Title: El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron HD Remaster
Platform: Nintendo Switch eShop
Developer: UTV Ignition Tokyo (original)/Aqualead (Switch version)
Publisher: Crim (NA)
Release Date: April 28th, 2024 (NA)
File Size: 5GB
Review copy provided by Crim
This game has a bit of an interesting history. This was created by Sawaki Takeyasu, a veteran from Capcom’s Clover studio, the same studio that many key people from went on to form Platinum Games. Sawaki apparently took other Clover folks with him, and went to work at Ignition Entertainment (later renamed UTV Ignition) at their Tokyo studio. Nintendo fans may remember Ignition as the publisher that localized key games like Marvelous’ Muramasa: The Demon Blade and Arc Rise Fantasia for Wii, but also had created their own IPs like Mercury Meltdown by the late Archer Maclean. They most commonly published more niche stuff, like say, Tornado on DS plus a few Taito and SNK games here and there. There’s more to it so I’ll go into more detail below.
The intro cutscenes introducing Enoch (right) and his friend Lucifel (left).
Ignition also would have a couple studios dedicated to making HD games in the late 2000’s. One in London (originally called Digi-Guys) working on the ill-fated WarDevil (or Project Kane as it became known as near the end, weird I know) which got cancelled after NUMEROUS delays. The other was the aforementioned Tokyo studio making, you guessed it, El Shaddai. Luckily, the latter did release in 2011 and was pretty well-received, but I don’t believe it made a splash at retail at all, and after a few 3DS projects by Ignition overall, the whole thing shutdown in at around 2012 if I recall.
Sawaki managed to form a new team called Crim and acquired the IP. In fact, he made a sort of follow-up project that some might recognize; The Lost Child, published by Kadokawa and localized by NISA and released on Switch and other platforms (I even reviewed it!). Better yet, the main character of El Shaddai, Enoch (“ee-knock”) was actually an early recruitable monster in the game.
The first area you explore. What a sight to behold, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
Eventually a couple years back, Crim remastered El Shaddai on Steam, and sure enough, have decided to bring it to Switch as well. The Switch version was apparently by a pretty unknown dev called Aqualead who’ve apparently done some engine and support work under the radar? Not sure who even works there. Perhaps some of the original team went there? All I can find is the CEO is Hiroyuki Hayashibara, who apparently worked on a few games at or with Ganbarion (creators of Pandora’s Tower on Wii).
Anyway, El Shaddai is a very religious game based on the Book of Enoch and the god of Israel. However even the very first thing you see in the game upon boot up is that a disclaimer saying that the game was created by people with different religious beliefs. So whatever your faith, religion, etc., one thing’s for certain; this game is a visual EXPERIENCE.
An example of a gorgeous early 2D section.
The game at its core is something of a more simplistic character action game. You’re commonly traveling in a very linear pathway, fighting a few enemies in specific areas in said levels with combat that certainly has that Clover and Platinum flavor, but most of all it almost feels like a “road trip” sort of game because you’re just here for the journey in what I can almost call an LSD trip. This game is absolutely gorgeous, crazy, and you’ll never know what dazzling sights you’ll come across next.
Combat to be more specific has Enoch starting out bare-handed and can punch and kick folks, but you’ll soon fight enemies with weapons, and once you hit them enough, they’ll fall down with a blue ring around them; you then hit L and Enoch will then steal the weapon, purify it, and it’s yours to wield. You begin with an Arch for classic hack and slash combat, but in the next chapter, you’ll be able to steal the ring-like Gale weapons, which actually carry arrow-tip like bullets that allow you to fire homing shots at far-away opponents and objects, but it’s naturally weaker than the Arch. You’ll also be able to use the hard-hitting Vail weapon that adds a shield when blocking. You’ll also occasionally find these floating items that rotate through colored icons representing each of the three weapons Enoch can auto claim (like the green one is the Gale, etc.).
An example of a battle with the Gale weapon being used.
The game typically features 3D behind the character gameplay, but can occasionally feature 2D platforming areas, including one where you see these gorgeous and vivid stained-glass backgrounds. You’ll also do a lot of platforming in 3D as well and luckily you have unlimited lives at least when simply platforming; you fall and with a Switch like “snap” you’ll be back where you were no worse for wear. In combat, Enoch has no health bars but he sheds his armor as he loses health, and if you start falling down in slow-motion, you can save yourself by mashing the A button. You’re literally immortal anyway but you do risk having to restart from the last save/checkpoint if you fail that bit. Luckily it auto-saves all the time (every new loaded area), and your friend and guardian angel Lucifel will occasionally pop up on the field where you can do a proper save (the game warns you’ll lose your auto-save when loading a game so keep that in mind).
Graphically again it’s artistically brilliant. Wouldn’t shock me if some actual Okami artists worked on this to boot (there’s an area with black and white ink-like trees are around which really made me think of Okami). But on a technical level it’s a tad mixed. Not sure if this is a new thing on Switch, but there’s an Optimization Mode letting you pick HiRes Mode (apparently 1080p and 30fps in docked mode) and Action Mode (720p 60fps in docked mode). However the framerate is not really 60fps that often, only if it’s not really busy. You do notice a difference in terms of jaggies from one to the other. I did have an issue telling any difference between the modes originally (the HiRes mode when ran at 60fps in bits too), but an update to 1.0.2 seemingly fixed this as I noticed the differences afterwards.
The game’s rather basic achievement list.
Audio-wise it’s outstanding. The game is shockingly fully-voice acted and unlike in Arc Rise Fantasia, the voice work here is fantastic. Like why wasn’t THIS team on that one?! The music as well has some beautiful choir work and seemingly orchestral (or simulated) and it’s just wonderful to the ears. Seriously the whole thing comes across as an absolute labor of love for art, like so much of this stuff could come from a museum, it’s nuts.
Overall while the gameplay is pretty okay, it absolutely gets a top recommendation just to experience this fine display of artistry on display. It’s crazy what they pulled off on PS3 and 360 with the lighting, effects, etc. But again more artistically than technical. UTV Ignition must’ve given them quite the budget and time to pull this stuff off, but unfortunately not enough as apparently the game’s story was left unfinished. HOWEVER the Switch version (maybe PC too) includes a sort of written conclusion of sorts from what I recall reading to provide a more complete story? That’s amazing if so.
You’ll Love:
- The sheer artistry at work; the visuals, the voice work, the music, it’s absolutely top notch.
- The combat is pretty fun, especially the long-range Gale weapon.
- Virtually endless lives/continues (however it does seem if you “die” too often, it becomes harder to revive yourself). However even then, the game checkpoints in virtually every single area anyway, so you’re never too far behind if you do actually die.
- Has screenshot, video capture, and cloud save support for NSO members.
You’ll Hate:
- I mean if you can’t stand stuff about god, angels, and whatnot religious stuff, you’ll likely not be a fan here… but then, you’d have stopped reading this ages ago anyway, heh!
- Some enemies go down quicker or slower at random, even the same ones, it’s very odd where you can spam the Gale weapon but some enemies seem to take ages to go down, with it not being clear if enemies even have a set amount of health, it’s very bizarre. On that note, you can only carry one weapon at a time, so if you have a Gale and want an Arch or the Vail, you need to steal one all over again. Swapping weapons on the fly would be much preferable.
8/10
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