To be quite honest, I’m not exactly a man of big religion. Granted, I have my own personal beliefs and all that, but I don’t get as heavy into “why are we here” sort of logistics like others out there. And there are those who have their own interpretations, and sometimes they’re fascinating to read out – like this one guy I know who thinks God created bacon to teach us overindulgence. (C’mon – bacon was made for enjoyment!) Likewise, Ignition has its own interesting story based on the Deuterocanonical Book of Enoch (spell that five times fast) with El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, but this is no boring Sunday sermon. This is an action game with the development team being headed up by Takeyasu Sawaki, a character designer of Devil May Cry and Okami fame. And it’s one hell of a journey. (Sorry, heck. Slipped past me.) The plot is a little ridiculous, especially to those of you who just want to enter an action game merely for the sake of beating folks up. But there is something interesting here if you dig a little deeper.
You portray Enoch, a somewhat angelized priest who’s called upon to seek our seven fallen angels in order to keep a great floor from wiping out mankind. You’d think Noah’s Ark would be enough to do that, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, helping Enoch out are a few folks, including Lucifel, a guy who’s talking to someone of greater purpose on a cell phone while occasionally helping you, as well as a few Archangels who try to keep Enoch from losing his strength. And he’ll need it, as he journey takes a few bizarre turns. He’ll run into several rogue deities, along with weird god-like wildebeests, partly converted souls that have taken shape into strange cartoon-like wiener people, and the angels themselves, who seem to have a knack for changing into otherworldly beasts that can’t be beaten by normal methods. Fortunately, Enoch is ready for battle, and can not only take weapons away from injured enemies, but purify them and make them into his own personal godly tools. We won’t lie – the combat is slightly repetitive in El Shaddai. We were beating up these otherworldly thugs with the same kind of finishing combos, though being able to switch between weapons, such as projectile stars and powerful discs, is pretty cool.
The 3-D stages have a lot of combat and platforming to get through, and some great 2-D stages have also been thrown in for good measure, with levitating platforms, obstacles and changes in each stage (like balloons and breakable gates) that keep things interesting. Though we prefer the inventive gun-and-sword combat of the Devil May Cry games, El Shaddai is no slouch on its own part. What will keep you digging through El Shaddai to the conclusion of its journey – and perhaps even repeated tries past that – are the luscious visuals. Seriously, if you’ve played Okami or any of the previous Devil May Cry games before, you still won’t be able to fathom entirely what you’re in for. Some of these stages are artfully provocative, really drawing on the power of the Xbox 360 with a decadent art style that’s unlike anything on the market. One minute you’re running through a plain black and white stage with a 60-frames per second Technicolor sky overhead, and the next, a painted face swoops over the stage and turns everything on its head, turning day to night and back again without any need for additional loading time. Sawaki and his team are to be commended in not only making a beautiful game, but one that runs around the 30 to 60 frames per second speed, even when enemies are loaded up on the screen.
This feature review concludes on the next page, please click Page 2 below to see our final thoughts on El ShaddaiL Ascension of the Metatron.
