And Stuffimus Maximus makes it's way to it's second review, which will be...
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron!
(Wow! That's a mouthful...)
El Shaddai is a multiplatform (PS3, 360) Action/Adventure game developed by UTV Ignition Entertainment, headed by spectacular game director Sawaki Takeyasu (Devil May Cry) as well as Masato Kimura (Okami, Viewtiful Joe). With that kind of line up, I'm expecting an unforgettable experience, as Devil May Cry is one of my favorite action game series' of all time, and I hold Okami as out and out one of the greatest games ever created.
Let's see how it measured up. On to the review!
First Impressions
Having experienced the demo first, I was already excited to give El Shaddai a whirl. The game seems positively beautiful from an artistic standpoint, and the combat was nice and fluid in the demo, if a tad simple. When the game begins, prior to pressing start, you're treated to a small cutscene that gives you an idea of the game's quirky nature via a swift character introduction, followed by a beautiful presentation of the title of the game. Upon actually starting the game, you're given a brief idea of the story, then thrown straight into your first fight, no instruction or anything of the sort. It was a bit off-putting, but the entire presentation was done in such an interesting fashion that I definitely wanted more.
(9.0/10: While different, the game struck with it's art style, fluid movement, and wonderful sound. It promised a rather beautiful and deep experience.)
Overall Presentation
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| Trippy, eh? |
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My god, if there's one thing El Shaddai does well, it's presentation. From it's streamlined menus to the constantly changing landscapes, from the cliffs of heaven to the depths of hell, from a passionate, celebrating city to a radically different tron inspired thrill ride, El Shaddai never fails to provide an interesting image, be it a grand sweeping world, or a simple fading watercolor background. It's soundtrack matches it's visual display magnificently, with sound effects you would imagine attributing to heavenly machinations, and an excellent musical score.
However, the game's presentation isn't entirely perfect. It's good points in the long run fail to help tell it's nigh incomprehensible story beyond some basics, and the voice acting is subpar at best.
(8.0/10: The game looks and sounds beautiful, but it's plagued by a "strange and hard to follow" at best story, and other tidbits.)
Let's get more in depth.
Accessibility
While El Shaddai does throw you into your very first fray entirely unprepared, the game is relatively easy to pick up and beat your way through. You don't need a Harcore Gamer's Degree in Action Game Destruction to make it through this game by any stretch. Truly, the only issues the game has as far as access are story based. I like to think myself as an outside-the-box thinking person, with a fairly artistic and broad imagination, but... DAT STORY! While the story issues are the only ones, they are huge ones in my opinion. If the game I'm playing is based around the single player experience, then the inability to immerse myself in the game's world is an issue for me. And on further thought, the... Different art direction may be off putting for those looking for a more "cool" or "badass" experience.
(6.0/10: While the game is easy to pick up and play, it's somewhat hard to get into, considering the oddities of the art direction and, again, the extremely questionable presentation of the storyline.)
Graphics
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| ...Preeeety. |
Graphically, El Shaddai slides from excellent to masterpiece quality, with vigorous use of watercolor-styled and inspired imagery, vibrant and well placed colors, and gorgeous accompanying effects, be they the sparks flashing across a blade mid-purification, trails from blistering attacks, the pulse of the protagonist's steps as he makes his way across a glowing glass floor, or the subtle effects in the air that let you know you're in a windy area, or perhaps a zone filled with sorrow and sin. However, it is an eccentric looking game, and these things can cause a person to want to not give the game a second glance.
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| But it really is pretty though... |
While the look may not necessarily appeal to some people, as a whole, the game looks beautiful. I never encountered a bit of slowdown during battles, and due to the constantly changing look of the levels, I never felt that the look of the game grew stagnate.
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| Yep. Definitely pretty. |
Even at it's most simplistic, El Shaddai manages to provide an interesting graphical force. Definitely one of the game's shining points. If I were to say something bad about the game's look, it's that the characters themselves aren't necessarily the most graphically impressive bunch. They seem to play a strong second fiddle to the environments and special effects.
Other strong points include the game's combat animations which are fluid, and quite a treat for the eyes. Enoch (The protagonist, who could have done with some earlier introducing...) moves in a satisfyingly flashy fashion, blade whirling, feet flying, blasts careening all done with the game's deceptively simple combat system.
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8.5/10: The game looks beautiful and inspired, with some extra cool combat moments, and some rather impressive action sequences in cutscenes, but the art style may be a tad too different for some.)
Sound
Much like it is visually gripping, El Shaddai boasts a rather impressive sound selection, with particularly excellent boss battle pieces. The music fits the game excellently, but, and perhaps this is just a problem I have, very few tracks solidly leap out from the others. It's an overall excellent soundtrack, but as far as memorable pieces go, there are only a few. But again, that's probably just me.
The vocal work is nothing particularly amazing, though the nonchalant voice of Lucifel, the game's narrator, stands head and shoulders above the rest of the cast. I suppose my biggest gripe was I didn't feel any particularly gripping emotion coming from any of the characters. At least, not vocally.
Sounds effects are used wonderfully, with shatters accompanying Enoch's armor breaking as he takes damage, or the unearthly sound of energy strumming vibrantly as Enoch purifies whatever he has equipped at the moment.
All in all an excellent audio experience.
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8.0/10: While there isn't much to say for the voice acting, a beautiful, if not very memorable score accompanied by excellent sound effect work make for a pleasant time on one's ears.)
Controls
In a slightly bold twist, El Shaddai abandons the idea of a gigantic customizable combat system in favor of a very simple one. Light attacks are controlled with square, harder attacks with triangle, and more rhythmic combos can be produced with delaying button input to change the combo. There aren't any further combos to unlock, and very very few upgrades, and the biggest possibility of depth in the combat system lies in switching between the three weapons that Enoch can gain access to by stealing them from other enemies. In order to really speed up combat, it's vital to know which weapon beats which enemy, especially since whichever weapon you steal overwrites the last weapon you had, so it's necessary to plan out which enemies to defeat first.
The weapons Enoch gains access to are the "Arch", Enoch's most commonly seen, and all purpose fast and flashy close range weapon, shaped like a bow that functions like some sort of sword/staff hybrid, the "Gale", what appear to be a flock of paper airplanes that Enoch controls as his long range weapon, and the "Veil:" A combination of a shield, and giant-ass holy gauntlets, the Veil is slow but hella powerful, relying on powerful charged hits to break opponents, and grind them into a fine powder.
Another thing one needs to know about the weapons is that the more you use them, the more they're "corrupted" by the enemies you face, and the weaker they get. In order to keep them at optimum efficiency, you must remember to purify with L1/LB to restore them to full power. The same button is used to steal a weapon from a stunned enemy, an efficient tactic for making fights easier to get through.
Enoch's health is not handled via use of a bar or meter, but is rather viewed by the state of his armor; the less armor Enoch has left, the closer to death he is. If he is struck when beaten down to his jeans (yes, jeans.), Enoch's health will be completely defeated, and he will fall. When you fall, it's not necessarily the end, however. You can rapidly press the face buttons to force Enoch to get back up with some of his armor regenerated, though this becomes harder and harder the more you fall.
Progression through the levels is handled through 3-D and 2-D platforming, and is usually fun enough, but can be complicated by an odd shadow placement/timing of the shadow's arrival, causing more than a few falls over a misjudged jump.
All in all, it's a stable system, but it can get stale fairly easily if you're expecting more.
(6.5/10: The game plays well enough, but aside from the weapon stealing and the revival method, don't bring much by way of breaking ground to the table.)
Difficulty
The game is not hard at all on the default normal difficulty, though I suspect the challenge was not at all the intent for this game, so much as it was the presentation and the idea of the game itself. All the same, Lucifel is correct when he says "You can beat the game in 7 hours, if you really try" in a fourth wall breaking moment near the very beginning of the game. And any idea of a challenge the game may have is erased by the ability to simply mash buttons when you fall in combat to raise up and continue fighting.
(3.0/10: The game isn't very difficult at all, and honestly, I believe the game would have seriously benefited from a few challenging boss battles, at the very least.)
Replayability
There are about 5-6 difficulties to beat it on, with various unlockables like artwork, and alternate costumes becoming available to you for collecting various hidden items throughout the levels, meeting all of the wandering wisemen, and obtaining the highest possible ranking for every level on the various difficulties. So there's at least a decent amount of reason to give it another go if you enjoyed the game.
(5.5/10: While there isn't a huge amount of endgame content, there's at least enough to justify a second playthrough.)
Story
And here, quite unfortunately, is where El Shaddai falls apart for me. The tale of El Shaddai (loosely based on the "Book of Enoch") is about a human named Enoch, a priest/scribe who is sent to travel the world to find, defeat and imprison 7 fallen angels who have descended to earth in order to sample it's pleasures, to prevent the archangels' plan to eradicate all life on the face of the planet with a giant flood to start humankind anew. It's a tale that (quite literally) spans hundreds, even thousands of years. In game! Sounds like groundwork for an epic tale, yeah?
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| This is Enoch. |
Mmmm.... Not so much.
El Shaddai, in it's attempt to be an artistic masterpiece, only ends up coming across as half eccentric, half hot bloody mess of convoluted exposition presented in a watercolor shell of crud. Or maybe I simply don't have a palette refined enough to appreciate El Shaddai for the work of art that it is.
Whatever the case, for a story with the potential that it's base has, El Shaddai's story presentation is terrible. It's only through the occasional breaks in chapter where Lucifel brings everything up to speed that I gain any real understanding of the story. Which is a problem, because if I can't immerse myself in the game's story (which, as an artistic game, I believe it should be somewhat reliant on) then for what reason should I pay it any mind at all?
The cutscenes are extremely vague, and don't offer much information towards any of the character's motives, or development, or even relevant relationships. And while there are nice little quirks on the side, such as Lucifel saving your progress by making reports to God on his cell phone, the little sense he makes isn't enough to make the story coherent. Collecting shards of "Ishtar's Bones" will also reveal more of the story, but this requires you to go find the aforementioned shards in a possibly game ending maze known as "The Darkness". There's a hidden portal to The Darkness in each level, and a shard of Ishtar's Bones is hidden in each one. But that will only then reveal these story pieces in a menu, or in the gallery.
The story should not require this much work to discern.
(2.5/10: An awesome base, but terrible storytelling, and a lackluster actual story bring El Shaddai down kind of hard...)
Fun Factor
And so we come to the score of grand importance. The Fun Factor. And most unfortunately, while everything in El Shaddai is nice to look at, and listen to, the game itself, is not terribly fun. I mean, don't get me wrong, It's fun for the first few levels, but the inexplicably bad story, coupled with the eventual staleness of the combat system, mean that by the time I had completed the game, I was more than happy to put it in it's box, and never look it's way again. The game does have moments, however, that are a blast. Boss battles are suitably enjoyable, if a bit repetitive, and the absolutely out of nowhere TRON inspired level was so much fun that if I were to pick up the game again, it would be solely to play that level. But in the end, it's just not enough.
(3.0/10: The game is probably great fun for one who doesn't care about the story, or depth of combat style, but it's not enough for me. And even the game's best moments can't change that.)
THE VERDICT
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron scores a
60.0
A GOOD GAME!
*applause*
While I certainly enjoyed El Shaddai as a whole, the game's over-reliance on beauty in simplicity, coupled with DAT ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE STORY! bring the game down too hard. Which is unfortunate, as El Shaddai had the potential to be positively amazing. It could most certainly have benefited from more emotional content in the voice acting, a slightly deeper, more fleshed out combat system, and it definitely could have done with a far better presentation for the story.
But yep. That's that. Hope you enjoyed it. Should have another review coming sometime soon.
