Score: 2/5
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron may be one of the most
interesting games of this generation. It’s an action game that loosely follows
The Book of Enoch, which is a biblical story. I’m not overly familiar with the
story of Enoch, but I say loosely, because the adaptation in the game is nigh
incomprehensible. In addition to its impenetrable story El Shaddai boasts an
interesting one button combat system and some of the most stunning visuals I’ve
seen in a video game to date. It’s an ambitious showing, but it doesn’t come
together as well as it could have.
As you may have guessed the story follows Enoch. He’s a
human scribe in heaven. God tasks him with going down to the surface in order
to fight fallen angels. The angel Lucifel is tasked with helping him on his
journey, which is how Enoch is outfitted with his shining white armor and
designer jeans. Once he’s decked out Enoch is ready to go head to head with the
fallen angels. Apparently they’ve been getting it on with humans in order to
create odd looking creatures called nephilim. This is about as much of the
story as I understood.
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| Check out Enoch's designer jeans! |
Shortly after Enoch reaches the surface he finds the tower
of Babel where all the fallen angels are residing. After that point I stopped
understanding everything. The most I got out of it was
that the nephilim started to eat each other. Apparently when they do that they
get huge, fiery, and destructive. In order to stop them Enoch has to defeat the
fallen angels and bring them back to heaven in order to restore order. A ton of
other stuff happens as well, but it’s all fairly choppy. It’s all over the
place and the art style follows suit, but in a much more enjoyable way.
The visuals in this game are simply stunning. The characters
are cell shaded, while the backgrounds and environments look like digital
paintings. It’s hard to describe the exact art style being employed, because as
Enoch progresses up the tower everything changes drastically. In the beginning
everything is white and looks as if it’s made of crystal. Sometimes it looks
like tron and other times it looks like a moving water color picture. It’s fun
to explore and see what the world is going to look like next. The transitions happen
fast and frequently. I loved looking around the environments, so it was a shame
when my leisurely strolls through each area were interrupted with a combat
scenario.
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| Expect the visuals to change drastically and often. |
The combat in El Shaddai feels great in certain moments and
infuriating in others. It’s easiest to compare it to something like Devil May
Cry, but it doesn’t reach that level of depth. The game essentially only uses
one button to attack. If you mash the button you’re always going to get the
same combo, but if you delay your inputs or hold the button then something totally
different will happen. A whole combo
system is essentially packed into a single button and it doesn’t always work the
way it’s intended to. The problem is
that I could never tell if I was getting any better at the system. There’s
really no feedback to let you know if you’re doing the right thing or not.
Enoch can wield one of three divine weapons, the fast
slashing arch, the long-ranged gale, and the hard hitting veil. Throughout most
of the game I used the arch, because it was the weapon I became most familiar
with. The veil worked well for me most of the time, but the gale was utterly
useless. The enemies would always block every hit and when they didn’t they would take very little damage. Most of the enemies that you’ll face
throughout the game will also wield these weapons, which is how Enoch can
change his weapon. He must initially fight unarmed until it is time to steal an
arch. Knocking an enemy down allows Enoch to steal the tainted weapon and
purify it.
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| This is an animation you'll be seeing quite a bit. |
I tried to like the combat, but in the end I just couldn’t
do it. It’s possible that I was missing something crucial about the whole
system, but like I mentioned earlier there is absolutely no feedback on whether
what you’re doing is working or not. Enoch and the enemies have pieces of armor
on their bodies and the more they get hit, the more of their armor breaks off. There
is no HUD (initially), so you have to keep a close eye on your armor at all times. What I
didn’t like was that I could wail on the enemies for a long time and their
armor would take forever to break, however they would hit me a few times and I
would be almost dead.
This problem is exacerbated in the boss fights. The fallen
angels or “the watchers” will appear almost at random to challenge Enoch to a
fight. Sometimes they’re supposed to beat you in a hit, but eventually you’ll
have to beat them. It might take forever for you to break a piece of their
armor, but they can kill you in an instant. It’s almost as if the developers
knew this would happen, because the death mechanic allows you to come back to
life a number of times before getting a game over. When Enoch gets hit with no
armor on he begins to fade. The screen will begin to blink shut like an eye.
Before the eye closes you’re supposed to mash the buttons in order to get back up. Each time you fall it takes longer and longer to work and you will
eventually die. Upon death the game reminds you of how to stay alive no matter
how far you are in the game as if you’re some kind of moron for dying in the
first place.
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| These triangle head "watchers" can take you out rather quickly. |
For everything El Shaddai did right it seemed to do
something else to put me off. The visual style is amazing, but it messed with my depth perception, which often lead to misjudging jumps. It seems
as if the game may have suffered a bit for its beautiful art style. There is no
HUD when you play initially, but once you beat the game you can turn on a HUD,
which displays health, combo count, and score. If I had been able to see these
things initially I may have been able to grasp the combat system better. To
have it as an unlock after you beat the game seems like a lost cause, because
there isn’t a whole lot of replay value to this seven hour game.
El Shaddai tries some interesting things, but they don’t
exactly mesh well together. It stops just short of being fun. This game is definitely not for everyone, but I think that it is worth checking out for its ideas. The demo
is a great representation of the experience you’ll have with the rest of the
game, so you should try that before you commit to anything. While I didn’t
exactly have the best time with this game I hope that other game developers try
things as wild and crazy as El Shaddai.
-Manny
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