Friday, August 26, 2011

The El Shaddai “This is NOT a Review,,,”

  El Shaddai Ascension of the Metatron is a wonderful game.  That being said, it has some SERIOUS problems.  But first, I will discuss what I love about the game.  The beginning of El Shaddai starts with you as Enoch.  You are trying to shackle and purify fallen angels in order to prevent the Great Flood.

      The wonderful part of the game is the way it slowly and airily builds up in both tone and difficulty.  El Shaddai is a game about beauty and style.  Every part of the game seems handcrafted to make the player appreciate some form of aesthetic.  Even the the fact that the player can just mash a couple of buttons and come back to life; makes the player believe initially that the game is more about the journey than the destination.  There is a wonderful lack of HUD.  The game shows the player all they need to know with visual cues like armor breaking as the main character loses health.  The whole game is a kind of anime inspired Bible story.  Which the subject matter of the game is based on the Book of Enoch.  An omitted book from the Bible.  This is pretty cool, but most players won’t need this basis for enjoying the game.

      The combat which takes place in arena style areas; with the ability to use only one weapon at a time and not be able to switch weapons except when the player steals the weapon of their enemy.  Soon, the player learns how to rotate from one weapon to another to get the best effect.  Most of the bosses in the game are more vulnerable to one weapon or another; and in these cases you are allowed a limited window to pick the weapon of the player’s choosing to defeat the boss.  The combat is pretty mashy but it is also very tactile and satisfying.  I also, love the fact that not every boss battle is winnable.  For story reasons, the game sometimes makes some boss battles unwinnable.  Which is unique and cool.

      There is a lot of variety  in the environments and gameplay in the El Shaddai.  Everything from a light cycle sequence to platforming through sidescrolling moving vistas.  Unlike most games these days El Shaddai allows to player to experience a varied experience with all most every part of the game, making every area a joy to play through.  This is mainly because, if the player doesn’t like an area they know that the next area will be different.  As I can remember only Uncharted as done a similar or better job of achieving this.

    The difficulty of the game can only be set as to how hard the enemies are but not how hard the platforming puzzles are.  Which makes the enjoyment of the actual story hinge on how good of a platformer the player is.  Which unless the player is a Super Mario Galaxy profession you might have some trouble.  By the time the player is just a few hours into the game.  The platforming in the game which was originally a fun distraction takes center stage.  The platforming in the game is too floaty and inaccurate to take that kind of leading roll in a game that really seems more about story, style, and combat rather than jumping from here to there in 2D or 3D.  The platforming made me stop playing the game many times; whereas in earlier sections it was difficult for me to stop playing.  But in these later sequences I kept wanting to stop playing because the difficulty had spiked SO severely.  In a game with no manual camera control, that much platforming is really too punishing for even the most experienced player.

    In a game that does everything else SO WELL, it is really disappointing that it’s perfection is held back so severely by unreasonable platforming.  This game is manageable as a platformer as long as it sticks to the 2D plane.  But when it tries to be tricky and go for a fully three dimensional view, it shows its deficiencies completely.  As much as I love what El Shaddai is trying to do, it just fails to deliver a game the average gamer would or should want to finish.  While I’m certainly not saying that no one should play this game.  I am saying that before you pick up the game you should know what your getting.  An action platformer and not an especially good one; at least on the platforming side anyway.

Monday, August 15, 2011