When I heard that one of Okami’s leading artists was directing a heavily stylised action game my ears pricked up. Nowadays games seem to have a limited pallet, sticking to darker colours with monotone schemes that make you wonder if game designers have ever seen a dulux colour chart.

El Shaddai has you play as Enoch, a man given immortality by the Gods in order to track down seven fallen angels to prevent a great flood destroying man. With the help of the archangels and God on the other end of a mobile phone (no that’s not a typo), you set about taking down each angel returning order to the world.  Other than that I couldn’t really write much else about El Shaddai’s story, it all is told in a convoluted manner that made me lose interest after the first few chapters. There’s the cliché prophecies and even a female love interest, but in the end I just found that I didn’t really care for the story too much.

This is a big problem for El Shaddai as well because it relies heavily on how much you are engrossed in its world. Several parts of the game have you walking while you hear other characters speaking about events or issues in the game’s world. While this is set in the games beautifully designed world I found myself spending far too much time holding up on the controller and just walking, listening to someone else speak about something I didn’t even care about.

El Shaddai’s gameplay is better than its story with a 60-40 split between 3rd person action and 2D platforming. The former puts a twist on classic types of 3rd person action games, getting users to steal weapons instead of giving them an arsenal of weapons to play with.  There are only three weapons in the game, one for distance, one fast blade for close range and the final weapon a heavy hitting shield that splits when attacking, acting more like boxing gloves. I found that the latter where by far the best weapon for most enemies with its super strong defensive abilities, especially against bosses, which defeats the purpose switching weapons.

Each weapon is effective against different enemies and this is the game’s biggest downfall.  It heavily limits the amount of enemies in the game. Other than the bosses you can count the different types of enemy with your fingers (don’t bother with the thumbs) and each fight takes place on a circular arena. To make things worse there is only one button to attack, making these segments feel extremely repetitive. Unlike other similar games in the genre (Bayonetta, Devil May Cry) you are not given any upgrades or merchant to purchase items from, so combat feels extremely limited. The platforming sections are little better and while they are extremely pretty, they remain extremely simple with little to do other than jumping onto moving platforms. These parts are pretty boring never feel fully fleshed out.

This feeling of repetitiveness is made even worse by the linearity of the game. You take out one set of enemies, walk to the next circular looking platform (maybe jumping a few gaps along the way) and then take out another identical group of enemies. Every now and then there is a switch to flick and there are a couple of occasions where you have an extremely simple puzzle to figure out, but after the first few chapters, you generally have played most of the content of the game. There are a few chapters which deviate from the formula, such as one on a motorcycle, but there are not enough of these to excuse the game’s shallow and repetitive gameplay.

It isn’t all bad with El Shaddai, the game has one area in which it excels, the visuals. Each chapter is different to the last and is nothing like anything else you will have ever played in any game. Watercolours swirl across the screen, filling it with vivid colours. The gates of heaven are beautifully drawn and every time I stealing a weapon with Enoch never gets old. In fact this was the only reason I kept playing the game. Seeing each chapter’s visual splendor is amazing and the game continually switches up styles each chapter. As much as I have complained about El Shaddai, there is no other game that looks similar to this. With so many different art styles (there are 12 chapters) that is a big statement. Just check out all the images in this post, all of them are in-game screenshots! The whole time I played it I just wished that the gameplay could match its stunning visuals.

This is the problem with El Shaddai’s though, no matter how pretty it looks, it can’t hide the game’s flaws. While I cannot emphasise the games beauty enough, this isn’t an art gallery. The only variety El Shaddai has is in its aesthetics which entertained me throughout the game, I just wish that I got to watch someone else playing it.

 

 

 

 

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