A good set of trophies is a treasure
map to experiencing all that a game has to offer. When I played
through El Shaddai the first time, I found it very interesting, both
gameplay and theme-wise, but I also found it to be a little shallow.
When I came back to it a few months later to try and get some
trophies, I was led to new ways to play the game that revealed its
true depth and fun.
El Shaddai's theme and aesthetic needs
to be discussed in depth. It is based on the apocryphal Book of
Enoch, an ancient religious text. I'm actually reading it now because
I got so into it from this game. In the game, seven angels have left
heaven and have begun impregnating human women, and also corrupting
mankind and directing them away from God. Some elders in heaven
decide to destroy the world in a catastrophic, Noah and the Ark style
flood to rid it of the corruption and the fallen angels' destructive,
immortal offspring, the Nephilim. The player character, Enoch, a
human scribe in heaven (whom the Bible says was taken up to heaven by
God, presumably without dying) doesn't want this to happen, and
petitions God to reconsider. God agrees that he will not flood the
earth if Enoch can go to earth, imprison the fallen angels, and
return them to heaven. Enoch takes up this holy mission and heads to
earth with 5 angels commissioned to help him, including Lucifel. Yes,
that is some kind of Engrish version of Lucifer. In El Shaddai, he is
still an unfallen angel, one of God's most powerful agents, and
Enoch's near constant companion. It's hard to understand why Lucifel
is one of the good guys in this game.
Lucifel seems to exist outside of
time. He wears designer clothes (so does Enoch) and is in constant
communication with God via cell phone as you are out on your mission.
In the intro movie, he seems confused about when the story takes
place, as he isn't experiencing time in a linear fashion. Perhaps
that is why he isn't Satan yet; events don't have to occur in logical
order for him. At any rate, he acts as the game's narrator since
Enoch is a near silent protagonist (although he does speak a little).
Lucifel speaks to Enoch at the beginning of every level and shows up
several times during each level to report to God on what's happening.
You only hear one side of these phone calls to heaven, and they are
very cleverly done. He says stuff like, “No, I haven't told him
about that yet,” and “Something like that exists? You have to
feel bad for Enoch,” along with many other clever lines that work
really well. His voice acting is amazing, some of the best I've
heard. The actor has some great inflection that sounds very natural
and real instead of cheesy. Most every line is delivered perfectly.
Enoch, on the other hand, is the
silent type, although he does speak a little throughout the game. He
wears designer jeans underneath his beautiful heavenly armor. If you
look closely, you'll see his blonde hair is on fire – with blonde
fire. Enoch's animation is amazing. There are so many combat moves,
and each one is intricately animated. Especially impressive are the
animations for stealing weapons, where he grabs, grapples, and spins
enemies while stealing their hardware.
Enoch and Lucifel both have a
metro-sexual or male model look to them. Lucifel sports a
shirt with the bottom unbuttoned so you can see his belly button.
Enoch spends a lot of the time running around with just his designer
jeans on if his armor gets shattered. I can see this being off
putting for some, but if you think it would turn you off to the game,
it helps that their voices are totally normal, not at all like bad
anime voice acting, so fear not.
Each set of enemies that you encounter
in the different levels are similar in their behavior, but each has a
unique aesthetic to their armor and what they look like as you break
their armor down to nothing. Some simply have armor that is
aesthetically different and some have a variation on standard armor,
like capes and crazy shapes following them around. Others are more
distinct, such as the set that doesn't have armor but instead have
rings for heads. Instead of breaking their armor down, the parts of
the ring break off as you fight them. Also, they are made out of what
appears to be an ever-flowing mud. I've heard the enemy design
criticized in another review, but I think it's great.
You'll be fighting these enemies in
many different landscapes. These vista's are the stars of the show in
many ways. Most of the game takes place inside the fallen angels'
tower stronghold. Each of the seven angels has a floor on the tower
that represents what they are about. Each one is a drastically
different feast for your eyes and ears. Typically, they are surreal
vistas unlike anything you've seen before. Trippy visuals are almost
becoming cliché to me in video games since so many games seem to
have them these days, but El Shaddai's crazy design is far and away
some of the totally craziest, and most stunningly beautiful and
original. I don't know how to describe it to you really. One level is
mainly pastel colors with trees whose leaves are like a fire or a
giant piece of fabric blowing in the wind. Faces move through the air
and laugh and blow cartoonish wind swirls. Crystalline stairs appear
to lead you to the next area. You walk through pools of water on the
ground. Giant waves of clouds carry you forward. That's all just part
of one level, and each one is totally different. There are some very
surprising levels that I don't want to spoil. Really, each time you
leave an area and the game loads up another, you don't know what
you're going to see next. It could be anything, and it's surprising
and beautiful and different so many times in this game you will lose
count. I feel like if I wanted to comprehensively show you all the
different environments and areas in this game a thousand screen shots
would be a good start. They wouldn't do it justice though. Almost
every area in the game also has an overlay or underlay of a static or
moving design. It's hard to describe, you kind of have to see it. One
level has what looks like shafts of dull light permeating it in the
foreground. Another has more tangible dots almost blocking your view.
Another has an almost graffiti-like jumble of color that moves
through every platform. You really need to see it on your tv to know
how wonderful each effect looks, I doubt you can even really see what
it looks like in a youtube video. The few levels that take place
outside of the tower are also really great. Every single area of
every single level is aesthetically pleasing, ranging from
interesting to wonderful to stunning. I'm not exaggerating when I say
it will probably go down in history as one the best aesthetically
designed games in the trippy/abstract/artsy category, not to be
topped for many years.
The overall feel of the game's story,
being on a mission from God, is also quite unique. It really immerses
you in the feeling of being backed by the unstoppable power of God
and his agents, the feeling that you will succeed. Part of it is the
way the game handles death (you can come back to life many times mid-battle before being truly killed and getting a game over). Part of it is the
way the other four angels who come to earth with you, who are
represented as geese or swans (I don't know my birds too well)
constantly talk to you. They are often out of sight, but as they say
they will be at the beginning of the game, they are always with you,
and their voices can chime in at any time to give you advice,
encouragement, or warning. It actually reminds me of the constant
radio chatter in the 2d PSOne shooter Philosoma. The near constant
communication was something that really stood out in that game, and
it does the same here. Gabriel's amazing, airy voice telling you to
“proceed with caution,” is a seemingly small touch that adds
tremendously to the experience. There is also this feeling of
movement and going forward that the game really nails. A great
example (although there are many others) is the first level, which
has you searching for the fallen angels' tower. It has you running
through frozen, icy landscapes, full speed as the the camera
dramatically follows you and the angels give you your initial pep
talk, including the amazing line “Show mercy, love, and forgiveness
in the name of the Lord.” The level takes many visual and design
twists (as most of the levels do) and has a really stunning and
unique last few sections as you near the tower. The last time I saw
anything like some of these elements was in a Metal Gear game, and I shall say no more.
As a Christian, I found several
elements of the story to line up well with my theology, and I expect
anyone of the Judeo-Christian persuasion would find the same. There
are also quite a few things that don't line up with my theology (or
probably anyone's, for that matter). Keep in mind this is an
apocryphal book made into a Japanese style video game, so it is twice
removed from what most people would consider canonical. That second
removal is kind of a doozy too. Nevertheless, if you are of Jewish or
Christian belief, the themes of the power of God, forgiveness, fallen
angels, Lucifer/Lucifel, Nephilim, and a catastrophic flood may be
interesting and thought provoking to you. Just be prepared to take it
all in with several grains of salt.
As you can probably tell, the theme
and artistic design of this game are a big highlight. The experience
of playing the game is really something every gamer who is into such
things needs to check out. The gameplay is also impressive.
The basic controls have you moving
with the left stick, jumping with cross or circle (pressing again to
double jump), attacking with square or triangle, guarding with R1,
and stealing a weapon or purifying the weapon you have with L1. You
need to purify your weapon from time to time as vileness from the
enemies you are fighting builds up on it, weakening its attack
strength. It would have been nice to have purify and steal on different
buttons, since I had several instances of stealing when I just wanted
to purify.These controls sound simple, but actually go quite a bit deeper than they first appear to.
Pressing square rapidly produces a
fast combo. Delaying your button presses so that you tap square a bit
after your last tap launches you into a guard-break move that flanks
the enemy and breaks through their defensive stance. Holding R1 and
pressing square launches your special attack, which launches enemies
in the air with two of the weapons, and attacks quickly with slower
3rd weapon. You can charge up an attack by holding square,
and this attack animation cannot usually be interrupted, unlike other
attack animations which you can be knocked out of. You can do a dive
attack while in the air by holding square, or an alternate dive
attack by holding R1 and pressing square while in the air. If you
press R1 just before an enemy hits you will perform a perfect guard,
stunning them, although you have to be careful as some weapons are
better or worse at blocking certain attacks. Finally, pressing R1 and
L1 at the same time when overboost is available will start
overboost mode. While in overboost mode, one of the angels who is with you mimics your attacks, causing extra damage for a limited time.
If you press R1 and L1 again before time runs out, you will perform a
flashy super attack. Overboost mode doesn't have a meter to charge up
or anything like that, it just is available every once in awhile. On
normal mode, it just seemed to show up from time to time. In harder
difficulties, it becomes apparent that guarding, especially perfect
guarding, helps to make it available more often. There may be other
criteria to activating it too, but that's just what I noticed and
read about online. If you die, mashing on the face and shoulder
buttons will bring you back to life, and cause Enoch to say his
amazing, I'm miraculously still around catch phrase, “No problem,
everything's fine.” This gets harder to do each time he dies,
however, and if you can't mash hard enough, you get a game over.
The three weapons I've been alluding
to are all otherworldly and unique, and all control differently, with
a different move set mapped to the same controls. They all also give
you a unique movement control. The arch is sort of like a sword. It
looks like a bow and arrow, but you hold it by what would be the
string side, and the part that would be the wooden part of a bow is a
blazing, serrated energy blade that's constantly moving like a
chainsaw. Pressing R1 and cross with the arch makes you do a quick
hopping dodge. It's kind of useless on normal mode, but invaluable
for surviving harder difficulties. You can also hold cross when you
have it equipped to slow your descent when falling. The arch is
strong against the veil, and weak against the gale.
The gale is a long range weapon. It
consists of a circular control unit that floats behind you, and
projectiles that hover around you until you shoot them out. When you
have it equipped, you can perform a really fast dash by pressing R1
and cross, which allows you to extend the length of your jump to
reach out of the way spots, or to dodge in battle. The gale has the
weakest guard strength and is is weak against the veil, and strong
against the arch.
The veil is like a big shield when you
are guarding, but you rip it into two gauntlets when you attack with
it. It is a slower melee weapon, but has strong attacks. It is also
the best weapon for guarding. Pressing cross while holding R1 allows
you to move while guarding. The veil has the strongest guard; it's
able to block some attacks or strings of attacks that the other
weapons can't in similar situations. There are also certain obstacles
in the environment that only its attacks can break. It is weak
against the arch, and strong against the gale.
The way the weapons interact using the
rock-paper-scissors concept is really great. Attacking someone with a
weapon they are weak against can interrupt their attacks. Attack them
with a weapon they are strong against, and they'll probably power
through and nail you.
You also fight bare handed in some
situations, with a limited move set.
When playing on normal mode, I
preferred the arch, since I could mash my way through with its
familiar sword-like attacks with little problem. When playing on the
hardest difficulty, Extra, the gale was my weapon of choice, as not
getting hit by staying at a distance was paramount. On hard mode while trying to get high
scores, I preferred to use either the gale or the veil. The veil is
the slowest and most cumbersome weapon, but once you learn how to
properly guard with it and when to attack with it, it becomes
extremely effective.
El Shaddai's fighting system is deep
and satisfying. You will probably read other reviews that say it is
shallow. You will definitely see tons of people saying it is shallow
on message boards. And on normal mode, it is shallow. But, if you
follow up with the trophies like I was talking about in the beginning
of the review, you will see just how amazingly thought out and deep
it gets. You can beat normal mode by mashing on square. You cannot
beat extra mode or get the high scoring G ranks needed to get the
harder trophies by doing anything but mastering the games fighting
systems. You'll quickly learn about the paper-rock-scissors nature of
the three weapons, and which attacks to use with each weapon when
fighting an enemy with a weapon it is stronger or weaker against. You'll think
about how to deal enough damage to an enemy to weaken them enough so
that you can steal their weapon before they take too much damage and
die. You'll think about what order to fight enemies in, both so that
they are easier to manage, and to abuse the way enemies spawn in
patterns based on what weapon you kill the previous enemy with to get an enemy to
spawn with the weapon you want to steal next. Whenever I got into a
fight while trying to get the high scores needed for the “conqueror”
trophy, I would need to analyze the fight like it was a puzzle (first
I have to steal this guy's weapon so I can kill this guy with it,
causing a guy with the weapon I need to spawn so I can steal that,
then I need to kill this guy even though he has a weapon mine is
weak against by using this technique so I can then use his weapon to
kill this last guy. I can press L1 to steal his weapon, then hold R1
and press square to launch him into the air, press square twice to
combo him in the air, then hold square to do a spinning dive attack
as he falls, knocking him into a wall, then as I land I'll hold
square to do a charged attack and finish him off before he gets up...
and on and on). The combat is challenging, exciting, and thanks to
the huge array of great animations and great camera pans and zooms,
beautiful to watch. Unfortunately, like I said, normal mode requires
little more than mashing square to win, so you aren't going to see
any of this depth your first time through. It is good training for
the next few run throughs on harder difficulties, but I fear many
people will label it as shallow and never touch the game again after
beating it the first time. I've heard people say it's worth a
playthrough for the visuals, but that the gameplay is sub par. That's
kind of true on your first playthrough, but if you go deeper, so will
your gameplay experience, and you'll be learning new moves, combos,
and techniques many hours into your quest to finish all the trophies.
It's no spoiler that the boss fights
include fighting fallen angels. You get a little preview of these
fights from time to time as an angel will show up and fight you for a
bit. You can either win these fights by breaking a piece of the
boss's armor, or lose if they break your armor first. Either way, the
game continues. But when you fight theses bosses for real, you're in
for a lengthy slug fest. In order to beat them, you have to whittle
their armor down from full protection all the way down to their
jumpsuits underneath. This physical representation is the only
indicator of hit points, both for you and these bosses (and normal enemies), and it's a
really cool way of doing it. There are no on screen indicators at all
in El Shaddai (although beating the game let's you unlock the hidden
hp meters as a cool little bonus). Watching how much armor is on your
body, and how much the fallen angels or the normal enemies have is
your only clue as to how much more beating you have to do. There are
also quite a few other bosses that are less...humanoid. They are all
great fun to figure out and fight.
You're going to run into a few levels
that deviate from the normal pattern of the others. I don't want to
spoil what you'll be doing in them too much. The gameplay in these
levels can be quite different than the main game. The one that
involves driving is not very good. It kind of just happens, you don't
have to really do much to pass it, even on the harder difficulties, although it looks really cool.
The others are really great highlights in the game, both
aesthetically and story wise, and their gameplay is solid.
There are also a lot of 2d platforming
areas, along with many 3d platforming areas. These work ok, but
something is a little off with the physics. I missed a lot of jumps
while playing, both in 2d and 3d. It's hard to describe, but at
times, it just doesn't feel right, and you end up falling. I found I
did the least falling when I just ran through at top speed without
thinking about it. It's quite lacking when compared to a game like
Outland, which has rock-solid platforming that feels so perfect from
your first jump to your last.
The automatic camera is very good. A
lot of people have called for the game to have manual camera
controls. I disagree. The auto-camera does a really great job. Being
able to move it yourself wouldn't add anything to the gameplay. In my
opinion the auto-camera is part of what makes exploring the beautiful
environments so thrilling. It frames things really beautifully. In
combat, it does a great job of following the action and keeping all
the enemies visible. I got messed up by it about 8 or so times when
it didn't show me all the enemies or shifted unexpectedly. 8 bad
shots out of thousands and thousands of camera movements is way
better than I would do with manual controls. Integrating the dramatic
zoom-ins and angle changes that frequently occur during particularly
flashy attacks would also probably not work well with manual camera
controls, and seeing the games animations in detail in these
automatic camera shots is such a big part of El Shaddai's aesthetic.
El Shaddai's music includes some
choirs, some tribal singing, some great, epic exploration themes, and
more mysterious tunes, as well as great combat music that lends a
sense of stress and conflict. It's all good stuff.
The story is really great, but some
outside information is needed to understand certain parts of it. At
the very least, read the story write up in the instruction manual,
and I'd also suggest going online and reading about its topics on
Wikipedia or elsewhere. Unless you happen to be a Biblical or
religious scholar, you're probably going to miss some of what is
going on and what certain events might mean. And even once you've
read about it, it's still going to be confusing at parts. El Shaddai
isn't really interested in explaining itself to you, but in a good
way. Figuring things out, coming up with theories and interpretations
and meanings, and reading about other peoples' thoughts on the game
was part of the enjoyment for me.
So, definitely my longest review thus
far. It's partially because there isn't much out there that is like
El Shaddai, so I have to explain a lot about it to give you an
accurate picture of what it is like to play it, which is the goal of
all of my reviews. It's also partially because I had so much fun
getting into the real meat of the game and getting that platinum
trophy. I've thought long and hard about giving El Shaddai a perfect
score, but it's going to have to be a great game, tier 2. This is
mainly because the first playthrough can be a little boring gameplay
wise. I took a long break between my first playthrough and my trophy
run, and almost didn't come back at all. I would have missed out on
an amazing gaming experience, I'm so glad I picked the controller
back up. But it wouldn't be fair to say it's tier 1, since the other
game's in that category (which are all games I've played before
starting these online reviews) are really just about flawless. El
Shaddai is a hair away from the near perfection these other games
have, that hair being it's lack of engagement the first time through.
Stick with it though, and that nigh perfect experience awaits as you
seek out those hard trophies.
P.S. What games am I alluding to that I
haven't reviewed on Robotic Attack Squadron but are tier 1? Ico,
Monster Hunter Freedom, Mana Khemia, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Wipeout
HD (in no particular order, don't make me choose!), to name a few.
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