Thank Goodness You're Here! Review (Switch eShop)

You don’t know who you are, you don’t know fully why you’re going where you’re going, and everyone around you just assumes you’re the solution to all their problems. You could argue that this idea describes an unusually vast number of games, but Thank Goodness You’re Here! takes that notion to its logical conclusion.

You play as (as far as we were able to tell) an entirely unnamed yellow man, whose most distinguishing feature is that his size changes in reaction to the situation, almost always diminishing. You’re shown a series of ads from the fictitious Yorkshire town of Barnsworth by your presumed employer and sent off to speak to its mayor. Why? Well, it’s not your place to ask, lad. Nowt to do but ge’ tumblin’ ah’ window soon as game should allow.

If that last sentence meant little to you, then strap in and turn on the subtitles, because this game does not hold back when it comes to its inspiration. Each and every character speaks with an expectedly Yorkshire dialect and accent, and you can even change the in-game language to the aptly named ‘Dialect’, which sees what little UI there is displayed phonetically, as though Sean Bean himself had spoken it. A lovely touch for anyone fond of such things.

This option is presented to you as soon as you boot the game, and appropriately in Tyke, which sets you up for what is likely to be the densest and most concentrated comedic experience you’ve had in years. Thank Goodness You’re Here! is absolutely bursting with clever (and less clever) humour, and should you keep an eye out for it, you’ll likely not go 30 seconds without having a private chuckle as you swing past the local shop (Price Shaggers) to delve into what we can only assume is the concept of meat, or force a man’s food van to shut up shop ‘due to smacky bum-bum’.

It’s safe to say that if your sense of humour isn’t keyed into what’s on offer here, you should probably give this one a miss (and reconsider your priorities in life), because it’s inescapable. We loved every single second of it. This is enhanced doubly when your only actions beyond walking are jumping and (sort of) hitting. It’s unclear if it’s a slap or a punch, so we’ll just call it a whack.

And you’ll be whacking everything you come across, we guarantee it. You’d be forgiven for whacking every object just for the sake of it, we know we did. Yes, we’ve been through this alley twice before, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to whack each and every box and bottle that's strewn about, just because it feels good to do so.

This method of interactions puts us in mind of old point-and-click adventures, in the sense that almost every object can be interacted with in some small way, even if it’s entirely pointless. Whack three nearby bin bags in quick succession and you’ll have rats serenading you before disappearing forever. Whack a resident to hear them complain about their husband. Whack a pay-and-display ticket machine just because they never have signal to accept card payments. It’s all valid.

It’d be enough as well, but things are elevated further by the exceptional presentation. You only have to look at a screenshot or two to see just how gorgeous this game is, and it does not let up for a moment. Every frame truly is a painting, even if it’s a painting of a not-so-flattering look at British living. And you'll get plenty of opportunities to see it all as you're taken on circuits throughout the town in various directions to complete such tasks as tidying up the local store (Price Shaggers), which, logically, means destroying half the stock, leaving it scattered all over the shop (Price Shaggers).

It does so fairly elegantly as well, and whilst it might be possible to take a wrong turn at some point, we never once managed it in our entire playthough, so carefully guided by previous routes being blocked by workmen or someone desperately not trying to stall their instructor’s car on what is hopefully their first driving test. That latter especially was just plain delightful to see each time, such a mainstay of smaller British streets captured perfectly, and with purpose.

A game so reliant on humour and keeping your attention can run thin fairly quickly, though. Luckily the developer, Coal Supper, saw fit to keep the game’s entire runtime down to only a couple of hours, depending on how you play. On the one hand, we wanted more; more humour, more puzzles, more smacky bum-bum, but on the other we were almost entirely satisfied with what we’d experienced. It’s a flash in the pan, but blimey, what a flash.

Performance on Switch is also largely good. Everything bar a handful of cutscenes made up of stock footage (no, you’re not getting any more context in this review) runs at 60fps, although larger spaces do tend to cause some stuttering, dropping frames here and there. It’s by no means game-breaking, but it is a minor blemish considering how refined and thought-out the rest of the proceedings are.