[DJ]

Yo.

So I bought this a little while back and, since I finished Deus Ex and don't really wanna get sucked into another playthrough of that right away, I figured I'd see about this one instead:



Right, so. I'm gonna play this for a bit and update with my thoughts. Pictures are unfortunately limited to my phone (i.e. are going to suck) unless my new camera miraculously arrives on a Sunday in the mail.

Anyhoo, I basically don't know anything about this game. I played it very briefly beforehand but was half-asleep for most of it so I'm starting fresh. All I really know going into it is that it's supposedly absurdly pretty and/or weird in that way that only Christian mythology viewed through the lens of Japan can be.

Aaand in goes the disc...



And the game has to install. Hooray.

Hey you can see my reflection in the TV.

Damn I have horrible posture.

Anyway might as well embed the trailer in case nobody's seen this game yet:


_________________

[DJ]

Woah.

Okay, so, in the first, oh, 15 minutes of the game, you die twice, descend to earth(?) on a giant stone seven-fingered hand, and then the credits roll while you play a 2D sidescroller consisting of Enoch's silhouette while stained-glass panels roll by and you catch snippets of conversation from various people commenting on things like getting married and wondering why you never seem to age as baroque text pops up saying things like "24 Years" "100 Years" etc. Apparently this is how the game explains that Enoch is searching for the tower of Babel for 350+ years.

When you finally find it, it appears to be a forked whale's tail sticking out of the snowy ground that then lashes up and cracks a giant sphere in reality to allow you to find the Real Tower of Babel.

Also Lucifer saves your game by calling God on a cell phone.

The game only has one attack button and you can't really die.

I'm at kind of a loss.

I left the game paused to write this and it's making spirally lights dance across the screen while a children's choir sings.

I haven't even been playing for an hour yet.

I need to invest in some drugs.
_________________

[DJ]

I have some booze. I guess that'll work.
_________________

[mauve]

I am eagerly anticipating the reactions to some of the WTF shit that comes later.
_________________
twit

[Moogs]

Can I just say that when you die the first time and the screen goes black and then the prompt comes up to tell you to jam on the buttons to resurrect yourself and then the screen just stays black... like... I had no idea it was telling me to come back to life NOW. And then Satan was all like, "Um..."

So I jam on the buttons and come back, but the game fucking REWINDS all the way back to the title screen.

IT REWINDS.

I WAS SO FUCKING CONFUSED.

[rendaw]

I was following the works of this guy who was working for the Florida division for the company, although I don't think they were working on El Shaddai: http://2delucius.deviantart.com/journal/39684875/

Summary: It sounds like the game he was working on changed direction (180 degrees) repeatedly until they ran out of money. Maybe this is what you get if you don't run out of money?

[DJ]

I fought Silver and Gold Tron Extras, which was actually a reasonably neat fight. I'll give them some credit for making a one-button attack scheme actually have some depth.

So I stole their weapon, purified it, was informed I can use it to dash, and promptly dashed off a cliff to my death and now I have to fight them again.

/sadtrombone

But yeah at the very least this game does the best job I've ever seen of depicting different planes of existence while still being (somewhat) comprehensible.



It's like the Earthworm Jim Hell level but on even more acid. All that shit in the background is animated. There's fireworks going off.
_________________

[Deadcat]

I'm surprised that SB wasn't all over this game on the release date. Can't wait to see where this all goes.

Does the story start with making even a lick of sense? I really liked the demo for this but I couldn't connect any of the dialogue and cutscenes into anything coherent. Maybe that was intentional?

[diplo]

Man, can we please stop doing the "just how high did these ppl have 2 be..." in response to unusual/colorful depictions.

Mostly wondering if this game's environments are not "run, run, run, and sometimes perform a few fine hops."

[analogos]

The demo would suggest that this is the case, but it was a pretty short demo.

I would at least give the game the credit of complicating those jumps if by nothing else than its insistence on disorienting the player via perspectival and planal trickery. This might not have much to do with their intentions for the level design, though. In all likelihood it's just an outgrowth of an otherwise predetermined aesthetic conceit.

[DJ]

This is pretty much Killer 7 part 2, so far. You're running and jumping along fairly linear paths, but the plot is so completely insane that you're thoroughly entertained regardless.

It doesn't make any sense right now, but neither did Killer 7 at first and it eventually actually had some resolution, so I'm not too worried at this point.

[DJ]

In Ezekiel's plane right now (I'm just going to start calling them planes because that's what they are.) I'm digging the music so far.
_________________

[DJ]

what the fuck



okay need more booze
_________________

[DJ]

Pretty diggin' having a veil. Favorite weapon so far by far.
_________________

[DJ]

I am now running down a long flaming colon. Lucifer is here. Of course.
_________________

[spinach]

this sounds amazing
_________________

[DJ]

Gonna pack it in for tonight, I think. I managed to beat the two glowing armor clad pigs and move on to the next plane in the tower, then I got thrown into some kind of weird Mario 3 secret zone thing where I was jumping on the hoola hoops of the giant blobmen who are apparently the results of angels and humans fucking. Archangel Michael was giving me advice the whole time, stuff like "don't die". Thanks, asshole.

But yeah. I'll pick this back up tomorrow morning. If anyone who's beaten this cares to chime in on the fucking insanity I am witnessing, please do.
_________________

[DJ]

Lucifer told me "If you're good you can get through this in about 7 hours" when I got to the tower of Babel.

I'm gonna watch some Netflix for a bit.
_________________

[ghostribbon]

I really wanted to buy this, but then I played the demo, and decided there's no way it's worth spending $60 on.

It looks cool, and I like the plot and all that, but it plays kind of... meh. Definitely getting it when the price drops down to like, $20 or $30, though.
_________________

[remote]

This is one I really want to pick up when it's 20-30 bucks (and I have money).
_________________

letterboxd | last.fm | steam

[Rud31]

[Moogs]

Gamefly says I can keep it for $38. I predict that price will drop soon enough.

[gooktime]

yeah, going to wait a fortnight and pick it up at £19

[Sniper Honeyviper]

Yeah, I think we all saw through the bullshit in this one. The fighting has even less substance than Okami!

[Moogs]

This should have been Alice: Madness Returns.

[TXTSWORD]

So frustrated to have this whole day to play videogames without anyone bothering me and there's literally nothing I want to play. Oct/Nov can't come fast enough.

[DJ]

Okay guys picking this back up. Holy hell I slept 'till noon. Too much Third Strike and Gin last night. Coincidentally my roommate is very bad at Third Strike.

Alright, gonna hop in the shower then back to El Shaddai.
_________________

[Mikey]

[DJ]

Man that was a pretty big/long flaming colon. I'd have to have some kind of deity wiener.

Also I actually haven't done much in this game yet because I decided to get food first. Totally gonna play it more though! It's honestly visually engrossing enough that its other shortcomings (simple combat, linear progression, doesn't even attempt to make anything resembling sense plot-wise) are falling by the wayside. I really just want to see what else it's going to throw at me in terms of artwork and so far it has not disappointed. This might actually be the weirdest game I have ever played. It makes Killer 7 look like Gears of War.
_________________

[DJ]

Okay done eating. Gonna start nnnnnnnow.

Dunno how far I'm gonna get as I'm one of those people who plays games in several small chunks instead of one long sitting (working videogame QA will ruin any enjoyment of long sittings of gaming for you forever I've found), so the odds of me getting sidetracked before I have to go to bed are pretty strong, but we'll see!
_________________

[DJ]

I'm going to attempt to not use the whole "This is like playing Game X except high as fuck" analogy but man. Right now I'm bouncing around in a pretty decent approximation of the treetop/giant mushroom stages from Super Mario Bros, except...Well you know.

There's these weirdly Noby Noby boy-ish looking dudes headplanting onto the ground at random, and some dead floating baby things are chasing me around calling me a barbarian.
_________________

[DJ]

Seriously if anyone has a better way to describe this, go for it:



Hey look, scanlines.

(you can have my HD CRT TV when you pry its 300 pound mass off of my cold, dead corpse. I love my ridiculously heavy CRT it makes video games look so good while still going for native 720p and widescreen so I don't feel like one of those weirdos benren who refuses to acknowledge that modern technology has advanced since 1995 (yes it is one of the very few that actually does proper 720p instead of just going to 1080i (I checked)))
_________________

[DJ]

Okay Ezekiel just showed up and whooped my ass wholesale.

Is it even possible to kill these guys? She literally hit me once and I got annihilated. I'm gonna reload this and see if I can actually win these. The game just keeps going if you lose but jesus, that's been a lot of "you're supposed to lose" fights so far.
_________________

[Rud31]

I am celebrating this day by playing through the Atari Lynx romset.

Not much to say so far.

There's an unreleased Marboro Cigarette game that I don't feel up to internet sleuthing on. The only video on youtube about it has a man talking in his bedroom.
_________________
My Hawt Blog Vita Games

THERE ARE DEFINITELY WORSE VIDEO GAME PODCASTS

[DJ]

Okay, so this game has hidden worlds called "The Darkness". This is basically Catherine, except as a jumping puzzle instead of a block-pushing puzzle.

It's not too terribly difficult, but I died on purpose to see what would happen.

You're treated to a length cutscene of Enoch being devoured by Darkness Lava.

Then the credits roll at 10x normal speed.

There's a small sub-window during this where you can control Enoch as he roams around a faceless plane composed of red and black. There seems to be no purpose to this.

After that, the game basically says "In case you didn't want to actually stop there..." and shows you a movie clip of some later shots in the game.

Then I got booted to the title screen.

So. Yeah.
_________________

[DJ]

Am now fighting the Bat Boss from Castlevania, except on the Astral Plane.

I tried to take a picture of this but my camera refused to record it.
_________________

[Moogs]

A game this visually compelling shouldn't be so fucking boring. I keep wanting to fall asleep when I try to play it.

[DJ]

I am facing a 4-eyed Noby Boy who is 300 feet tall as an enemy.
_________________

[Renfrew]

[DJ]

I am playing the motorcycle part of FFVII again. Kinda. Maybe?

My god.
_________________

[DJ]

Okay I'm done for tonight.
_________________