"Everything's Fine": El Shaddai Demo Impressions

For as little mainstream coverage as it's gotten, I'm surprised I both remembered and desired to play Ignition Entertainment's forthcoming hack and slash effort, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. Actually, scratch that. With just how amazingly distinctive the look of this game is, I couldn't help remember it from way back in E3 of 2010. Now, one year, one Giant Bomb quick look, and one XBLA download later, I got to play the game for myself (well a demo anyway).

An adaptation of "The Book of Enoch", an ancient Hebrew religious text, El Shaddai is as eclectic in subtext as it is in visual flair. Sadly, none of the story details really make it into the demo, and so if you're not well informed, you're probably going to be scratching your head at some of the stranger aspects included here. All you really need to know is you play as heaven's scribe, Enoch. He's been sent to Earth equipped with God's finest armor, weaponry, and blue jeans in a last ditch attempt to get a group or rogue angels to return to heaven. If Enoch fails, God floods Earth. Bummer.

But even if Earth teeters on the brink of oblivion, you'd never know it because of El Shaddai's amazingly abstract interpretation it puts on all its visuals. This is just a demo, but El Shaddai is undeniably a beautiful game. I really can't praise enough just how much the ethereal look of El Shaddai can sell you on its world and even on its gameplay. It's both primordial and post-modern, and it looks gorgeous.

But good looks does not a good game make. Luckily, on top of having extremely solid, fluid, and responsive hack and slash gameplay, El Shaddai's got a couple of tricks up its sleeve. Firstly, combat in El Shaddai is handled by one button. While that may seem odd for an action game, it actually works quite well with game's second mechanic, weapon trading. Enoch will wield a total of three separate weapons in El Shaddai (though only two are seen in the demo), but can only carry one at a time and switch strategically by disarming enemies or grabbing one from certain points in the level. These each have unique properties; the Arch is your standard sword, while the Gail is a long-range projectile type weapon; and when combined with varied button presses and contextual factors, the combat becomes fast and frenetic.

Shaddai's minimalist approach continues with a lack of HUD, instead opting for visual clues to tell you when Enoch needs some help. Take damage, and Enoch's armor will start to chip away. Attack to much with your holy weapon, and it'll need to be purified or exchanged for a new one. These kind of things help preserve El Shaddai's beautiful aesthetic while staying functional.

That isn't to say everything about my time with the El Shaddai demo was positive. While the one button combat functioned incredibly well, it can be a tad difficult to execute your intended actions whilst under the pressure of a tight battle situation. Also, the demo doesn't provide any kind of context or hint for a progression system. While that's not a game breaker in the least, hack and slashers certainly have a curse of falling into repetition. That could be exacerbated if Shaddai if you're not constantly moving towards new talents and abilities.

Aside from those minor concerns this extremely short, but undeniably enticing preview of a beautiful action game is one that anybody with some kind of online access needs to download. At only about 700 MB (on XBLA), it's a quick download that's well worth the time. I'm more intrigued than ever for El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, and am definitely looking to pick this up when it's released July 26th.

YOU wa SHOCK: Thoughts on the Fist of the North Star Demo

DISCLAIMER: This is actually a re-posting of a blog that I already wrote on my Giantbomb.com account. You can see that HERE, but I really just did this because I felt like I was severely neglecting this blog... that is all.

The demo for the new Tecmo/Koei game "Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage" is out right now (for XBLA anyway), and I assume if you're a fan of the manga and/or anime series at all you've probably already DL'd the demo yourself. I did so last night and actually played through each stage a couple of times and have come to a relatively brief conclusion. I like this. Yeah, it's Dynasty Warriors, a game series that I've flayed a few times in the past. However, I don't dislike Dynasty Warriors because I don't think it's fun to play. Dynasty Warriors has some great and well executed concepts that, when played with in moderation, are fun as all heck. The problem is that these base ideas haven't been fleshed out or improved upon despite a new version of the game coming out every year. So to be clear, I'll play and enjoy Dynasty Warriors, but I won't support the series year after year if they don't significantly improve on anything.

You won't see this in the demo...

But now this is becoming about Dynasty Warriors, and I wanna talk about the demo. In it is included two levels of gameplay from the game's story-mode (called Legend Mode here) with two characters to try out. Naturally there's Kenshiro, who you'd assume would be the guy they want you to try out first, right? I mean he's even first on the select screen, but selecting him will drop you straight into a boss fight against Kenshiro's bastard brother Jagi with no explanation of the controls. Granted, the game's control scheme isn't too tough to figure out, but I would have appreciated not having to get my ass handed to me to finally figure out all the ins and outs. If you're smart, you'll instead choose Rei (the angst-y mullet-ed one) and you'll get a tutorial alongside a level where you'll actually fight off waves of enemies and fight a boss as well. It's actually an overall funner level than Ken's, but one the demo doesn't make obvious should be played first.

Speaking of playing, the game plays pretty much how you might expect. You can string together light and strong attacks to build up your spirit meter which can then be used to unleash a special move (which will come complete with awesome freeze framed titles much like in the anime). You can also enter a trance state which doubles your attack power and modifies your special moves at the cost of draining your entire spirit meter. There are other intricacies like defending and other small little gameplay caveats, but the main idea is you punch guys in the face and they fall down, occasionally blocking and occasionally pulling out a special move to lay some smack down.

Both these dudes are playable.

This game, as stated above however, is still Dynasty Warriors. Although some things like making moves feel impactful, varied special maneuvers, and general feel of ebb and flow are greatly improved in this game. However, a lot of times you'll still feel like you're just button-mashing or flailing at falling enemies or crippled by an unresponsive camera. They're things that are easier to forgive given the game's reverence for the source material, but they don't make them any less inconvenient in this game as they were in Dynasty Warriors.

To wrap this thing up in a big paper bag, the demo is fun. Will the game be earth-shattering or change your feelings on Koei's never-ending "hit thousands of dudes" formula? Probably not. Still, if you're a fan of Hokuto no Ken or Dynasty Warriors (or both) it's sure to be a good time. For everyone else, the mechanics in here are different enough you may find yourself really liking the game. The only other thing for certain I can say is if you have any doubt about anything GO GET THE DEMO RIGHT NOW!