with each level out of a list of about 10 different stats. These include things like attack power, attack speed, defense, and experience gain. Levels cap at 10, with special bonuses unlocked at levels 5 and 10. In theme, these upgrades are labelled like they're artifacts of Biblical significance, like a piece of the Ark of the Covenant or Gideon's Horn. As long as either of your character's weapons can be levelled up, they will always be the first two options in the level up screen. You can also use 1/3 of your Faith bar to gain "Divine Revelation" during a level up, allowing you to choose any available stat boost, not just the ones chosen at random.

The second thing going on in each level is the bosses. At the 3 minute and 10 minute marks, a boss will appear. They have increased attack range and power as well as a small battery of special moves, such as charging at you or shooting balls of energy. You officially win the stage when this second boss is defeated.

The final thing is that there are crosses scattered across each battlefield. Should you come across one, the game will temporarily pause while a popup asks a Bible trivia question with 4 multiple choice answers. Should you answer the question correctly, you will be "blessed" and gain a buff. I do not know what these buffs do, but they show up under your EXP meter.

Between levels, you can apply permanent buffs to each of your characters using points gained during battle. However, these stat changes only apply to the specific character you apply them to.

Graphically, this game leaves a bit to be desired. On the one hand, everything is rendered in interesting pixel art, including the portraits of all of the heroes. On the other, the animations in game are very barebones. Every on screen character has roughly 2 frames of animation, and the attacks are very basic as well. I don't mind this for the attacks so much, but it does leave the game looking more like a college project than a full-fledged game.

What does not leave anything to be desired is the music. The arcade-style, chiptunes-esque music goes way harder than a game of this seeming simplicity has any right to. It's not so good that I'd download the soundtrack, but each time I loaded up a level and the music started, it felt like it was really trying to pump you up for a fight of just 2 of God's finest against an entire regiment of Satan's grunts. The sound effects are more in line with the graphics, and there is little in the way of equalization. If you have headphones on and have the music at an acceptable level, expect to have your ears blown out if you use any AoE attacks.

Morally, everything I've said is basically what you'll encounter. You'll see lots of skeletons, demons, fallen angels, the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, just about any occult evil caricature you can think of, rendered in low-res pixel art and on the wrong end of your walking stick. There is no blood, and enemies simply disappear when they die. There is a female centaur-like creature who wears a loincloth and similar top, and Eve herself is also in a grass top and bottom, both with visible midriffs.

Now I mentioned that Kingdom's Calling: The Final Gospel repeatedly surprised me, and it did. The music went way harder than it had any right to, the gameplay was simple yet fun (if a little easy), and I was always amused at which Biblical characters were unlocked and their over-the-top warrior descriptions. Each level, unlocking a new character: Joshua, Samson, Abraham, Alex...wait, who? Alex appears in game as a young man with jeans, a black t-shirt, and a flaming sword. I definitely don't remember THAT in my Bible. I must be reading the wrong version. Looking at his in-game description, it turns out that he's a character from a book. A book titled "Kingdom's Calling". A book written by the developer of this game.  Whether by himself or with some help, the same person authored a book, released it on Amazon, and then made a twin-stick action roguelike tie-in and released it less than 6 months later. I've not read the book, but I just can't help but be impressed by whole thing.

At the end of the day, Kingdom's Calling: The Final Gospel on its face is a pretty simple game. It isn't a must play, but I respect the time and effort that not only went into making this, but in developing it as part of a larger body of work and doing so for a uniquely Christian audience. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a smile on for the vast majority of the time I played it, just for the sheer craziness of it all. The music goes hard, and this game leans full into it's vision of epic Bible-character fantasy battles with zero tongue in cheek. The final battle especially gave me a good laugh, but I won't spoil it here. The game is only $4.99 on Steam if you want to check it out.

- maestro_dana