In this coming season of gaming sequels, as nice as it is to revisit familiar territory, what I’m crying out for is an original gaming experience. Be careful what you wish for, I say.

I’m a few hours into El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron and I’ve still no real idea what I’ve got on my hands here. This game is as confusing as its title. It has been a while since I’ve played a game that beckons players into such unfamiliar territory.

El Shaddai is based on the ancient and esoteric Book of Enoch. Whilst not considered canonical scripture by many religious creeds, the text tells the story of Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah, and his ascension into Heaven to become the Metatron, the angel that communicates the word of God. The “El Shaddai” from the game’s title is conventionally translated to mean God Almighty.

The story of Enoch is confusing enough, as it is told though many contradictory religious texts. When filtered through the mind of Japanese video game designer Takeyasu Sawaki the result is somewhat abstract to say the least.

What we end up with is an incredibly unusual and altering artistic styling that is both beautiful and unsettling as the same time, like strange dream.  If the designers at Ignition Games told me that they’ve never tried psychedelics, I’d say that they were lying or they need to go have a brain-scan ‘cos there’s something very perception altering going on in their heads.

From what I can gather from the frankly bizarre plot, Enoch has been charged with bring the fallen angels, who are currently residing on Earth, back to Heaven. If he fails God will unleash a great flood to cleanse the Earth.  Enoch’s mentor, Lucifel (better known as Lucifer to you and I), reports on your progress via a mobile phone to an unseen recipient. Very odd, indeed.

When I started playing, I pigeon-holed the game as a Devil May Cry as reimagined after ingesting peyote. This makes a bit of sense, as Takeyasu Sawaki was one Devil May Cry’s character designers. Enoch starts out having to fight his way towards the tower that houses the seven fallen angles. On his way he must steal weapons form the angel’s allies. The first is the Arch- a curved blade that looks like a cross between a lightsaber and a hacksaw, then there’s the Gale- a sort of projectile firing belt-thing and finally the Veil- a shield that splits to form a pair of powerful gauntlets.

All this combat works pretty much in the same hack and slash way that we’ve enjoyed in the Devil May Cry series, which isn’t a bad thing. The combat is easy to pick up and very satisfying. It’ll soon have you chaining combos with ease, which is handy as you are going to need to get to grips with Enoch’s fighting abilities early on. Being a Japanese influenced affair, El Shaddai supplies plenty of challenging boss battles that’ll bloody your nose if you are not careful.

As if challenged by my smug and hasty assessment, the game environment morphed into a series of broken paths reinventing itself as a 3D platform game.  Further on, platforms raised and lowered further cementing El Shaddai’s genre shift.

A little later on and the game changes genre one again, this time to a classic 2D sideways scrolling platformer.  Enoch is silhouetted against the backdrop of a breathtakingly detailed stained glass window depiction of the various angels. As you can see, the game challenges your expectations whenever it can, defying convention. As I mentioned earlier, I’m only a few hours in and I’ve no idea of what’s coming next and doubt very much that it’ll be more of the same.

The in-game graphical presentation changes so radically that it’s difficult to easily put it into words. A barren, monochrome, organic-looking dreamscape will give way to a Tron-like vista filled with trippy, geometric shapes. Even the cut scenes provide a contrasting artistic style though the use of beautiful painterly animations look that are absolute pleasure to behold.

If I was forced into a corner right now, I’d say that El Shaddia is probably best described as an action platformer; a simple description that doesn’t really do the game justice at all. I guarantee that you’ve never seen anything like this before.

I do have a niggling fear that the impressive presentation style masks a very basic game that is, at its heart, no more than a mish-mash of familiar game types. That being said, it’s nice to see a developer being so brave and trying something new, and for that alone I wish the game every success. Whilst I’m sure that the game will find a very receptive audience out there, I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks find El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron a bit too odd.

Watch out for the full review coming soon to Game Culture.

Words by Darren Price.