El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
or A Quirky Hack-n-Slash With Trippy Visuals Based On A Book Banned from The Bible
I'd heard about El Shaddai around the time of its release. I was moderately interested based on what I was hearing about it's visual style and unusual interpretation of a Biblical story. After its release in 2011, I heard very little about it and it dropped from my mind. Recently I saw a TV show about books banned from the Bible and there was the Book of Enoch, the inspiration for El Shaddai. It re-ignited my interest so I got my hands on it.
THE BASICS: You play as Enoch, apparently a scribe from Heaven who has been sent to Earth to stop a group of fallen angels from destroying mankind. You are aided by Lucifel, a jean-wearing Yuppie that talks to God via cell phone...I'd like to know which provider gives him that kind of reception because AT&T has been disappointing me for years.
From what I could gather from the poorly communicated story, the fallen angels fell in love with human women and began mating with them. Their unnatural offspring are called Nephilim and apparently eat everything in the world, including each other. This causing a fire storm that will destroy the Earth. At least that's what I gathered.
THE GAMEPLAY: The game is a basic hack-n-slash with three weapons that work in a rock-scissors-paper fashion against certain enemies. You weaken them, steal their weapon, then attack them some more. This continues throughout the game.
It is essentially a platformer with some sections where it feels like an old-school side-scroller. The fighting is fairly simplistic and there are some puzzles late in the game that do a little to change up the monotony.
It is essentially a platformer with some sections where it feels like an old-school side-scroller. The fighting is fairly simplistic and there are some puzzles late in the game that do a little to change up the monotony.
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PROS and CONS
PROS:
1) The visuals are fresh and exciting. Each level has a distinct style, some are better than others, but sometimes the visual effects get in the way of the gameplay.
2) The simplistic fighting is easy to grasp and does offer a few twists and challenges.
3) A unique story and setting rarely visited/told.
CONS:
1) As good as the visuals can be, they do interfere with the platforming areas at times. This leads to some cheap deaths where you cannot see your shadow, next objective, or have no depth perception. Can be frustrating instead of challenging.
2) While the visuals are unique and interesting, some levels are definitely more inspired than others.
3) The story is poorly told and very odd. Sometimes I didn't understand what I was doing or why. There are some better story moments toward the end, but by then I just wasn't as involved or interested as I should have been.
4) Hack-n-Slash can become boring. You can see where they are going to be before you get there so there is little surprise, and you can't move on until you defeat them in most cases.
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ACHIEVEMENTS:
I managed to get a good deal of achievements on my first playthrough, but it appears most if not all of them are hidden achievements. Once I played through it once, I was not interested to go through it all again, nor researching what the hidden achievements were.
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MY OPINION:
I went in expecting a visual experience and hoping for an above average game.
The visual experience was a minor disappointment, though I'm glad I experienced it. The gameplay, however, was very disappointing. The story was muddled, the gameplay was uninspired, and the overall experience was colorful but shallow.
El Shaddai: Ascension of The Metatron is definitely an experience worth having, but couldn't live up to the hype its presentation suggested.
RATING: $19.99
NOTE: The rating system is based on the price I would pay for this experience, not on market value at the time the blog was created. Ratings go from $0.00 (I would never pay a cent for this game!) to $59.99 (full retail price for most games). Some ratings may be higher or lower in some rare instances, such as ones regarding DLC or other circumstances.
PROS:
1) The visuals are fresh and exciting. Each level has a distinct style, some are better than others, but sometimes the visual effects get in the way of the gameplay.
2) The simplistic fighting is easy to grasp and does offer a few twists and challenges.
3) A unique story and setting rarely visited/told.
CONS:
1) As good as the visuals can be, they do interfere with the platforming areas at times. This leads to some cheap deaths where you cannot see your shadow, next objective, or have no depth perception. Can be frustrating instead of challenging.
2) While the visuals are unique and interesting, some levels are definitely more inspired than others.
3) The story is poorly told and very odd. Sometimes I didn't understand what I was doing or why. There are some better story moments toward the end, but by then I just wasn't as involved or interested as I should have been.
4) Hack-n-Slash can become boring. You can see where they are going to be before you get there so there is little surprise, and you can't move on until you defeat them in most cases.
___________________________________________________________________________
ACHIEVEMENTS:
I managed to get a good deal of achievements on my first playthrough, but it appears most if not all of them are hidden achievements. Once I played through it once, I was not interested to go through it all again, nor researching what the hidden achievements were.
______________________________________________________________________
MY OPINION:
I went in expecting a visual experience and hoping for an above average game.
The visual experience was a minor disappointment, though I'm glad I experienced it. The gameplay, however, was very disappointing. The story was muddled, the gameplay was uninspired, and the overall experience was colorful but shallow.
El Shaddai: Ascension of The Metatron is definitely an experience worth having, but couldn't live up to the hype its presentation suggested.
RATING: $19.99
NOTE: The rating system is based on the price I would pay for this experience, not on market value at the time the blog was created. Ratings go from $0.00 (I would never pay a cent for this game!) to $59.99 (full retail price for most games). Some ratings may be higher or lower in some rare instances, such as ones regarding DLC or other circumstances.
