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El Shaddai director explains the inexplicable game
After playing the TGS demo for Ignition Entertainment's starkly unique action game, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, we were intensely curious about ... well, how it came to be. It's such an unlikely combination of action, platforming, art and Biblical themes, that we honestly couldn't figure out how someone could come up with it. According to director Sawaki Takeyasu (who started at Capcom doing art for Devil May Cry, and moved to Clover Studio and then Platinum Games before starting his own company, Crim) it was an equally unlikely combination of corporate edict and personal idiosyncracy. Find out about its origins, as well as the game itself, in our interview. Joystiq: The first thing I wanted to ask about is the style: it's very abstract. How did that style come about? Sawaki Takeyasu: The art style in the game is based on three major points: the intention is to, before that, it's not that I tried to make it eccentric and make it stand out. We wanted to make it simple, a simple visual. The second point is that it's a constantly changing screen, so that even if you leave the controller for a few minutes then it's still moving, it's always moving. Another thing is variety in levels. There is so much variety and different styles of levels, so that you can be constantly entertained and so that we can bring refreshment and change throughout our gameplay.
Ignition reveals Japan's next pseudo-religious action game, El Shaddai
Ignition Entertainment's Japanese branch has posted a teaser site for a new PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. A teaser trailer shows a cel-shaded (ish) character looking out over some white dunes -- and then "E3 2010." In the meantime, we can learn more from a Famitsu article about the title. El Shaddai stars Enoch, a human who works as some kind of secretary in heaven, and is charged with stopping fallen angels from flooding the Earth. He's assisted by a powerful angel named, uh, Lucifer. Sawaki Takeyasu, who did character art for Devil May Cry and recently worked as an artist on Infinite Space, is directing El Shaddai for his new independent studio. The gameplay has been designed to emphasize simple combos for new players. It seems likely that Ignition will clarify the game's "2010" release date at E3.
