El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron: "
Shaddai or shouldn't I?
El Shaddai has everything you could ever want from a Japanese game. It has a transforming robot made out of motorbikes, a moonwalking dance master throwing shapes in front of the screen whilst you try desperately to fend off his minions, doves with boxing gloves for heads that gently but assertively butt you out of the air mid-jump, and so much more. Anybody who has ever spent time rummaging hopefully in the import section - it's out in Japan now, with a Western release planned for later this year - was hoping to find something like this.
And despite the fact that everybody's clothes come off as they take damage, there are absolutely no uncomfortably young-looking ladies in improbable outfits. Instead, there are topless blonde angel hunks and eerily naked humanoid blob-things. And giant, masked and armoured pigs. And monocular pyramid-headed Guardians that turn into giant bats. And and and.
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is the maddest and most beautiful thing I have played since... I don't even know. Probably Space Channel 5. It takes you on a breathtaking aesthetic journey that begins with strange, abstractly tribal landscapes and majestically solemn religious imagery before cartwheeling off in completely unexpected directions. The only thing that even remotely compares to it in terms of visual impact is Child of Eden. El Shaddai isn't perfect, but it doesn't have to be; it's unique, and that's much more important.
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