El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron Review

For months I awaited the arrival of El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron after playing the Japanese demo. Seeing the lush and vibrant backgrounds along with what seemed to be an in-depth battle system had me hyped for its release. However, after playing one play through, I have to admit my patient waiting was only for a mediocre game with a unique style.

Starting off, those looking to enjoy a fruitful story would be better off finding and reading the “Deutercanonical Book of Enoch” which the game is inspired by. If you want a quick summary, you play as Enoch, who is on a mission to bring back several fallen angels to prevent the end of mankind. The game doesn’t deliver more than what it tells you at the beginning. You are out to hunt the fallen archangels, no more or less.

Visually, the game is one of a kind with the art style being very unique, but is such a mixed bag amongst the levels with no consistency of direction. Each level has its own style but offers very little in the “bigger” picture of things. The chapters, separated by its own visual taste is tainted by being a variety of side-scrolling and plat-forming sections that feel very disconnected from each other, despite the game’s efforts to offer a great experience in either category.

Combat competes for the player’s attention when not jumping around the level’s plat-forming sections. With only three weapons throughout the whole game, combat is generally just a rock-paper-scissors match against the enemies. The bosses appear in different sections of the chapters to challenge you, allowing you a sneak peak of their repetitive patterns so you don’t fail when the final confrontation comes. As neat as that may seem, it’s more of an annoyance to have the same fight spread out through the entire game. Midway through the game you acquire an “Over Boost” technique which I found quite useless considering the ease of the one button combat.

I am very grateful at Igntion Entertainment’s idea and direction of mixing creative visuals along with a 3^rd person action game, however the attempt was just not polished enough for a complete game. Story and combat seem to take a backseat to visuals and that should have not been the case with such a large medium to base the game off of. Fans of the book might get more out of the experience than the average player, but the game itself is only worth checking out if you want to experience a visual acid trip with mediocre combat.

Overall Score: 5/10