Introduction
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is an action-platformer/spectacle fighter published by Ignition Games and lead developer Takeyasu Sawaki, a character designer for Devil May Cry and Okami. It was released in mid-late 2011 to largely B and B+ reviews, with critics loving its powerful, unique art style and beautiful soundtrack, but found the gameplay repetitive and the combat shallow.
It's set in the Book of Enoch (more specifically, its first section, The Book of Watchers), an apocryphal text considered non-canon by most Jewish and Christian faiths. It stars Enoch, son of Jared. Enoch is canonically notable for being seven generations down from Adam, the father of Methusela, the great-grandfather of Noah, and one of only two humans ever to enter Heaven before dying. He's also sometimes credited as the inventor of Writing and Sewing.
The Book of Watchers is a fairly simple story. 200 angels get huge 5-dimensional boners for some human women, abandon Heaven to get it on, breed a race of giant, murderous omnivores named the Nephilim with the humans, give humanity advanced technology and divination techniques, and generally ruin the entire human race. God gets mad, sends Enoch to tell the 200 He's mad, angels get sad and try to apologize, God won't let them come back home, angels get more sad, God sends in a few archangels to fix everything by killing/destroying/imprisoning all the problems. Then Enoch has a vision where he travels the universe in the company of four archangels. If you'd like to read it yourself, a pdf with helpful footnotes can be found here:
http://www.parsontom.com/books/Book%20of%20Enoch.pdf
El Shaddai takes a slightly different spin on it: Enoch is sent from Heaven to kick the shit out of the 7 (rather than 200) deserters using divine superweapons until they're so weak that he can slap some divine chains around them and haul them off to angel jail. The course of this will lead Enoch through unreal landscapes befitting of their angelic creators and pit him against often inhuman enemies. The platforming will be largely simple jumping puzzles and the combat will be as simple as the player wants with an emphasis on finding the "flow" of the battle.
I'll be showing off and explaining everything I possibly can. The game is pretty light on plot, but there are a few surprises that should be experienced blind, so let's not have any spoilers. Please do feel free to discuss the Book of Enoch and other, relevant bits of Biblical Apocrypha, so long as nothing gets spoiled by doing so. Also, let's keep the inflammatory remarks about religion in general at completely nonexistant. We're already playing a game where divine envoys wear designer jeans and angels use cell phones. Let's just enjoy the ride.
Table of Contents
Episode 1 - These Jeans Are Simply Divine!Episode 2 - The Longest Journey
Episode 3 - Dance Battle
Episode 4 - A Bit Batty
Episode 5 - Fisticuffs
Episode 6 - Is This Kosher?
Episode 7 - The Best Playground
Bonus - The Fall of a Man
Episode 8 - A Miserable Little Pile of Secrets
Episode 9 - Big and Red
Bonus - Exposition
Episode 10 - Childcare
Episode 11 - ...And We'll Get Jason Statham to Play Enoch
Episode 12 - Soggy
Episode 13 - Center Stage
Episode 14 - Psychedelic Hellscape
Episode 15 - Retrieval
Episode 16 - Denial
Episode 17 - Anger
Episode 18 - Bargaining
Episode 19 - Depression
Episode 20 - Acceptance
Episode 21 - Resume (Speedy Version)
Episode 22 - Return of the Pig (Speedy Version)
Episode 23 - Everyone Talks About the Weather
Episode 24 - Swallowed a Bug
Episode 25 - Shark Attack
Episode 26 - Postgame 1: Collection & Controller
Episode 27 - Postgame 2: Health & Score
Episode 28 - Postgame 3: Extra Mode Part 1
Episode 29 - Postgame 4: Extra Mode Part 2
Episode 30 - Postgame 5: Extra Mode Part 3 - Finale