Great graphics, but nothing more to do other than jump on platforms and defeat enemies.
DMC. No, it's not that famous rapist I'm talking about....it's short for Devil May Cry, a name with so much impact among gamers that, when people knew it's creator, Sawaki Takeyasu, was making the game, gamers from all over the world got their minds blown, thinking it'd be one of the greatest games of its type, leveling with Bayonetta, God of War, Dante's Inferno and DMC itself.
How wrong I was thinking that way too. First, it's not made by Capcom. And things get worse...
--STORY--
I'm not that much linked to religious culture and those things, so the story is a little confused to understand (another bad point...who needs to have intellect on something not-basic to understand a game? On the Persona series, lots of the personas' types are based on tarot's major arcanas, but even if you don't know anything about it, the game shows a very brief revision about, and even so, the story of the game itself isn't influenced on it)...*sigh*...
Apparently, you're Enoch, some angel or semi-god sort of guy who needs to take a group of archangels back to heaven before their plan, leadened by Semyaza, to wipe out mankind gets concluded.
All of this with the help of God himself and his...I don't know, he's some kind of interpreter or link between Him and the main character.
--GAMEPLAY--
Indeed, the gameplay looks a lot like DMC, where you must defeat enemies that appear on-screen (some of them you can ignore, but not the ones who wear the God's weapons or the bosses) in order to advance to the next area, and so on until you get to the boss or complete the stage.
Though, unlike other games of the genre, it's interface is pretty straight-forward, with almost no detours along the way. On these types of games, you usually collect orbs or objects like that to power-up your weapons, unlock combos or expand your life meter. Here, those orbs you collect almost don't have any effect or whatsoever in the game except upgrading your weapon's damage (very little) and, mid-game on, making the overboost mode take longer to go off.
Collectibles are very few, only finding some people who give you a more in-deep view of the characters' meaning in the religious context and finding portals to the Darkness, which leads to a dungeon where you can find Ishtar Bones, but I haven't seen any use of them at all...maybe it's for expanding your health meter but I haven't collected enough of it...(because they're very hard to get without a walkthrough)
--PROS AND CONS--
First, the positive aspects:
The graphics, as everyone talks so much about it, are definitely the game's prime aspect. Characters animations and expressions are very detailed and the Cel-Shading style of graphics give them a feel of an anime story. The game RARELY slows down (I've only seen this in the main menu, but in-game it's very rare) and its 60 fps frame rate makes the game fluent and beautiful to the eyes.
Some may think of a negative aspect, but not having any health gauge/map cursor on screen makes the game even cooler, like you're watching a movie.
Now, the bad aspects:
that's right, graphics are the only great thing of this game. All the rest looks it's missing something.
First, there's only 3 weapon types: an arch that works like a sword, the gale, that is a disc that generates projectiles to throw at enemies, and a glove-like shield similar to DMC3's Beowulf Fists. Sure, they're very balanced, and you may use (especially on higher difficulties) the correct type for each enemy, but every other game uses more than that, or at least makes those weapons have powerful combos as you level up, like in Dante's Inferno. Here, all the combos are unlocked right off the bat, and since there's only one attack button (technically two, but they do the same thing) you'll have to time it just right to get the right attacks done.
No magics. That's just horrible (Gamespot censored my opinion about it)
Jumping controls are horrendous, not working when you need them most (meaning, when you have to jump on small platforms).
And last but not least, not having a single thing to do besides hit bad guys, jump on platforms and hit bosses. I don't care if the 3D and the 2D stages looks great, it looks like all the 8 hours playing this game have gone to waste with just this little aspect. Games like DMC, Bayonetta and God of War bypass this flaw with the correct use of cutscenes, dialog moments and puzzles. Here, you'll find only a motorcycle stage (I think it's stage 7 or 8...I'm sure it was Armaros's stage) and when you control Armaros after you battled him, but it's not that cool since the first stage I mentioned is almost a cutscene by itself, and the other, even if you control another character, you keep doing the same old thing.
Dialogues are boring no matter how you look at it, and even with a narrator between stages, you'll find yourself only defeating people one after another. Cutscenes don't have much speaking (Enoch's only phrase in the game is "Don't worry. Everything's alright") and are boring too.
I know I put a lot of flaws on this game, but unfortunately, it's the way I see this game. Some games, regardless of its genre, can be even more repetitive than El Shaddai, but give players all the joy a videogame can give to them. What better example than Mario games? Even if it is Nintendo's exclusive franchise, all you do is jump around, stomp on enemies and bosses and solve puzzles, and even if you die a lot on the game, it's still fun. For non-exclusive titles, Left for Dead is a blast to play, even more in multiplayer, and all you do in the game is shoot zombies and mutants.
I could write pages and pages of games that are simple and fun. El Shaddai is simple, have great graphics, but without the fun of its gaming precedents, barely made to be a good game at all.