El Shaddai Review

[feeqmatic]

An abundance of advertising, and now the most one-sided review in Escapist history. Anyone else feel that maybe the makers of El Shaddai threw a little money The Escapist's way, if you know what I mean?

yeah i found this game to be pretty but highly flawed, but i think that the gaming journalism community as a whole is pulling for this game so that it can push the medium. Ironnically the most honest review i have seen was at IGN.com go fig

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

This didn't even mention that you can use the Japanese voices too, I feel that's a pretty big oversight.


I love the game, I only wonder if all the low reviews it's getting elsewhere is due to it depicting religious content which some may find offensive. I mean, Lucifer being on your side may rub people the wrong way lol.

 

[Arisato-kun]

inb4 Dragon Age 2 review

If people are still pissed about that then I feel sorry for them. They need to let it go and just not like the game in peace.

I'm pretty excited for this game. Loving everything about the art direction and I'm a big Devil May Cry fan. I'll have to wait to buy it though since my last big game purchase was Catherine and college just started up again. :/

 

[DJDarque]

The drastic difference between reviews and user comments has left me conflicted with whether or not I want to play this game. Part of me wonders if people are being overly harsh because the ad campaign, but part of me wonders if most of the praise it gets is solely based off aesthetics. This review said almost nothing bad about the game, which is weird, but I've read others that have, yet still praised it. Color me confused.

 

[feeqmatic]

The drastic difference between reviews and user comments has left me conflicted with whether or not I want to play this game. Part of me wonders if people are being overly harsh because the ad campaign, but part of me wonders if most of the praise it gets is solely based off aesthetics. This review said almost nothing bad about the game, which is weird, but I've read others that have, yet still praised it. Color me confused.

Honest opinion

Platforming- average and slightly flawed but ok

Combat- frustrating, boring, repetitive, and outdated

Aesthetics- Amazing, almost makes it all worth it... almost

if you are a fan of action brawler types like God of war, ninja gaiden, etc then this will leave you wanting, but if combat entertainment isnt all that important and you just want to breeze through for the games experience then go for it. After the demo and some time with the real game, my plan is to cop a used one and play it on easy so i can breeze through it to take in the games beauty.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ya it's a great looking thing but the gameplay itself is rather poor, combat is really shallow and platforming is very fuzzy because the art and world physics don't match up, it makes a great 20-30$ game, but at 60$ hell fucking no.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Looks nice, but play the demo first. Boring, generic fighter. Nothing is interesting apart from the art style, but even that cant save it. How you can rate it so highly is beyond me. Id give it a 2 out of 5, maybe a 3 if you are a person that likes that type of game.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The problem here seems that a lot of people come into this game wanting Bayonetta or DMC (the older ones) and fail to realize that this game is all about the story and environments and art style.


People should stop trying to have fun in the same way with their games, they should experience them in the terms they were meant to be experienced. We should get rid of the confines of genres, we shouldn't be saying "you're an action game, you should be like THIS", we should be saying, "wow, an action game not focused on the fighting but doing something different...I wonder how that experience will be!".

 

[RevRaptor]

I'm surprised everyone likes the art direction. It seems like an interesting idea to me, but horribly shallow. There seems to be no depth or detail to the environments. Now, I like things being minimalist and not cluttered, but El Shaddai actually looks unfinished to me in places. Funny, because I love impressionist paintings and total abstractions, but I'm not sure this nails it.

Plus, I can't get on board with that kind of gameplay. It looked like they found something that was solid, fairly original... And then just spammed it for the entire game. I can't see much depth in the fighting system either.

Bleh.

I agree to the gentleman above...the art style doesn't really appeal to me either (and neither the gameplay).

Gotta agree I've seen ps2 games with more details in their graphics, to me it looks like it lacks polish almost seems half finished.

 

[UltraDolphins]

I have to be honest on this one. I played it for about 30 minutes and then proceeded to throw demon's souls back in because it was so boring. I didn't like the camera and the combat was very bland early in the game. It lacked any substance to keep me entertained for long but I have to admit the story interests me and the art style is somewhat refreshing.

 

[LittleMikey]

An abundance of advertising, and now the most one-sided review in Escapist history. Anyone else feel that maybe the makers of El Shaddai threw a little money The Escapist's way, if you know what I mean?

Yeah, unfortunataly I don't trust a review that has paid advertising on the same page.

 

[Iron Lightning]

I don't know this game looks a bit pretentious, and I have "The Pretentionist" badge so I know what I'm talking about.

Seriously though, the aesthetics are nice but they're not supported by good mechanics. It's like if they took the Sistine Chapel ceiling and held it up with cardboard walls. If you want to make a thing that's based entirely on aesthetics then why not just make a painting or a film. Videogames are primarily an interactive medium and thus one ought to focus on the interactive bits when making a game. When a shallow work of art tries to make itself seem deep, that art is pretentious. I think that may be what we have here, mind you, I haven't seen very much of the game so maybe it'll surprise me with some clever musings on the patriarchy of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god or something like that.

If you played this game would you please tell me your thoughts on it?

 

[feeqmatic]

The problem here seems that a lot of people come into this game wanting Bayonetta or DMC (the older ones) and fail to realize that this game is all about the story and environments and art style.


People should stop trying to have fun in the same way with their games, they should experience them in the terms they were meant to be experienced. We should get rid of the confines of genres, we shouldn't be saying "you're an action game, you should be like THIS", we should be saying, "wow, an action game not focused on the fighting but doing something different...I wonder how that experience will be!".

I dont think its misguided to ask the game to have an adequate and fun combat system. Bayonetta, God of War, and Ninja Gaiden all have unique but almost equally entertaining combat systems, El Shaddai simply does not. If I wasnt meant to have fun with the Combat then i should be able to skip it, regardless of our opinions and hopes for the medium games are supposed to be fun first, art second. This game really got the art part down pack but is pretty weak on the game part.

 

[Username Redacted]

The game so far is gorgeous. The combat, while repetitive is infrequent enough to not be a drag. Also the platforming sections are also a really nice showcase for the games designers.

 

[martin's a madman]

No matter how good it actually is, the obnoxious ads really ruined the appeal of the game for me. I just don't want to see it.

Maybe I'll give it a shot eventually, but the annoying cliched voice booming over over-dramatic instrumentals being serious to a degree of silliness really put me off.

Made worse by the fact that they were unskippable and were the only ads playing for a time.

I don't mind ads, but I was getting smashed over the head with this one.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The problem here seems that a lot of people come into this game wanting Bayonetta or DMC (the older ones) and fail to realize that this game is all about the story and environments and art style.


People should stop trying to have fun in the same way with their games, they should experience them in the terms they were meant to be experienced. We should get rid of the confines of genres, we shouldn't be saying "you're an action game, you should be like THIS", we should be saying, "wow, an action game not focused on the fighting but doing something different...I wonder how that experience will be!".

I dont think its misguided to ask the game to have an adequate and fun combat system. Bayonetta, God of War, and Ninja Gaiden all have unique but almost equally entertaining combat systems, El Shaddai simply does not. If I wasnt meant to have fun with the Combat then i should be able to skip it, regardless of our opinions and hopes for the medium games are supposed to be fun first, art second. This game really got the art part down pack but is pretty weak on the game part.

Oh but I never said it wasn't fun, I said it wasn't fun in the conventional sense action games often tend to be fun. It's fun in a new sense of exploration, of highly imaginative storytelling and design. It basically takes you into a really spectacular world which is fun to experience, even though the fighting part isn't the deepest around it doesn't mean that the game is bad.

Hell, God of War is pretty shallow compared to DMC or Bayonetta as well but because it's gritty and bloody and manly and all that stupid stuff that sells in the west so it's heralded as one of the best games ever, I find the rather large discrepancy between the reception this game gets compared to it rather odd.

 

[The Random One]

Oh my god, awesome art direction! I've not heard of this game until now. I'll have to check it out.

Really? I guess you haven't noticed the metric ton of ads on the site without PubClub memberships. Hell, I can pretty much repeat the whole trailer I've seen it so many times.

Tempted by mankind, the corrupted angels fled from the heavens to create their own utopia on Earth. Now, a mortal returns to reclaim the souls of the fallen!

Ugh, don't remind me. In addition to that it also played before Checkpoint. It made me wish this game had a face so I could punch it in the balls.

I'm surprised this review is favourable, as the trailer made me think it was a game that tried to be deep and artistic but failed deeply. I'm more inclined to think the trailer was poorly made than that Tito is wrong, which just makes me angrier I had to watch it so many fucking times.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

The problem here seems that a lot of people come into this game wanting Bayonetta or DMC (the older ones) and fail to realize that this game is all about the story and environments and art style.


People should stop trying to have fun in the same way with their games, they should experience them in the terms they were meant to be experienced. We should get rid of the confines of genres, we shouldn't be saying "you're an action game, you should be like THIS", we should be saying, "wow, an action game not focused on the fighting but doing something different...I wonder how that experience will be!".

I don't agree that games should be played based on how the devs wanted it. Part of the fun is finding out how to play games the way you want to within the confines of the game engine.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The problem here seems that a lot of people come into this game wanting Bayonetta or DMC (the older ones) and fail to realize that this game is all about the story and environments and art style.


People should stop trying to have fun in the same way with their games, they should experience them in the terms they were meant to be experienced. We should get rid of the confines of genres, we shouldn't be saying "you're an action game, you should be like THIS", we should be saying, "wow, an action game not focused on the fighting but doing something different...I wonder how that experience will be!".

I don't agree that games should be played based on how the devs wanted it. Part of the fun is finding out how to play games the way you want to within the confines of the game engine.

That's fine but if you can't find something you want to do that is fun then it's your own fault, not the game's. The game does have a way for you to play and enjoy it, it's not it's fault that people misinterpret it and go at it the wrong way.


It's not like there's a ton of ways to play this game or anything though, what's the issue is that people were expecting to derive fun from the wrong aspects thus were let down, in effect they were blaming the game for their own expectations of it, ones it never tried to cultivate or enforce and that is unfair.