Review: El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron

Words by: Jennifer Allen | Posted on: Wednesday 14th September, 2011 | Filed under: Game Reviews, Retail Games.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is like nothing ever seen on an Xbox 360. Visually and thematically, it’s unrivalled in its ambition, quirkiness and scale. In terms of the mechanics behind the game however, it lets itself down feeling distinctly archaic and a trifle disappointing to say the least.

At first, El Shaddai will seem amazing. It immediately takes players out of their comfort zone ensuring that they never quite know what to expect. Visually, each chapter feels entirely different with things changing drastically. While the anime styled characters stay the same, the landscapes are extremely varied. Colours might change wildly to psychedelic amounts with a subsequent chapter following it up with a black and white aesthetic. Others get so bizarre; it’s difficult to truly explain. Hopefully the screenshots give some clue of just absurd stages can look. One chapter late in the game is reminiscent of cubist art for instance, encapsulating platforming action with an arty vibe. Everything looks positively glorious. You’ll feel genuinely excited to see how the next chapter will look. During the mid way point of the game, action switches for one relatively brief level to an on-rails motorcycle sequence immediately throwing up ponderings of just what is yet to come with this spectacular game.

The storyline is similarly original being heavily influence by the Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish religious work, following a priest of the same name as he seeks seven fallen angels in order to prevent a flood from destroying mankind. It’s utterly bizarre. It’s the gaming equivalent of films like Synecdoche New York or Requiem for a Dream.

It comes at a cost though. While readily admitting it’s a terribly clichéd way to describe something, El Shaddai is the classic example of style over substance. Stunningly beautiful yet ultimately pretty shallow once some digging under the surface has been conducted. El Shaddai isn’t a bad game by any means but take out the extraordinary graphics and it’s really quite average. It’s an attractive Trojan Horse really. One that goes on to outstay its welcome by a good few hours.

The game behind the beautiful scenery is a hack n slasher – a not overly clever slash em up at that. The glorious effects are still there. For instance there’s no HUD that informs players of their health status. Instead players have to rely on keeping an eye on how much armour Enoch is wearing with the screen getting increasingly red around the corners as Enoch weakens. It’s quite a nice effect and ensures that you can take in the beauty of the world rather than be reminded that it’s all just a game. Combat and platforming are the main two components to progression. This is where things take a much more dated turn.

Combat will be pretty plentiful. Enoch starts out unarmed but with the ability to steal weapons from his enemies. These weapons are limited in number – there are three in all. So starts the challenge of finding which weapon works best in which situation. It doesn’t take long to master at all. One weapon, the Arch, is a curved blade looking like a cross between a bow and a sword. It has the added advantage of aiding the player while platforming as it allows Enoch to float for a brief period of time. The Veil is a slow and cumbersome kind of shield crossed with a gauntlet. Powerful hitting and providing defensive capabilities but slow. Finally, there’s the Gale that allows Enoch to fire projectiles at the enemy meaning it’s a useful long range weapon.

During the first few chapters, it feels quite exciting. Fighting is simple with only one button controlling the blows inflicted however there’s a certain sense of rhythm to the button tapping in order to get the most out of it. Slow but carefully planned moves work much more effectively than simply button mashing. The more that each weapon is used, the more corrupt and therefore weaker they become. This means that a tap of the LB button is required so that they can be cleansed. It takes a moment to do meaning strategy in picking the right time is needed. As the game progresses however, it becomes apparent that not much changes. The enemy types are the same and things start to feel rather stagnant. Other irritants rear their ugly head too such as the inability to lock onto a target making fighting aerial foes particularly infuriating. The game’s over reliance on pitting players against unbeatable bosses as a plot device is similarly annoying and unsatisfying. Worst of all is El Shaddai’s problems that appear to be exclusive to the Xbox 360 version: the stuttering and freezing. Numerous times the game paused between cut scenes or save positions in a way that made me worry that it was never going to recover. More inexcusably is the stuttering that occurred after defeating an enemy in later stages of the game. As it happened every time for the last 4 or 5 chapters, it became intensely annoying amongst a title that had already turned from interesting to a bit repetitive.

Platforming is a similarly mixed bag. While the 2D platforming sections shine and capture exactly what anyone could hope for from such a gaming trope, the 3D sections are a little hit and miss. Accurate jumps are constantly required in a world full of scenery that gets disorientating and distracting. At times, it can get frustrating particularly near the end of the game.

Upon completing the 8 or 9 hour game, El Shaddai unlocks some new game modes. Hard and Extra mode becomes available with Extra offering a quite considerable challenge. More interesting is the addition of the Score Ranking option enabling players to compete with friends for the best score in each chapter. A HUD is finally made available also along with new costumes for Enoch to wear. Collect the relevant parts during a playthrough and Enoch can benefit from a set of armour that makes him pretty invincible. It all adds to the longevity but this still feels like a one time completion. After all, you’ve seen all the beautiful wonder of El Shaddai; the main selling point is gone.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is a divisive game for me. While the critic in me wants to encourage people to pick it up in order that we see more creativity in games than just FPS 101, the games player in me feels let down by the stale game mechanics demonstrated. If only the level of ambition portrayed by the artistic style and storyline could have been demonstrated within everything about this game. This could have been something truly awesome.

About Jennifer Allen

Jen's been playing games for longer than she can remember (20 odd years) and has been writing about them for 4 years. In her spare time she likes to pretend she can train her guinea pigs to do tricks. She should stick to chocobos.

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