When I first picked up El Shaddai I was expecting a game similar to Nier. Not the highest budget or the cleanest polish, but certainly a fun game with an interesting story. While the apocryphal inspiration certainly provides some neat ideas, the game ultimately is about a stylized presentation of a pretty simple and basic story.

The story, and protagonist, is pulled right out of the Book of Enoch, a piece of writing largely considered non-canonical from the Old Testament (despite being referenced in the New Testament a few times). It discusses the fall of several angels to Earth, their affair with humanity and the resulting spawn the Nephilim. In El Shaddai you play as Enoch himself, only he has been granted some level of divine status. In fact, he is indirectly responsible for the fall of the Watchers, as the angels are called, as he had discussed Earth with them. They finally descended and began to form what they believed to be a paradise.

The problem is their spawn, the Nephilim, continue to devour each other and grow larger. At some point the Nephilim are going to reach a sort of breaking point and start tearing apart the world. So the big reason Epoch is sent down to Earth is to defeat the Watchers, which will also destroy their Nephilim, and make sure the world is not destroyed.

As I played I kept wondering if there was supposed to be some esoteric meaning to the art style and story, but in truth I think the story was mainly a vehicle to paint a wonderful and interesting world. There’s really not too much going on here narrative wise. The one thing it manages to do is take a typical sort of plot set-up (you must defeat these seven villains one at a time to complete your objective) and switch it up as you progress. This sort of story can be seen most frequently in children’s anime such as Ronin Warriors or Sailor Moon, but the pattern is swiftly broken early on. This keeps the game from feeling all too repetitive.

The same can’t really be said about the gameplay. While it’s not bad, it’s nothing too special either. You have a single attack button that performs combos based on the timing of your button presses. Or, if you’re like me and switch over to easy mode, a single button to mash throughout the entire game.

El Shaddai relies on its different weapons to provide variety and carry the game through. You have the basic Arch, which is your quick melee weapon that also allows you to descend from a jump slowly. The Gale is weaker but allows the player to attack from a distant range. The Veil is the strongest weapon, but slow.

The trick is each type of weapon will gradually lose its purity, and when this happens damage is greatly reduced. The player will then need to purify their weapon, which leaves Enoch vulnerable, or deal enough damage to stun a foe and steal their weapon, which automatically purifies it. This can lead to frequently stealing weapons simply to disarm your enemy and leave them weak.

Many of the levels also involve a number of jumping puzzles, with the most clever ones hidden away to the very end. Between the weapon stealing mechanic and the jumping puzzles there is enough to remain entertained for the seven or eight hours of gameplay, but nothing to really keep you coming back for more.

This leaves El Shaddai as more of a palette cleansing game. Maybe there’s something more for fans of action games like Devil May Cry here, but on the whole I don’t think there’s really much to be gained. It is a fun game with a beautiful art style, and it’s interesting to see someone diving into religious texts for a story, but nothing substantial is truly done with it.

El Shaddai is a decent enough game, but unlike Nier there’s nothing memorable about the experience. It’s a simple enough game to clear your head between other more notable titles.