El Shaddai's story is based on the apocryphal Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish text that is not seen as part of the biblical canon by Christians. The story follows Enoch, a man whose dedication to God brought him into Heaven to serve as a steward and the executor of God's will. As part of his position, Enoch is watched over by the Archangels and given differing powers depending on his current task.
At some point in the story, seven angels fell from Heaven to Earth and began creating their own kingdoms in the mortal realm, ruling over the as of yet not civilized humans. In return for their worship, the fallen angels each granted different gifts of evolution to these humans based on their own whims. Additionally, these fallen angels sometimes mated with humans, creating the Nephilim, a race of giants with ravenous hunger. These Nephilim were loved greatly by the fallen angels and were fed to gluttonous excess. Unfortunately, as these Nephilim ate, they grew larger and larger until they became so large that they became engulfed in flame and would destroy great swaths of the Earth.
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| Looks more like jelly than flame if you ask me... |
God saw the destruction that these Nephilim wrought on his world and was angered by what his fallen angels had started. God commands Enoch to descend to the Earth and to return the fallen angels to Heaven, lest he be forced to flood the Earth for its own good. The angels, once defeated and weakened by Enoch, would be locked into divine prison cells to spend eternity in penance.
In preparation for his descent to Earth, Enoch is given divine armor by the Archangels. The angels also watch over him on his journey in the form of white birds. Additionally, Enoch is aided by a guardian angel named Lucifel. Lucifel acts as the middle-man between the Earth-locked Enoch and God in Heaven.
Enoch is guided by Lucifel to a giant tower which the fallen angels call home. Each floor of the tower consists of each individual fallen angel's world that they have created for themselves. Enoch must travel to the peak of the tower, pacifying and sending the angels to their awaiting cells on the way.
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| Fallen angels apparently love sparkles and color. |
The most striking thing about El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is the visual style. Each of the seven floors is so unique in its visuals and design that it's almost as if a different artist worked on each level. One level sports a sharp, futuristic design, whereas another seems as though you're playing a watercolor painting. The visuals never disappoint and keep things interesting, even with a story that is incredibly strange.
Trust me, how I laid out the game's story in the beginning of this review is way more intelligible than what you're going to get from the game. It's almost as though when the game was translated to English a good bit of the story was somehow lost. Enoch roams the tower, often being given "hints" and bits of story from characters that seem out of place and even completely unrelated to what's currently happening, not to mention unhelpful. Add in that you're randomly thrown into boss fights with the different fallen angels (even when you're not on their floor) for no apparent reason that don't matter if you win or lose, and you have a narrative that would confuse even a person with the worlds longest attention span.
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| At least it's pretty? |
The gameplay doesn't do much to redeem the story either. Don't get me wrong, the combat system is interesting, with three different weapons that Enoch can utilize that each have their own special abilities, strengths, and weaknesses against bosses and enemies wielding the same weapons. Counters, blocks, block-breaks, and more can be utilized against the enemies thrown at you by the fallen angels. The problem, however, is that the combat is extremely predictable and repetitive. There are around four types of enemies, and you're going to be seeing them over and over ad nauseam. There is little surprise in when you'll be attacked by these monsters either. Players will quickly learn to hate large circular platforms, as every single time you reach one, enemies spawn and attack you.
Other than the repetitive combat, El Shaddai contains lots of platforming sections. Some of these come in the standard 3D environment, while others switch the world into a 2D side-scroller. These sections can be brutal for those who may be inexperienced in platform jumping. Some of the weapons' special abilities assist in these jump-fests, but players will quickly find that the jumping mechanics in the game likely required a bit more fine tuning before release...
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| Take that, repetitive enemy number 2! |
I hate to write so many negatives one after the other, so now I'll mention the music. I really enjoyed this game's soundtrack. The music suits the levels perfectly and never gets annoying. This is one of the few games that I would listen to the soundtrack later, away from the game.
Now then, back to the unpleasant truth. As polished as the game looks visually, I ran into a number of glitches. The most annoying of these occurred when fighting a boss. After you do enough damage to a boss, a short cutscene plays which shows the boss transforming into another form. In the area that the fight takes place there are these roaming fireballs that (obviously) hurt you if you touch them. Anyway, I was extremely low on health, but was going to pull off the fight. That is, until the cutscene of the transformation played and ended with a game over screen instead of my character. Turns out, you can still be hit by the fireballs, even if you can't control your character. Really game? Really?
Oh yeah, and on your first playthrough of the game, there is no health meter for you or bosses. In fact, there's no HUD (heads-up display) whatsoever. No, this isn't a bug, this is an actual programmed feature of the game, because once you beat it for the first time, the game gives you the option to turn the HUD on. Surely this was accidentally programmed in reverse, right? You stumble your way through the 10 levels of the game not knowing how close you are to beating a boss, or dying yourself, only to unlock the ability to see that?
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| But it's pretty, remember? |
Once you complete the approximately 10 hour game, you're given the option to replay the levels in a score ranking mode, not that's you'd want to necessarily. The game also gives you different costumes for Enoch depending on collectables found throughout your first playthrough. All I can say about this is that at least you can unlock a Canadian Tuxedo that makes you invincible, because hey, denim is strong stuff!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I actually think the game is worth a playthrough for the visuals alone. Yes, the gameplay is going to be somewhat annoying and the storytelling is going to give you a headache, but the visuals man, the visuals! Absolutely do not pay full price for this game though, they're not THAT good. Oh, and did I mention that one of the fallen angels is a Michael Jackson wannabe, complete with dance party sequence? Think on that one.
Amulets and Ale Rating:
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